All-Timer Fantasy Draft GM Summaries

For a little more than two months, eight GMs have come together to draft an “all-time great” lineup of quidditch players to play in a hypothetical fantasy tournament. Per the rules of this draft, players would be drafted at their peak (defined however the GMs or public see fit) and be given a month to train together before competing in this hypothetical tournament. The tournament would be played under the MLQ 2019 ruleset, which includes, most notably, two-armed tackling and a modified end game with a 45-point snitch and a 70-point scoring cap. Each GM has summarized why their team would take home gold at this hypothetical tournament, so read their arguments below, then vote in our public poll on which team you think would win. Voting will be split between our panel of voters and a public vote. Public voting will close at 11:59 PM CT on Monday, July 13th.

Largely composed of players from University of Texas Quidditch and Team Australia, this collection of athletes is no stranger to winning. You may call us, THUNDER FROM DOWN UNDER! Callum Mayling, Kaci Erwin, James Osmond, and Taya Rawson are the most physically imposing players of their positions in the history of quidditch; while Cullen Friday, Hannah Monty, Matthew McCracken, and Josh Johnson are the fastest. As the old adage goes, strength punishes and speed kills. Throw in the glue, the skill and grit of Kody Marshall and Teddy Costa and you’ve got yourself a world-beater ball club. Team Thunder will utilize its physical gifts in the quaffle game to rack up massive amounts of points and punish opposing players foolish enough to drive on our hoops. The length and toughness of our team lends perfectly to man and zone defenses, especially a 2-2 zone. The power and athleticism of Erwin, Rawson, and Jeniva Chambers enables us to cover spots anywhere on the pitch. However, our real key to victory comes courtesy of a beater game anchored by the GOAT, Hallie Pace. Pace will lead both mixed-gender and two-female beater lines filled out by Luke Derrick, David Gilbert, Monty, and Erwin. The flexibility this allows will make creating and mastering a game plan against us nigh impossible. At seeker, our resident Division I NCAA football star McCracken will take first go. If for some reason he does not catch within his average 30 second pull allotment, Johnson, Rawson, and Friday will gladly do the honors. Lightning-fast breaks, explosive drives, creative and suffocating beating, crippling tackles, quick snitch pulls – all things you should expect to see from this squad overflowing with talent. It is an absolute honor to be the General Manager for these fine people. Being crowned Champion makes it all the sweeter. Thank you for your vote!
– Hank Dugie

My team will win this tournament because we are deeper, more resilient, and better at winning close games. My argument relies on the way this format uniquely values stylistic fit over prior chemistry: No quidditch team has ever done a month-long, full time, NFL-style training camp. With 20+ practices, existing familiarity with each other or two-armed tackling matters so much less than ability, learning, and stylistic fit. Brandon Frison’s Aussie Rugby League experience; Tony Rodriguez’s driving abilities paired with intensity on defense thanks to two-armed tackling and subs; Andrea Wöger’s shooting and distributing as ball-carrier punishes teams for leaving someone open for the first time in their lives; all of my players stylistically fit this meta perfectly and will force other teams to adapt. My final picks include one of the best ever European keepers (Albert Bregeault) and beaters (Mette Sundal); the best all-around Canadian chaser of all time, Chris Radojewski, who was the playing coach for the Canadian team that was a catch away from the 2016 World Cup finals; and Christian Rodriguez who outplayed BosNY and played even with Cavalry’s best players at his instantaneous peak. All of this depth is especially important in a grueling and physical tournament with only 14 players: If Callum goes down, Hank Dugie’s team changes drastically; if any of the only four women on Emily Hickmott’s or Mario Nasta’s teams go down, they become dangerously thin. No individual injury on our team could cause us to skip a beat. Finally, no team here will dominate any other team out of range, so I chose the team that will decisively win snitch on pitch: We have the best snitch on pitch beater of all time, Nathan Duquette, and we can afford to rest him during seeker floor thanks to elite beaters like Leeanne Dillmann, Nathan Morton, and Kyle Jeon. Catching the snitch, we have one of the best seekers of all time with Elizabeth Ng, and the current best seeker in Australia in Nathan Morton, which is as deadly as any one-two punch to ever exist. Drawing from my previous experience making finals in 20 of 22 tournaments I’ve drafted, I synthesized 750+ ranks from 25 experts worldwide to create a team that is optimized to win in this specific format and bring home a championship. Thank you for your vote, and I wish I could see you on pitch.
-Austin Wallace

My team is more than just a collection of talented players. It is truly a team; one that is versatile and adaptable. Imagine the dynamic offense of a line of Kayse [Bevers], Augie [Monroe], Marty [Bermudez] and Kenny [Chilton] playing behind Kyrie [Timbrook] and [Chris] Seto, the pairing that wrecked Australia in the 2014 World Cup final. Imagine a pairing of Kylie [McBride] and Kyrie, holding bludger control while teams tried to get past Nick [Marino], Tyrell [Williams], Dameon [Osborn] and Shane [Hurlbert]. Imagine a snitch-on-pitch scenario that starts with Augie and Tyler [Walker] beating with the option to sub out into the fresh pair of Seto and [Michael] Mohlman while Dameon, the only person to have ever caught a snitch to beat Team USA, is seeking. If he gets tired, he can sub for either Kenny, Missy [Sponagle] or Shane. This team was built to adapt to every game situation, which is so important in the MLQ meta. Taken as a whole, this group of players would work harder, play smarter, and work together better than any other team.
-Emily Hickmott

My team was drafted with the idea of taking individuals that have served in coaching roles on their teams, or that have skills that I feel allow them to step into that type of role. With minds from the Northeast, Southwest, Midwest, West, and Great Lakes, I feel like this team has the ability to adjust their play and adapt to whatever they may face. Not to mention, the month of training would be well used for each player to become better in the capacities they need and enhance their best abilities because they all have another coaching eye that can watch them play and break down their game.
-Kay Pack

This team is all about balance. Ball handlers mixed with off ball chasers and engage beaters mixed with defensive anchors. This team has the driving power of Jacob Parker, Drew Wasikowski, and Robby Sluss, mixed with the laser shots of Vanessa Goh, Solly [Gominiak], and Luke Langlinais. Oh, and that’s just on offense. Try getting through a wall of Vanessa Goh, Robyn Fortune (arguably one of the most talented defensive chasers from Canada), Quincy Hildreth, Jacob Parker, Luke, and Solly. Any game is almost guaranteed to be in range. Mix that with the insane beating talents of Shannon Moorhead, Bailee Fields, Tate Kay, and Cole Travis; this is a core not to be trifled with. Then, we finally make our way to SOP, with a disgusting three-seeker rotation of Mo Haggag, Ryan Davis, and Solomon Gominiak, who combined have an in-range catch rate of nearly 80%. Put that with the dominating SOP presence of Cole Travis, arguably one of the biggest parts of Calvary’s unrivaled SOP team, and Tate Kay, probably the best college beater to play the sport, any seeker in that rotation is almost ensured to come up with a catch to take this team to victory. Oh, and of course we couldn’t forget Tate Kay’s atrocious Harry Potter jokes to prevent the opposing team from focusing on literally anything else at all.
-Ryan Davis

The team I have assembled features some of the best players to ever play at every position. Every single one of my players has played in some semblance of a system that encourages and requires ball movement, which is even more important in the MLQ meta. Everyone has also proven that they can lay hits with the best of them. While many of my players haven’t played in years, it seems ridiculous to tell me that some of the best one handed tacklers ever wouldn’t be able to adjust to an easier and safer form of tackling while in their prime. Many people are also forgetting that we get a month to work with these players, and quite frankly the sport has not changed as drastically from World Cup 8 as people think it has. Sure, beating has gotten more aggressive, but with that has come a much more structured offensive scheme to combat that. With one of the inventors of modern beating on my team, I think I can teach some of the best to ever play what they need to do in the modern game. I also have the best seeker to ever play the game and his most successful beater partner on my team and we’ve seen how difficult it is to come back from a snitch catch in MLQ. Between the underlying chemistry present throughout my team (7 team USA players, 4 Boston Night Riders, 4 Lone Star players) and the systems that their new teammates have come from, and given a month for me to work with them, I believe that I have constructed the best team here.
-Nik Jablonski

The Riders, Outlaws, and Titans were objectively the top 3 best MLQ teams under the 2019 MLQ ruleset. I wanted to build two lines that could/did start for these teams. Based on how the other GMs drafted, it quickly became clear that getting a full Outlaws starting line would not work, so I looked to build a Boston and NY line. For Boston, I created a chaser line featuring David Fox, Grace Dastous, Jayke Archibald, and Justin Cole. Three of the 4 starters for the team that won it all, and the addition of height, speed, and strength of David Foxx at his prime; not to mention David already has chemistry with Jayke and Grace. Playing man on defense and looking to force teams to choose between leaving Grace unguarded up top or leaving either Cole or Foxx unguarded in the back, a clear win-win for me. They would be supported by a beating line of Mario Nasta and Ashley Dolan, a beating pair with 4+ years of experience together, who started for both Revolutio in 2019 and BosNY in 2018. Anyone unfamiliar with Ashley’s incredible beating skills needs look no further than the film from CCI this past season to be reminded she can hold her own against the best of them. For the NY line, I have JC Arencibia, Jon Jackson, Rachel Heald, and Taylor Crawford. Playing a two-two zone on defense with three capable keepers and possibly the best point defender in the MLQ meta, Taylor, this second line will provide an entirely different defensive look to give my opponents fits. For beating, they are supported by none other than Lulu Xu and Peter Lee. Lulu describes Peter as playing an almost identical style to Max Havlin, so chemistry will be no issue for these two stars, and their aggressive beating style will again juxtapose that of the starting lines more slow and steady strategy. Outside of the two main lines I picked up college all-star Louis Sanchez, who can fill either the role of speedy wing chaser with Boston or powerful off ball defender ready to make big hits on defense in the NY zone. This leaves Tyler Beckmann, with arguably the most successful seeker season in 2019 MLQ, culminating in the tournament winning catch in the finals. He is backed up by JC, Jayke, or David Foxx if needed, and when necessary Ashley Dolan is one of the best defensive seekers in the game. For reference, feel free to check her out in the 2018 MLQ finals. Every player on this team with the exception of Peter Lee has proven themselves in the 2018-2019 MLQ metas, and with a month to train on predominantly strategy, will be ready to beat any team they come up against.
– Mario Nasta

This team is all about high octane, fast paced, in your face, aggressive quidditch. Based around the iconic Lone Star quaffle core of Simon Arends, Stevie Bell and Becca Dupont, this team is adept at running the fast break but also has the all-round technical game to play both on and off-ball in the half court (exemplified by Seppe De Wit) and feed the likes of Benan Emre and Val Farese with their natural finishing ability around hoops. They can hurt you in a multitude of ways. The beater core is the defensive cornerstone led by Jackson Johnson with the speed and endurance to out-press, outrun and outwork the opposition. Among these beater lines, there’s vital pre-existing chemistry in the former Texas State USNT trio of Jess Markle, Ryan Nawrocki, and Johnson. UK and Velociraptors QC pair Lucy Quidditch and Bill Orridge cultivated over more than a month of training together. All beaters have the ability to play in a variety of special sets depending on the scenario (e.g. Johson-Nawrocki double male, Lucy Q-Markle double female, Johnson-Lucy Q hyper aggressive mixed-gender set). Add in the most successful seeker in USQ and MLQ finals history in Josh Andrews with the x-factor game intelligence of Miguel Esparza, Cassia Menkhorst, and Lucy Q, and you have the clutch gene and intangibles to succeed in those high-pressure scenarios when the margin between victory and defeat is at its finest. This team will run you out of the park and play the most aesthetically pleasing brand of quidditch in the process.
-Fraser Posford

Please follow this link to vote in the poll for which team you think would win the All-Timer Tournament. Thank you for following along with us as we’ve produced this content, and if there is more content like this you would like to see, please reach out at editors@eighthman.com with ideas.

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