2000 MASTER POINTS

2,000 Master Points!

When Ken Fisher first asked me to write up “a little something” to honour Cargobeep’s achievement of reaching 2,000 Master Points, I was taken aback. It was like asking Lex Luthor to pay tribute to Superman – like asking Thor to say a couple of nice words about his brother Loki – like asking Shaq to mumble a few kind thoughts about Kobe – like asking…. well, you get the picture.

But I have to say, as much as my arch-enemy and I do battle at the table, it gives me great pleasure to honour her for this incredible accomplishment.

 2,000 Master Points!

In order to illustrate the magnitude of this accomplishment, let me offer some comparisons: Cargobeep has 1,000 more Master Points than the 3^rd and 4^th ranked players in the world, both of whom are legendary players on the site who have played online at least 10 years longer than she has.

 When Ken Fisher first introduced the concept of Master Points and World Ranking, he capped it at 600 points. The only levels that anyone could achieve were the Four Elements – Earth (100 MP), Water (200 MP), Air (300 MP) and Fire (400 MP) – and then Arch Wizard (600 MP), which was supposed to be the highest possible level. However, he could see that Cargobeep would surpass that level so quickly in her Wizard career that he needed to buy some time, so he decided that there would one more level when someone reached 1,000 MP, which would carry the title of Astral Wizard, and determined that there would be no levels after that. After all, it was 400 MP above the previous level. Cargobeep reached the Astral Wizard level in less than two years, so it didn’t really buy him much time. And now she has surpassed it by another 1,000 MP.

2,000 Master Points!

Think about this. Cargobeep not only changed the ranking system, she also changed the scoring system. When she exploded onto the Wizard scene, the scoring was relatively simple. You played and you got points. There were no negative scores, and the player who played the most games would ultimately win the month.

But the haters complained, so Wizard changed the scoring system. He made it so that you would get negative points if you came 4^th or 5^th or 6^th in a six-player game, which meant that you didn’t just have to play a lot of games, you had to win a lot. Cargobeep continued to dominate, proving that she didn’t HAVE to play a lot of games to win, she just liked playing. In fact, she won the monthly ranking for 12 consecutive months. 

Finally, the scoring system was changed again by introducing the Skill Ratio, or SR, which was intended to help those players who couldn’t play a lot of games. This would cause her to stumble, right? Under this system, a player who plays 40 games with a Skill Ratio of 2 will probably beat out a player who plays 80 games with an SR of 1. But Cargobeep has never been out of the top 10 in any month in which she has played 40 games or more, and she is almost always in the top 5. On top of that, she continues to finish first in the monthly rankings.

You want stats, here’s a stat: Cargobeep has been on the site since 2006, and since then, she has finished in first place in the monthly rankings 22 times – yes, you read it right, 22 first-place finishes! Just for giggles, let’s see how many first place finishes the 2^nd ranked player has…here it is… 4. By way of comparison, how many first-place finishes did Fizzwizz1 have when he dominated the Wizard scene from 2000-2006? He had10.

And Cargobeep has accomplished all of this while being the top-ranked player in the world and having other players constantly gunning for her.

2000 Master Points!

Cargobeep was inducted into the Wizard Book of Fame after being on the site for only 2 years. TWO YEARS!!! And she was ranked THIRD IN THE WORLD at the time.

There is only one other player who has entered the Book of Fame in 2 years or less and who was ranked 10^th in the world at the time, but we can talk about me some other time.

Cargobeep became number 1 in the world in 2009, and has held that ranking ever since, except for a brief period in 2010, but she regained it later that same year, and hasn’t looked back since. In fact, she now has a 132 MP lead on the 2^nd ranked player.

So what about tournaments?

Well, there are too many stats and details for me to list them all, but here are a few of the highlights. First, there isn’t an online tournament that she hasn’t won at least once (with the exception of the Status tournament, which has only been held 3 times). In addition, she has won at least one online tournament every year. That should tell you everything you need to know.

The only blemish on her otherwise spotless Wizard career is that she has only played in one live tournament, where she was eliminated the quarter-finals.

So, Cargobeep, a tip of my hat to you for your tremendous achievement of being the first player in Wizard history to reach 2,000 Master Points.

I look forward to your review of my Wizard career when I finally reach the 2,000 MP level in a few years.

2000 Master Points! Congratulations Cargobeep!!