Welcome to Rising Tide, a new media series that will be taking a deep look at the ins and outs of the San Diego Tidal. Starting this week and continuing on until next season, Rising Tide will be taking a look at different aspect of the Tidal, be it team performance, interviews with its players, and game analysis. Given it’s nearly draft season again, I figured we’d start off the inaugural issue of Rising Tide with a look back on the Tidal’s top pick of the last draft. This week on rising tide, the SHL’s premier news source on the San Diego Tidal, we take a deep dive into the first season results for Roisin Armagh/Ara. Roisin was picked at #2 overall in the Season 79 draft, coming into the tidal with a lot of promise and high hopes, both in terms of TPE and money earning potential, Did she end up delivering on her teams high hopes or was she a bust? Let's find out!:

Summary:

Roisin Armagh is the player created by the user Ara prior to the Season 79 draft back in July of this year. Brought into the SHL by current St. Louis gm, Cake 307, there was a general consensus among the scouts for the J teams that she would have a stellar first season. Between her promises of media creation, high level of activity, and even work on the streams, and as a intern, there seemed to be a lot for her to offer. This is to say nothing of her interactions with the community, which on average tended to be pretty positive and created a lot of good chemistry between her and other users. On the game side of things, Ara’s build for Roisin was designed from the outset with the goal of focusing on left defense. To this end, Ara focused her TPE distribution on maxing out Roisin’s defensive stats and mental/physical builds to between 11 and 15 points on average by the end of the season. This led to Roisin being a relatively good, if overall decent by league standards, defensive asset for the Tidal. Later in the season as Ara started to max out Roisin’s defensive stats, she turned towards investing points in Roisin’s offensive stats as well. When asked for comment on the matter,  she replied “My hope is that by investing points into offensive stats, Roisin will be better able to assist the Tidial where needed next year.” A bold hope by the user Ara, but here’s hoping it will pay off for you.

The Good:

Activity:
While in this user’s opinion, Ara left a lot to be desired in a lot of areas, I would be remiss not to touch on some of the more positive aspects of her rookie season. First and foremost would be her level of engagement and activity. On this end, Ara was easily one of the most active users of the Season 79 rookie class. From just a few days observation on my end, Ara was posting multiple times a day, if not hourly on the various SHL discord servers. This is before we even take into account her consistent presence on the forums and on the player portal.

Media and Jobs:

Another area in which Ara excelled in was her media work and contributions to both the SHL events department and SMJHL Head office during Season 79. For the former, she has posted at least two very lengthy (in 1500 plus words and 4500 plus words) pieces of media, as well as a few forthcoming media pieces(Speaking with her, she plans to release these within the next week). For the latter, Ara did the sheet work for both the S79 SHL and SMJHL drafts despite it being her rookie season. Additionally, she served as one of two hosts and the streamer for the S77 awards show(once again both SHL and J). This is before we even mention her work as one of two interns in the head office this season, whereas of writing she has approved almost twenty players(with 14 coming just within the past week.) All told, this to me indicates that she is at least committed to the SHL and has contributed quite well for a rookie.

TPE Gain, Late Season:

Though Ara’s TPE gain was rather lackluster for the first half of the season, she has made a significant effort in recent weeks to step up her game. Within in the last two weeks, she has completed every PT, her deep dives, and rookie tasks to propel her from 216 to 262 Tpe as of writing. When taking into account CWS with her intern pass, weekly training, AC, and remaining PTS I fully expect her to be at about 280 if not more by the start of the next season. All told, if she keeps up her current Pace she is well on track to close the tpe gap she has with the max earners.

On Ice Performance:
While the Tidal’s record overall left much to be desired, Roisin nonetheless performed quite well for the S79 season. She served as the team’s top defender and had the most amount of time played for the defense. When taken into account with her rapid TPE growth over the last few weeks, I can see the future being rather bright for Roisin.


The Bad:

While there is indeed a lot to commend with both Ara and her player, we must nonetheless recognize the reality of her situation. Without mincing words, Ara has been highly inconsistent through much of the season, particularly in terms of PT completion and TPE gain. From the draft onwards, it was a coin toss as to whether or not she would complete the rookie tasks or the PT tasks. When taken with other factors, this leaves her as a somewhat lackluster pick for the S80 SHL draft.

PT Completion:
This is by far Ara’s weakest area as a user and her achilles heel in the S79 season. For much of the season she did not complete many, if any PTs or optional tasks. While she did make up for this in part with her recent gains and regular AC/WTs, her incompletion of the PTs left her facing a large gap in TPE at the end of the season. This would normally be an interest killer going into the draft and by all rights it should be, but given other factors I think it may not matter as much as it normally would for her draft stock.

TPE Level:
While Ara’s TPE level at the time of writing is adequate (262 TPE), it nonetheless pales in comparison to the TPE leaders such as Nahasi Memel, Jermey Snugglemuffin III, and others. In the worst case, she at least 40 TPE behind some of the aforementioned users, with the gap only set to widen within the coming weeks. This lag in TPE is as stated previously a major issue in what would otherwise be a certain first round candidate and will likely be a turn off for many GMs. However with that being said, Ara has still some TPE that has yet to be applied from the final PTs of the season and her second deep dive(as well as the CWS/Allstar PTS post season). While the these events will not be enough to fully close the gap between  Ara and the top earners, it should at least put her in a better position going into her second season.

Conclusion

Putting aside the TPE and PT completion issues, Ara is an improving user who while suffering some missteps in her first season, has nonetheless been on a steady path to improvement. If she stays the current course and continues to deep her involvement in both the Head Office and Tidal, I can see her becoming a solid user by the end of her second season. For her to improve, I cannot stress enough that she needs to focus on making sure every pt and TPE event is completed. This will not only earn the eyes of the GMS, but also ensure she is not in for a tough time when she enters the SHL, be it on ice or otherwise. Additionally, I would encourage to continue to establish herself on site, preferably through either pursuing a new job when her internship ends or through stepping up her media work. Either of these will not only help build out her bank balance, but it will also further improve her standing in the SHL and build a good reputation for her. My hope is that by this time next season, she will have largely resolved her weaknesses and turned into a valuable asset for the Tidal as they continue to rebuild. If she keeps up her current pace, I think she will not only achieve that, but could very well end up being a solid upper tier player in her own right. All told, Ara’s got a bright future in the SHL if she plays her cards right.

Wander my friends, wander with me. Like the mist on the green mountain, moving eternally.
Despite our weariness, we'll follow the road over hill and valleys, to the end of the journey

Le monde n'est qu'une scène. Il vaut mieux rire que pleurer, car le rire est le propre de l'homme.
Riez de tout cela, ne vous inquiétez pas. Profitons d'aujourd'hui

Oh lawd her she comes, you deserve to be a high pick, prove anyone who doesnt pick you wrong.