The TMGL final is in sight
The Trackmania Grand League (TMGL) Winter Split final is scheduled for March, 14th. The regular season’s 8 best drivers will battle to be crowned as the new champion. Among these drivers, Valérian “Papou” Ramamonjy is one of the two drivers who took part in all the TMGL finals, the other one being CarlJr.
Papou is a veteran of the Trackmania scene, used to high stakes games as the one scheduled for Sunday. However, qualifying for the final was not that easy. Only the 8 best players were qualified after the regular season and Papou finished in the top 8 of a regular step only twice during the first five rounds. Thus, the sixth and last one was decisive and a great performance mandatory. He handled pressure perfectly by finishing 2nd with 51 points, for a final 8th position on the leaderboard.
The final’s format has been revamped: a new formula, “Win by K.O” has been introduced. If a driver maintains a 1,5-second lead during 3 consecutive checkpoints, he will win by K.O. The final consists of 4 successive rounds, the bottom 2 players being eliminated after each round until a champion is crowned.
The regular season has been very complicated, both IRL because of the pandemic and ingame due to performances below what I was used to.
I warned that the season was going to be difficult, especially because of a radical change in the map style and of the points system, which can be very frustrating when it’s against you.
However, I managed to qualify in extremis during the last step while nobody thought it would be enough. Eventually, this saves my season, which went from “mediocre” to “correct” by securing my spot in the playoffs and the World Cup.
The playoff mappack is very complicated for me but I am more motivated than ever to claim victory #GOWIN.
Papou
