Not everyone is a genius when it comes to discussing Spark and the SPL.  If you find yourself engaged in conversation about our league, here are some surefire talking points to make you sound like you know what you’re talking about:

“The SPL championship is Mage’s, if he plays.”

Well the guy has won the last 5 SPLs he’s been a part of, so he must be doing something right.  He’s the best player we’ve ever seen, and if he decides to play, you wouldn’t bet against him making it 6 championships.  uAc has been buzzing with the possibility of picking up Corpheus and Mage.  The trophy cabinet will already have a place for SPL 2010 if that happens.

“This will be the most competitive SPL season yet”

With the removals of NoF and RS, there is only one walk (iLogic), and you can place AoA on its own tier between the 3-8 spots and iLogic.  Activity amongst tC, SiC, uAc, Violent, sYn, MM is at a high level at this point.  Each of them has been beating up on one another in clanwars with enormous parity.  Depending on the activity levels of TBWA and CaDF, any one of these clans will be able to give these two titan Spark institutions a battle and possibly, an upset.

“There could be numerous server issues this SPL”

All props in the world to the SPL trying to get its own dedicated server, but it just hasn’t worked out.  Almost every Sparker has had issues with spiking and the lag increase in the new server, and if something isn’t done, protests will be a-plenty.

“You know, uAc just might give us a smurfing scandal.”

Archdevil.  Bankai.. Huggle… Hmm, raise your hand if you think KingKiller can stand by and watch if one of these guys is forced to play in a big game.  You know that the first time RonStoppable actually tries to dodge that shouts of smurf will be echoed in the Spark lobby.  SPL staff will have to be on their toes with this one.

“iLogic won’t win a game in 2010″

Yeesh.  iLogic’s two best bets to win a game were just removed or dropped out of SPL.  This will be a long season for a bunch of newcomers.  Hopefully, one or two pilots can break that competitive plane  and actually contend.  Otherwise, they could easily set the record for least amount of minutes played.  Personally, if iLogic is even to cap this season, i think that would be a success for them.

“Veritas’s time to step up is now”

He’s a newish pilot with all the fragging mechanics, but now he needs to step up the cerebral part of his game.  Touted by yours truly to possibly become a top player, he has huge expectations to live up to this summer.  Fragging can only take you so far.  He will need to increase his vision, and be able to manipulate the game with his movement and timing if he wants his name at the top of the mountain.

“CaDF needs to prove last season wasn’t a fluke”

Last season was the first SPL that CaDF had made the championship series since 2005.  Most people had TBWA, uAc, and TM rated higher than CaDF last season, and some may have favored sYn to be better.  They had a cake playoff run before the finals, only having to face MM and sYn, sweeping both in the first round and semifinals respectively.  They had SPL 09 in sight, winning the first two games, but losing the remaining three.  It’s a tender issue for those CaDF that played, and most agree that it was the closest finals in history.  Since, they’ve considerably bulked their lineup, with the addition of toughshot.  Each of their pilots have improved, most notably Sebek.  They’ll be looking not only to prove last season wasn’t an accident, but that this SPL, they’ll be the clan hoisting the trophy.

Keep these points in mind if you want to sound like you’ve got a working brain when it comes to a slow paced, aggravating 2D game.