Bob and iced (and a few others who played with them) are listed a lot in this thread, and for good reason. But I don't think anyone has posted yet the exact reason WHY they were able to dominate back then. I wasn't such an active player myself, back then (never was, really) but I did play with them sometimes and got to learn what exactly made them so much better than everyone else at the time.

It basically boils down to this: back in the very early days of JJ2, during 1998 and 1999, there really wasn't much organization in team games. People did play CTF, but no one really thought about tactics, controlling the map, and communicating this information between teammates. It was really all up to individual skill. Because of this, there were people who could truly dominate in 1vs1, and if they played today they'd still be fairly good in a duel, but in a team game they would lose.

What these newcomers did is they started to communicate vital information in "CTF" codes. As far as I know, they were the ones who started the custom of saying "3" to mean you have 3 health, and so on. The only ones I really remember being used were "1" "2" "3" and "rdy" which eventually got shortened to "r". A little while later spotty added "CAR" for when the carrot spawned, now shortened to "c". There was also "sefjhsdfkhsdfkjsdh" (or any variation of that) which was actually taken seriously as a code, and it meant "I have the flag and I am about to die!!!". Saying this in other circumstances was bad form. In other words, a random string of gibberish was given a specific meaning. Bob especially used this one a lot. Anyway, these codes are very simple compared to what they have evolved into, but because only a few players were using them, they were able to destroy everyone else (who largely stuck with the old, low-communication style of play). This kind of play also encouraged thinking about more advanced tactics.

One thing to note is that back then teamchat worked based on even/odd player numbers, rather than actual team. This meant that 2vs2 was the ideal format, though 3vs3 wasn't impossible to set up. Also, a LOT of players thought that red simply didn't get teamchat at all. This was false (it worked fine, but it didn't show brackets), and it meant that if you were on red and used teamchat, your opponent might not even think it was possible! Furthermore, a lot of people didn't know about the even/odd thing (knowing about, and thus being able to set up working teamchat, was a major advantage).



A fun note: during this era, there was a clan known as "LOL" or the "LOL clan". I was a member of it (as "TheBoX LOL"), and so were many of the other top players of that time. We had a gimmick where we would act like complete morons in public games, challenge prominent good players to matches, and then wipe the floor with them thanks to our superior communications skills. However, because we were pretending to be idiots, we couldn't exactly set up games with all our players on even or odd numbers. Therefore, all our chat had to be public, and so LOL codes were created.

LOL codes were fairly simple. First you'd type some gibberish, like safjkghsdfgjkdgh. Then, you'd make the last letter actually mean something. q, w and e stood for 1, 2 and 3. Thus djghsdjkfgsdq meant you were at 1 health. If the last letter was r, that meant you were ready at the enemy base. c stood for carrot (I remember spoy would sometimes type sdfjksdhfdkjhCAR, totally defeating the purpose). I forget what we used to show the enemy flag holder's health... I think it might have been a s d (being underneath q w e). Anyway, no one really seemed to be able to crack this code, and it had the bonus effect of making the LOL clan seem completely insane. This just added to the confusion when everyone lost to them.

Even after LOL disbanded, LOL codes remained useful as a way of teamchatting, for those in the know. I recall at least one JDC OvC event where former LOL members used them to their advantage (a lot of members of the clan were also officials at the time, and I believe all of the admins were).


TLDR: These players are my top players because they basically changed the way JJ2 was played, for me and for pretty much everyone else after them.