UnMatched - Two Days, Seven Maps, Four Ties
Scruffy and Jokerj's RR15 spectacle
Posts with the UnMatched tag are detailed summaries of past or present matches, which are rightfully considered one of the best games of all time. Whether perfectly played or entertaining, these matches cannot be missed: watch them now or read the following report.
Roulette Rivals 15, among other things, will be remembered for a Winners’ Bracket of two very different halves. Today’s match focuses on the upper half, which included Scruffy, Jokerj, Phanium, Music Inc, The Rieper 47, and Moo. Tensions were high from the first day as only one could survive until the WB Final.
Our game was played on August 19th, also known as Day 11 of RR15. By this point, Phanium had defeated Moo, then lost to Music Inc, and all three rookies began their careers successfully1. Scruffy vs Jokerj seemed to be another innocent high-level Winners Bracket match in this tough half, but it became one of the best matches of 2024, if not ever.
Setting the Scene
Bracket draws assign everyone a random placement in the bracket, so it was fitting that defending champion Scruffy was given the #1 seed for this tournament. He defeated Gorg in Round 2, then swept linux_penguin in Round 3, only losing one map: an entertaining 23-minute Mendoza, ending with a 22:01 winning IGT by Gorg.
Jokerj’s path was similar if not slightly more impressive: he returned to roulette after dropping out from RR14, but hasn’t skipped a beat as he defeated mikulers, bLULW, and OhShitMan all without losing a map. Joker was back, but his biggest challenge yet awaited in the form of someone who made it to the final of the previous four tournaments.
A rookie Jokerj scored an impressive second place in RR8’s console bracket but hasn’t managed to equal or improve on that score since then. Even though he was known to be a giant killer, mostly due to eliminating Frote7 early in RR13, many were betting on a similar scoreline as their only previous match, where Scruffy defeated Joker 7-1 in RR11.
Watch: As Scruffy is ridden with tech issues, Gorg steals the show to make Tamara drown at all costs, taking his first map against Scruffy in the process.
Lucky Dartmoor
Perhaps following his misfortune against Gorg, Scruffy has banned Mendoza, with Jokerj deciding to remove New York from the map pool. I’m not at liberty to say exactly how, but with the help of RNG, Scruffy’s map choice became Dartmoor for this match, followed by Marrakesh from Joker.
The two chosen maps and Mumbai (the first RNG map) were Jokerj’s three best maps statistically, adding extra intrigue to a match favored by Scruffy. Even Isle of Sgàil was leaning toward Joker, but Miami and Bangkok were Scruffy’s maps: Joker had few options other than to win the game early.
The match began with a simple Dartmoor spin: Shears as the Undertaker. In the game between the best Dartmoor player and the quickest roulette player, there wasn’t much advantage to be had, and although Jokerj spent a little bit more time in the inventory, Scruffy only won the map by one second (2:04 RTA), not enough for an outright win.
Mumbai wins Mumbai
An undefeated Joker took on the map record holder Scruffy in Marrakesh, which turned out to be the only straightforward map. As Jokerj failed to grab the Local Printing Crew disguise twice, Scruffy cruised to a first-try victory, following a cleverly done prisoner lure on Reza Zeydan.
The 19th minute of the shoutcast already revealed the third spin of the match, but the players (and Mumbai itself) ensured this match wouldn’t be over so quickly. A live Painter kill for the Maelstrom, Fire for Vanya, and Impact Explosive for Dawood were all reasons to be concerned about.
Scruffy was once again the first to take the lead but was caught right after raising the flag on the hills. Joker also ripped nearby, he was caught trespassing in the Maelstrom’s changing room. Scruffy’s third try was much more potent: he grabbed the Painter, eliminated the Maelstrom, and triggered the brick lure, but was eventually caught off guard by the Metal Worker grab.
With Joker’s Non-Target Kill on the fire barrel, the two were even again with 12:30 left on the clock. Both players’ final attempts started successfully, but Vanya’s entourage found the Queen’s Guards on Jokerj’s side with just 4:20 to go. Scruffy waited patiently for the Fire opportunity, shot at 2:26 to go, and then ran toward the barge. With a thrown lure backup, Dawood was isolated and then killed, but Scruffy wasn’t able to hide his body in time, getting caught after all three kills were done.
The Comeback is On
Despite the unfortunate ending, Scruffy still enjoyed a 4-2 lead, with the ability to wrap up the match in Isle of Sgàil. Players faced an open-ended spin of two axes, and a quick back-and-forth saw three restarts early on: two from Scruffy and one from Jokerj.
As both players were waiting for a Sophia peekaboo, a photo finish became inevitable. Scruffy got Zoe killed from the bridge at the same time as Joker’s Sophia elimination, the spin was to be decided by the exit selection. Scruffy went for the helicopter while Joker jumped right for the custodian exit, which turned out to be the winning move as he won by only three seconds, according to the photo finish count.
A Costly Compromise
The players then got to Miami with a score of 4 to 4. The likely decider map featured a Sierra drowning kill, combined with Kronstadt Engineer for Robert. As Sierra couldn’t be eliminated early, both players missed the window to isolate an engineer quickly, resulting in a tense battle to get the final disguise first. It’s unclear from where exactly, but Scruffy’s engineer knockout was seen from outside the room, prompting him a heartbreaking restart and allowing Jokerj to win the map.
After a record 18 consecutive wins in the Winners’ Bracket, Scruffy was sent down to the LB. Or that’s what everyone thought a little after 11 pm CEST on August 19th…
Day Two
At 1:30 am on the 20th, Scruffy surprised everyone with breaking news, stating that the official photo finish count for Isle of Sgàil (which had Jokerj win by just three seconds) missed a load from the loser. This was confirmed by the match admin who quickly began working on what should come next.
The following morning, a decision was made; accepted by both players. Sgàil’s result would be corrected to a tie, changing the score to 5-5, with the players returning for a Bangkok decider at 9 pm CEST. Only a few matches were paused for a night, but never a game this important, and never after a winner was declared.
Spin Two
Viewers returned to the same stream with the same admin 23 hours after it originally began. The objective was simple: finish Bangkok quicker than your opponent and you advance in the Winners’ Bracket. At least it sounded simple enough…
Spin #6 of Scruffy vs Jokerj was a straightforward Hotel Staff kill for Jordan and an Exterminator kill for Ken. Scruffy was in quicker, looked more confident, and unlike Joker, he managed to dodge the cameras as well.
Scruffy’s lead kept extending but he didn’t have ideal timing for Ken emetics. Meanwhile, Joker quickly got rid of the cameras and managed to turn Ken toward the basement. Despite Scruffy making the kill much earlier on the patio, Jokerj made up almost all the difference with the basement kill, a stairslide, and a quick exit: another photo finish procedure began. Joker’s clutch made up the perfect amount of time against Scruffy for history to be written: for the first time, a decider map ended in a photo finish tie.
As these matches must end on the sixth map or earlier, players stayed in Bangkok for a second spin, the seventh one in total. The second attempt at a decider was far more interesting: a loud explosive suit kill for Jordan, and a loud shotgun for Ken. Scruffy was first in again but his 20-second advantage soon turned into nothing as Joker didn’t prepare for a peekaboo, and eliminated Jordan with a wallbang instead.
The map became Joker’s to lose but he missed the bodyshot on Ken, putting him and his guard on lockdown, barely getting compromised by the latter. Scruffy’s lead was short-lived too, as his only exposed body (the recording crew member below Jordan) was found.2 There was no more drama, however, as Joker’s second try held all the way to finally win the map, and the match 7 to 5.
Aftermath
It’s cliché to say, but this match had everything:
Dartmoor and Bangkok #1 were photo-finish ties following first-try runs,
Isle of Sgàil was a photo finish tie after multiple restarts,
Mumbai was a timeout tie,
Miami was mirrored until a late rip,
only two maps (Marrakesh and Bangkok #2) had a clear winner.
No match had three photo finish ties before and it is only the third match with four ties of any type3. The entire Sgàil conundrum was an all-time first as well, so there should be nothing but appreciation for Frote7’s problem-solving skills and Jokerj’s sportsmanship to allow the game to continue.
And of course, commiserations to Scruffy, still the best of his time, despite a one-off loss to an ever-competitive Jokerj. Matches are usually decided by fine margins, with this one having more “what if” moments than most. Rare losses are the most painful but Scruffy’s August experience will no doubt make him even stronger and the favorite for the upcoming world championship.
How did you find this report? What match would you like to read about next? Let me know in the comments!
Of the three rookies, graory won three matches, Alph won two and broke the Berlin record, and Dynaso defeated T_Nort23.
At least this is the most common explanation, as no picture-in-picture was ever shown by the game.