Welcome back to Picture Perfect, the column where we analyse photos from years past. Today’s edition features the historical Legends Cup X Round Two battle between the Pirates and Crimson Guardians.
Designed by Cassie
Club Penguin armies exist to fight. Whether they’re fighting for land, bragging rights, or to win a tournament, it doesn’t matter. The point is, we fight. And we fight fair. Rules have been long-established to give each army a chance in any battle. For example, to invade another army you must give them 24 hours notice of the battle. In tournaments, you cannot bring allies. Generally, armies follow most of the rules set in place for their battles, but occasionally some naughty penguins think they’re special.
Enter Legends Cup, a yearly tournament that’s become almost like our Superbowl or Six Invitational, if those terms mean anything to you. Essentially, the Legends Cup is the biggest tournament of the year, where all armies, regardless of size or strength, compete to crown a new champion. It’s important to keep things fair when a tournament has the stakes that the Legends Cup does. Despite that, some armies don’t care about fairness and will cheat to gain an advantage. In 2020, the multilogging Pirates were caught and exposed for the Legends Cup X. With that, today’s image up for analysis is:
Legends Cup X, Round Two (2020) Pirates vs. Crimson Guardians
The Pirates were created in 2007 by Bid Now, but their impressive feats began in 2018 under Epic101. The Pirates reopened on Club Penguin Online in 2018, and throughout the years did very well – largely due to their leadership consisting of Club Penguin Online administrators. In early 2020 especially, the Pirates were able to reach sizes of nearly 200. They were a force to behold, regardless of the source of their success. Two years before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pirates beat Elite Guardians in the Christmas Chaos 2018.
Christmas Chaos 2018, Finals (2018) Pirates vs. Elite Guardians
Over time, they continued growing and used their influence over CPO to attract recruits. Over the next two years, the Pirates went to war with armies such as Help Force, Templars and the previously mentioned Elite Guardians. Continuing to reach sizes of over 100, they eventually closed their doors with a shut-down event that reached 193 penguins.
When the Club Penguin Online Army League held the Christmas Chaos 2019, the Pirates felt obligated to defend their title. However, instead of competing they merged into the Dark Warriors to beef them up for their run. In early 2020, the army returned under legends Andrew24 and Whats Up11. While the new Pirates weren’t hitting 100 daily, they established themselves by going to war with a prime Doritos.
February, 2020: Doritos vs. Pirates on Club Penguin Online
At the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown, Epic101 returned to the helm. And again, the Pirates returned to reaching triple-digit sizes. In May 2020, Club Penguin Online shut down, and the Pirates contemplated shutting down. Epic continued leading due to the demand from Pirate troops. Their move to Club Penguin Armies: The Game worked out well, and the army continued reaching sizes of 60-70. The army did so well that they competed in 2020’s Legends Cup, Legends Cup X.
In Round One, the Pirates matched against the Yellow Warriors, who didn’t show. They maxed over 70 penguins for this lacklustre battle. Even at the time, people had their suspicions but there was no proof Pirates were cheating. Regardless, they moved to Round Two and dominated the Crimson Guardians – an S/M army on CPO. Nobody expected otherwise, any decent major army could’ve done the same. Unfortunately, soon after their victory, they were exposed for multilogging against both armies. That’s right, they multilogged against two S/M armies.
When Club Penguin Army Media and CPA:TG investigated the situation, they found that the leaders and staff of the Pirates were multilogging. The multilogging went beyond the two Legends Cup matches, and had been occurring since the army’s move from CPO to CPA:TG.
We cross-matched the recent Pirates events with the alt accounts that Superhero provided, and discovered multilogging was present at every event in the past several weeks, including their Legends Cup X Round One battle. To simplify the information, we have summed up the results of the investigation in the following bullet points:
- Leader Twas had the same login location as the penguins Imnice, Furry123 (P10270) and P5928, indicating multilogging.
- Co-Captain Sacha had the same login IP as the penguins Shorts and Sand, indicating multilogging.
- Co-Captain September had the same login IP as the penguins Zzzz4, Qqq32 (P10406), Carriel and Dezzie, indicating multilogging.
- Co-Captain Newnickie had the same login IP as penguin Sambohambo, indicating multilogging.
- Veteran Rain’s account ‘Gamerrain‘ had the same login IP as Piratesilove (P10635) and Pirategirl (10634), indicating multilogging.
- High moderator Caramelcoco logged on with the penguins Caramel and Coco, which shared the same login IP, indicating multilogging.
- The penguins Anakin and Snebbi7 shared same login IP, indicating multilogging.
- The penguins Snowmann and Frostty shared same login IP, indicating multilogging.
- The penguins Rayleigh and Baka shared same login IP, indicating multilogging.
Just one of the many examples of alternate accounts at Pirate events
Source: CPAM through CPA Hub
Nine people multilogged across 16 accounts – the biggest multilogging scandal in 2020, and the funniest in recent years. The number one army in Club Penguin Online multilogged against an army that barely scraped 10. The army was disqualified which meant that the Crimson Guardians could advance, but they handed their spot to Water Vikings.
Mere days after the news, the Pirates shut down. To avoid embarrassment, they shifted blame to CPA:TG and Club Penguin Army Media for targeting them with biased accusations and lies. In their closing post, Epic denied the allegations and insisted that they were being targeted. He also claimed the Pirates would have won the tournament if they hadn’t been disqualified. Ultimately, the Pirates made their bed and were forced to lie in it. Cheaters never prosper.