HOF Builder Article - Acydburn

[jacobcarson877 2,527]

Joined: 2019

Positions Held: VHLM Commish, VHLE Commish, VHL Commish, VHL GM, VHLM GM, WJC Commish, VHLM Fantasy Zone, Updater, BOG + 1 Hall of Fame Player (Battre Sandstrom)

 

@Acydburn came to us on one fateful day called April 30th, 2019. He arrived from a post in r/canucks, back in our Reddit recruitment hayday. He started with his first player Acyd Burn, and became an earning machine while learning from @Thranduil in Halifax.In his 9th week in the league, he took over from @Esso2264 as the Ottawa Lynx GM. And just days later, he also picked up the VHLM Fantasy Zone position from @Josh. That season Acydburn would also win the Founder’s Cup as a GM in his debut after taking them to a 61 win regular season. He would go on to win a Jack Reilly Trophy in S71 to cap off his VHLM GM career.

 

That offseason he would pick up a 3rd role, this time as WJC Commissioner alongside @Banackock and @rjfryman.

 

Then he would tack on a 4th with taking on the role of Updater starting in May of 2020, a role he still picks away at to this day! 4+ years of making sure we’re all getting our TPE, and counting!

 

Acyd Burn would go on to attain just shy of 1400TPE, and retired peacefully in S73, winning 2 Continental Cups with the S68 and 69 (nice) Seattle Bears.

 

He would hold the VHLM Fantasy Zone and WJC Commissioner jobs until late 2020, right around when he would join diamond_ace as Sonnet’s replacement in the VHLM Commissioner role. A year and a half in, Acydburn had held more roles across all facets of the site than most ever would. Acyd would begin his career working as a spreadsheet master tracking GM offers and inactives, and helped clean up rosters during an overwhelming recruitment boom from the COVID-19 Lockdowns. He also pushed the decision to move on from inactive players entirely, and brought bots to the VHLM. He also accounted for the potential of further expansion, and worked to enable a flexible framework for the Juniors system to be enabled should rosters reach a certain threshold. This turned out to be something of a prophecy as by mid-2021, a new league was added, the VHLE, and Acydburn joined @Victor as the first commissioners of the Europe branch.

 

Acydburn would go on to hire old WJC Commissioner buddy rjfryman to fill the spot left by Victor, and would spend most of his time writing punishments for GMs not following the backup rules. He did get VHLE players 2TPE in Practice Facility, and I’ll always be thankful for that. His final act as VHLE Commissioner would be to hire @Enorama, who ironically built a similar reputation in the league as a spreadsheet wizard, which they both used to push very important changes.

 

Acydburn would also come back to us as a GM, taking over from his once VHLM Commissioner partner diamond_ace as Prague’s 2nd GM. He would win 2 David Knight trophies in his first few seasons, and win a Commissioners Cup as a GM just before stepping down.

 

He would also finish his 2nd career, this time with Battre Sandstrom, who would go on to be inducted into the Hall of Fame himself, picking up quite a few individual awards, and would play under his own watch, before waiving his own NTC to go to Riga to finish out his outstanding career.

 

With @bigAL moving on from VHL Commissioner, Acydburn was quickly scooped up by the Blues, and @thadthrasher took over in the VHLE. The Meta Era esarure was in full swing, and the Blues had just unveiled the new system that would save STHS from our min-maxing dreams. It was certainly a tumultuous time for the league, with lots of veteran leadership parting ways with the league, a whole pile of COVID recruits, a new attribute system, and a new Blue on the loose.

 

Acydburn has never been the face of the VHL Commissioner group, that has usually been filled by @Beketov, but Acyd has been a part of many huge initiatives behind the scenes. Some of these include revamping regression under the new Hybrid System and fixing wonky salary brackets.

 

Acydburn and I don’t have much history, despite working together as VHL GMs for a good section of both of our tenures, only completing one trade, which I suppose I won as a technicality, as of the picks we exchanged, I managed to pick the only player that would go on to play VHL games, one of my very few draftees who ever would. We have shared a few fun moments together though, Acydburn was the one who hired me for both my BOG and VHL GM positions, and hilariously in almost identical conversations. I broke the news to him that he had picked a player that would put him over the salary cap, forcing the Jacob Stone (@scoop)and Moritz Stauffer (@GoodLeftUndone) swap that altered the course of Prague and Malmo for many seasons to come. We circled around a few more trades and a Fantasy League, but never really made anything stick. I did write Battre Sandstrom’s HOF article, which I believe was one of my first, and one that I’m really proud of. I’m glad to be taking on Acyd’s 2nd one as well. I feel like the keeper of his legacy at this point.

 

We got to experience a lot of wonderful moments here with Acydburn, and while it wasn’t always a smooth ride, Acyd has been something of a stable force here, always bringing us back down from emotionality and into the objective. Despite the horrors we’ve all seen since 2019, we’ve experienced great leadership from a great guy. With his 3rd player, Matt Murdock, retired, we await what new ventures Acyd will take on next. For now he is a trusty Blue, and while we don’t see as much of him as we may have in the first couple years, we know that he continues to bring great things to our league every day. No crime is left unpunished, and things continue to be safe and stable. I hope to see another player someday soon, and hopefully many more, but for now, we sit back and appreciate what has already been done.

 

Welcome to the Builder Hall of Fame, after me sitting on writing this for the last season!

 

 

Edited August 6 by jacobcarson877