It appears that some of the C are very correct (citrus-y) and some are very wrong (reverse gravity and possibly Lisa?).
Regardless chuffed that you were able to get it released as it's the definitive preview of the season.
In terms of Keizer, I planned him more like Tim Dees Nuts rather than let's say Zmorka, I must inform knockout that I am very sorry that I did not plan the way he wanted
Very, very nice read so far! Thank you to all of you This is a highlight every season, and with the start of this year's edition, it feels like you've even lifted the bar further. Well done!
And knockout's hunch of possible Aker planning mistakes is obviously true, I'm sure he wouldn't have written it if not I've definitely made planning mistakes, which is a pity considering so much in the PCT hangs on it, but there wasn't much choice this season. I'm just very happy (and grateful!) I was able to get everything in in time.
I thought there wouldn't be a PCT Roundtable this year so I'm pleasantly surprised to see this This is my favourite Daily thread every year, already bookmarked since I'll probably read it over and over during the season
As expected not much mentions of my team and riders apart from flirting with relegation and more Beltran disappointments. I'm looking forward to reading the rest and how the predictions compare to my own.
Maybe I'm lucky and I'll get to read about my team again next year
redordead wrote:
I thought there wouldn't be a PCT Roundtable this year so I'm pleasantly surprised to see this
Good to see we at least fooled somebody even into the fourth straight surprise return
Thanks for all the kind words everyone, it means a lot and it's always a privilege to collaborate with these three awesome people and as I say in the thing much better sources Will respond more when the other parts are out and I have a bit more time
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
First of all thanks to the nice words. It was a joy to work on it and the hours of time invested into the project by all four of us is the better spent the more of you read, enjoy and create fruitful discussions from it.
Second I want to quickly answer to the comments on my AI take (especially on sprint). I myself based my PCM20 transfer season on the last MG season, Ulrichs tests and my gut feeling. Ulrichs Giro tests open for everybody were the by far most influencial factor to me. So I'd dismiss the idea of "a lack of insight" before, as I guess the only MG tests on PCM20 were made by Ulrich (public) and the MG admins (can only guess), and other takes on PCM20 based on non-MG-dbs are very risky to take for granted if they're not structural. And at least I didn't figure out any structural changes before transfers, while being a db team member I guess I should've figured them out if there were any reasonably spotable changes other than the discussed ones and the ones showed in Ulrichs tests (and discussions).
My sprint AI comments came from a little bit of testing after the transfer period. There I took the PCM daily expansion pack and tested flat stage races to tighten my ideaof how and why sprint trains might work or not (as I never had a flat sprinter that had a train in MG before I never thought of it that deeply). As I couldn't figure it out I tested more and more and more, until I figured out that the main problem is not really how the AI treats sprint trains (and who gets them), but more of how the AI decides who cares about sprints and who doesn't. I figured out a potential solution and a fix and discussed it with MG organization, but that one will not be applicable this season (due to it being discovered too late and thus not being able to be communicated early enought). At the point of writing I wasn't sure on whether we could fix it (hence my comment @Ulrich), now I know we can only try next season.
I hope that enlightens my statements about the AI. My comments on the sprint trains and how I think they work well haven't substantially changed through that by the way, I preach the same thing about train compositions, the importance of certain stats and Roy Jans being the god of leadouts and that you all should've spent millions on him every year (and every transfer period ).
However I'd like to focus the discussion of this preview mainly on how the teams and riders of this division works, that's why I keep it like this from now on and respond to the other takes.
@Ollfahrd: You signed one of the most amazing MG riders, be happy with that But in all honesty: I expected you to promote last year, this year you can turn the outlook of a "very mediocre season" into something special with good planning maybe?
@TheManxMissile: Sharing knockouts feelings about your team here. Would be very interested to see your 3 teams with a tough time, as I thought that basically half the division is pretty close to each other and any of those teams might relegate or not. And yeah, Altur is the probably most constant scorer of yours. I think the training was worth it in terms of assuring that your PTHC trips will be much more successful with trained Altur, while it might not have that much impact on his HC/C1 performances.
@Fabianski: I see your sentiment on Reinhardt and Quintana. With Quintana I think you can bank on solid scoring, while having a ceiling. You might benefit from weaker MO opposition. Reinhardt is much more of a boom or bust, if he sprints a lot I guess you're very well set, if the AI doesn't recognize him as strong enough in PCT as we've seen from others he might be frustrating. He'll be very interesting to follow. I share your sentiment on breakaways, actually did the same approach as you did eventhough in the aftermath I'm not as convinced by our approach on that. Moscon indeed can be very solid, I'm just afraid that the pure quantity of amazing puncheurs may have him pretty far down the order positioning-wise and that he might suffer from that (contrarily to CT where he used to be positioned very well).
@Ulrich Ulriksen: Thanks for the nice words. Your other comments I guess are responded to by the post above.
@quadsas: Great choices for Keizer I'd assume, but only time will tell. Thank you for your kind words.
@Eden95: Hope we won't disappoint then
@roturn: Tried our best, glad you liked it so far.
@ember: The pleasure is ours. Wouldn't guess he knows already, but only time will tell. Well you certainly got a headstart on PCT planning with that squad, so that might excuse a couple of misses
@redordead: Echoing jandal that we're happy that we pulled it of and created a pleasant surprise for some. It's an honor to be bookmarked
Well your strength not only but also lies in your secondary leaders, so no surprise you've not been mentioned that much in the first parts. As your leaders are pretty hit or miss, they might be more of a focal discussion point for our next update in the evening.
@TheManxMissile: Sharing knockouts feelings about your team here. Would be very interested to see your 3 teams with a tough time, as I thought that basically half the division is pretty close to each other and any of those teams might relegate or not. And yeah, Altur is the probably most constant scorer of yours. I think the training was worth it in terms of assuring that your PTHC trips will be much more successful with trained Altur, while it might not have that much impact on his HC/C1 performances.
Easier to just quote one of you than both, but this reply does also apply to @knockout of course!
In terms of relegation obviously i have more insight into my own team than anyone. But i genuinely believe not finishing last would be a massive result for T3A this year. Indosat & Carrefour i have as the other two teams in serious difficulty this year. Carrefour has a great CT team but didn't add enough when considering the new game AI, + i don't think van Staeyen will be nearly good enough. Indosat are similar with a great CT team on hand, but nothing i look at and say "Yes, that's the rider who'll bag enough PCT points".
It's why i'm very interested to see your team breakdowns, as i agree the group above is very close and 2 teams will be very unlucky to fill in the final two spots. Plus i'm happy if y'all change my mind on this and show me it's a lot closer and more open than i think right now! (and most years you definitely provide great new prospectives)
Altur: Lest we forget one of Alturs best finishes was in a damned ITT which just rubbed in the CB training was wasted money vs the alternatives we passed up Marcos is going to have to deal with this moaning until we sell him at the end of the season. Although with a deeper PCT cobbles field i'm already prepped for more marginal disappointments in a heavy re-build year.
He really can only impress me this year, so i hope Knockout is correct on his scoring potential
Lovely read. I think the division looks pretty even across the board imo. Most teams have a similar number of leaders, or maybe one extra in exchange for some weaker depth (my team f.e.), which makes the separation smaller imo. I'm also not too happy with what my planning looked like. I anticipated having one of Kuboki or Hayakawa on the team still, so quite a lot of flat races booked this year, so Zhao who I think will surprise a bit, will still need to be really good.
@Croatia
You're right, I completely forgot about Ulrich's tests, given that he posted them quite some time ago. At least they look like the "typical" breakaway stages still exist, and I honestly don't care about giving less flat-ish stages away to escapees
Sprints still seem to be a mess, which means a great Acc definitely shouldn't hurt... But you're obviously right that Reinhardt might not be considered to be a contender - the fact he was in DUC, Berlin and Barbados last year still gives me some hope though But obviously, as with any sprinter, he'll be hit or miss. A 260k miss would definitely hurt and probably send us back down to CT, I agree.
Just going to comment on my team already before I read the rest of it. Definitely agree with knockout last year's squad didn't click. But believe it or not, my mountain train is actually better than last year. Oomen should have better support, but he has already shown he can do without.
For Bonifazio I just kept Vanbilsen and Biermans out of his way in the flat races. I lose the best support or late attack option like this, but at least he should sprint now. I hope this qualifies as smart planning
Challenging for promotion is a bit much though. Last year's team was definitely better with Gaviria's scoring and the U25 points from Oomen and De Plus won't be replaced with just this small training. I think Oomen, Senni and Novak will be just fine, but to get promotion I also need Vanbilsen to win again in a more difficult division (not necesarily a bad thing for him though), Bonifazio needs to finaly do something big, De Plus needs to get consistent results as well.
Y'all didn't even get all the flags for T3A (i feel like i'm saying y'all far too much for a non-Texan)
Nailed the team prediction, relying heavily on some major rides from three guys and very much looking ahead to 2024. Not being last will be a miracle
But it wasn't too different when we started off our Bulgarian drive either, and we got to the PT and hosted a Worlds. So don't underestimate what we might acomplish in the next few years!
And i take a certain small pride in messing with the game and doing something totally different and crazy, just to see other managers try and take it seriously (good effort on that front)!
_____
As always it's an absolute pleasure to read & something to read, re-read, re-re-read and then re-re-re-read throughout the season.
another year and another pleasant read.
As far as my team is concerned, I agree with almost everything that has been said with the exception of two things:
I said several times that I had no intention of being promoted until I had fully developed my talents. So the goal is once again to maintain the PCT and that I think will be possible.
As for Henao, it was never my intention to keep him as a leader, when the idea was renewed the idea was to sell him to a CT team as a leader or to PT as a support rider and thus making some money for use on the market. Unfortunately this never happened and as time went by it became impossible to get rid of Henao.
As I didn't manage to post something when I edited the team assessments in, you can be sure that this part is now completed (fixed minor formatting issues now as well). Thanks for the kind words and good discussions so far!
This is my favorite part of the offseason even when my team isn't in the division, but when they are, it's on an extra level fo excitement! Thank you guys so much for doing this once again. Absolutely phenomenal work so far! Admittedly I've only had time to read Parts 2, 3 and my team's preview, so I'll have more to say about the overall picture after reading the rest of the team overviews.
You guys definitely hyped my team up a lot, and I think it's clear you collectively have some big expectations for us. Or at least, bigger than I'm used to. Being seen as one of the most improved teams is definitely something I'm extremely excited about, though obviously improvements are always bigger when you're promoting. Succeeding in 5/5 of my goals last year ended up being absolutely huge in that regard, and gave me a big leg up on my peers I think. I had enough budget up front to buy two true PCT leaders with only one CT level sale, which meant I could avoid most of the FA frenzy and stay under the cap while keeping my depth. There's no doubt my team would be way WAY worse if I had even gone 3/5 last year.
I definitely agree with Croatia that actually executing a good season with my squad is another matter. As you note, I've literally never had a true PCT leader that I had to plan with any precision. VSB as a cobbles rider required little discretion, and the same can be said for most leaders in CT. For Guldhammer, planning is crucial, and I'm not sure I made the right choices where there were gray areas. The same can be said for secondary leaders. Balancing all the climbers was fun but chaotic. I'm really nervous about it all, but I'd like to think that I've gained at least a little bit of wherewithall in planning since my last ventures in PCT. So maybe it'll be okay.
And while I knew I had improved, I definitely wasn't expecting the promotion hype! Going into the transfer season it was a thought, but seemed to out there. Once I got Guldhammer (and then Trentin), it started to really become a potential goal due to their ages and the time limits that poses on our current competition window. Once you embrace an aging team, going all the way suddenly make perfect sense. However, I left transfers feeling like I had been unable to get that last big piece to put us in the promotion hunt. I wanted a TT leader specifically, but was unable to get it done.
However, if you guys say I'm a promotion contender, I'm certainly happy to hear it! Avoiding relegation was always the first thought, with establishing ourselves mid table the second, but promotion would be absolutely huge for us long term. We could capitalize on our 32 year olds, and then make a play for long terms pieces as a PT team with more wiggle room. At that point, worst case we relegate and we can trim some fat to be instantly successful in PCT again, with the chance to be a bona fide PT team by 2024. I'm not counting on that, but it would really be a best case for our team and would be thrilling as a manager, at that point 10+ years in.
In the more likely case that we don't promote, my hope is still my initial goal that we at least don't relegate, which you guys seem to think is unlikely. But that would require figuring out a strategy for the next couple of years in order to not slip back down the rankings. I'm pretty confident in the young core, especially once the loanees are back home, and we can leverage that if we need to. But leaders are always the problem, and we got great, but short term, solutions.
Essentially, I think you're right that this might be the year to go for it, as our leaders will decline and we can't count on succeeding in that many goals again to maintain a high budget. Hopefully you're right that we have a shot! And hopefully I didn't blow it in planning.
Thanks again. Once I read everything else and see your predictions, I'll comment on the full picture.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
I have read everything on every team. I'm not sure exactly how those terrain grades work, because they don't seem to add up to a quality of a squad. But I'll save that for the final part of the preview. So I will just talk about my team here.
@Abhishek
Yes, a lot will depend on Beltran, what else is new?
The balance and depth is better than before, but you could argue there are less actual leaders this year, with Alarcon replacing both Boeckmans and Nepomnyachsniy. I expect a bit better scoring from Saber due to different planning and being the sole sprint leader. I doubt he can get back to his Philips days of scoring, but it might be needed.
@Jandal
Yes, Saber won't feature on cobbles a lot, and to be honest if he does nothing on the few races he should be suitable for, then his career as a cobbler should be finished. I think Alarcon is very boom or bust as a climber/stage racer, probably more bust. I'll save you the research and tell you he doesn't have a suitable race on the calendar. Every mountain is accompanied by either hills, ITTs or TTTs. I can only hope he can manage GC top 10s, but he probably needs things to go his way to place any higher.
Getting a cobbled leader was definitely a plan, but I was on the backfoot the entire transfers with no way to generate more wage space or fees for buying and the cobblers weren't going cheap. This will be my 3rd PCT season in trying to get some depth scoring from domestiques. While the squad this year might be better suited to it than in the past, the lack of breakaway AI mentioned by others might have me fail again. Perhaps that's why no one has mentioned Katrasnik, who I hoped could be a scoring X-factor this season.
@Croatia
I think I would've still prefered to part with Saber. I then wouldn't need to sign Alarcon and could target a cobbler, which I think would fit my squad a bit better. But I'm open to Saber surprising me with some good results
I definitely wouldn't need Cepeda, Evans and Lopez on loan if I knew how my transfer plans would blow up in my face. Still all the lvl 4s need minimum RDs, Pogacar and Siric can be useful to a point, which mainly meant I had to find RDs for the two top 10 talents as you call them. Fortunately or unfortunately I do have some holes in my calendar where I can give some riders xp without damaging scoring I likely don't have anyways. Hocevar and Stojnic are stags btw
I agree with your idea of having a good TT leader, but those are quite rare to acquire, especially for someone in my financial situation. I think my future is what it is whether I manage to scrape another season in PCT or drop down to CT. My leaders are aging and will need replacing in a year or two anyways. Of course I'd love to stay for another season, but improvement is not just around the corner. We already thought that after surviving the first time and lowering Beltran's wage, but I simply regressed from there.
@knockout
Maybe you are right and Beltran did suffer from not enough support last year. Although he didn't have much in 2019 and it didn't stop him then. I tried to improve his support in an effort to find out if it really does make a difference. I think last year it might have. This year with six 82+ puncheurs in his way, we may never find out. Beltran might not get treated as a favourite, which could make riders like Gaudu, Zordan and Le Gac simply chill in the peloton, instead of making it a hard race that would favour Beltran's MO stat.
I don't share your optimism on Alarcon, but I hope you're right. I know my squad is a bit big and I didn't intend for it to be that big, but as is I will need everyone to contribute something and supplement my three subtop leaders.
This was an absolute pleasure to read and as TMM also said. I will read, re-read, re-re-read and re-re-re-read this throughout the season
Thanks everyone for the kind comments. Definitely much appreciated after our efforts and especially thanks to those of you that share with us where your opinions match ours and (possibly even more) where your opinions differ from our thoughts!
Fabianski - Well said. I definitely see the potential upside in both Moscon and Reinhardt so you are far from a relegation lock but i share Croatias concern that both might suffer from not getting preferred AI positioning anymore due to dropping down the favourite lists. In the case of Reinhardt i prefered to bet a bit more on the cautious side due to the game change but he has proven last season that he can deliver in HC startlist too which could be a good sign for your team that we are too pessimistic.
Regarding the lesser breakaway prediction: I havent touched the new game at any point so it's purely guess work based on the public test and on the perception that pcm18 was quite extreme in allowing breakaways to win. I'm not suggesting that breakaways won't happen anymore but that it might be only 3 or 4 in a GT instead of 20 breakaway wins like it felt last season at times. If that theory is true, the effect might have bigger effect on PT teams (e.g. was part of my reasoning behind overpaying for Taaramae) but in the end, it's very much a guess.
quadsas - kinda figured that out when i saw your band selection. Very curious how well that plays out for you!
TMM - Seems like we have plenty of differences between our most likely relegation teams. Carrefour might not be safe from relegation entirely but i think they are closer to a midtable team and i also think that it would be a bigger miracle to finish last then avoiding that place for you but of course it helps the odds if you didnt "take it seriously" :P
Sorry about the flags. My list of MG code->forum codes i use to do these stat tables does not include all the newer countries added to the DB in recent years and I couldnt find a newer list of all used codes to update my file.
Ollfardh - Hard to believe your mountain train actually improved. You surely dont need a full mountain train but one or two solid climbers (like 75mo) could have been very valuable.
bbl - Love the long reply, thanks for that! As far as I'm concerned, there seem to be 7 teams that i rate a bit above the rest and you are one of them. But surely at least one more team will enter the fight for promotion due to either me underrating them or them overperforming due to luck. I would love to see a completely new manager join the PT that has never done so previously - but even if you don't achieve that, relegation shouldnt be any close for you ;)
red - No need to excuse for the length, if we wouldnt love longer rants about all the teams, this thread wouldnt exist :P
The grades are mainly meant as a quick overview how strong we rate the team on the different terrains - which should be particularly interesting when we focus our talking points on certain aspects of a team as we don't always cover every terrain of every team.
We'll once again publish a "statistical outcome" together with our "expert predictions" which is the result of a formula based entirely on the terrain grades (Not all terrains are equally valuable for it and the better terrains of a team have a bigger impact on the final grade since most teams will focus their race schedule around those terrains). That said, it's more of a byproduct of the preview and the individual predictions and the text content have much more thoughts put into it.
The category I actually struggle most to understand is the "hybrid" one. What types of riders did you take for this rating? In my team, I'd obviously rate Masnada as a "hybrid", with a really solid Mo/Hi/TT combo - but is Pernsteiner (75Mo/77Hi) a hybrid or a puncheur? I'm wondering because e.g. LPH - who end up one point higher in that category - have "just" Affonso I'd really classify as a hybrid, and I'd value him below Masnada. Obvoiusly, if you count Spilak in as well, then the rating really makes sense. But do you count riders in multiple categories?
But I guess hybrids aren't just Mo/Hi/TT riders, as I then couldn't see how Podium Ambition would end up so high. That rating really remains a bit of a mystery to me - maybe you can enlighten me there
Considering my team, I pretty much agree on the mountain rating. It makes us end up 5th, and while Nairo probably won't be the 5th best scoring climber, we do have some other opportunities like an occasional Manfredi upset to compensate for that.
Pre-transfers I definitely thought we'd end up way higher than 17th in the hills, with this being our 2nd strongest terrain last year. Furthermore, the duo Moscon-Pernsteiner worked very well last year. And although it's unlikely to see many breakaway wins with PCM20, most KoM jerseys probably still will be won by escapees - and that's where I see some good chances for Lienhard and Thièry.
However, the argument that positioning could suffer from Moscon being pretty far down the favorites list is perfectly valid - I just have to hope he proves it wrong
Sprints is probably where I have most hopes that the prediction (15th) is too low. E.g. I definitely hope that Reinhardt and Boudat combined will score more pure sprint points than Saber and Rajovic for Cedevita, although they're ranked 1.5 points higher on average (obviously not accounting for Saber's cobbles scoring potential). Furthermore, Habtom and Stocker should be good leadouts or even get some minor results in "sprinter-unattractive" stage races.
But again, being one point down on the magical 80 mark might hurt the positioning and hence the scoring - I just hope it won't. And I also hope that Boudat can capitalize on the fact of being among the division's strongest Spr/PL riders now or then. Time will tell...
When talking about time, well, obviously TTing is still not our main strength. I feel that individually the rating has us about in the right spot (although I'd see us slightly ahead of Cedevita and Carlsberg instead of level). However, I hope we'll do better than e.g. Assa Abloy in TTTs, as we should have two riders really pulling and not just one. It all depends on planning of course - so really time will tell
Not much to say about cobbles, they're virtually non-existing for us. Four one-day races plus Chrono d'Arenberg, that's it. If we get a handful of points from the cobbles, I'll take it any time.
And then the hybrids - where we finish as low as in the cobbles section. Although I don't fully understand what's in this category, I have to admit that we don't have much to offer here. The long-awaited newly maxed Masnada for sure, but not much more... So I guess the assessment is pretty much right.
Overall, and looking at the predictions, I really should be afraid it seems. One reason is that promotion came one year earlier than expected, but even one year later only Mäder and Rekita would be maxed. But first and foremost, from a rational (read: solely points-based) point of view, I was too attached to some of my former riders (especially Thièry, Mundle and Saggiorato could probably be replaced by riders with more scoring potential), as well as to my commitment to development. I've got 10 unmaxed riders on the roster (thereof 4 loan-ins), and two more are out on loan - if staying up was the main goal, that would just be too much.
But is it the main goal? Sure, it would be nice, but according to the predictions it will be almost mission impossible. But with guys like Moscon, Masnada, Mäder, Bissegger, Brunel, Boudat, Rekita and Schmid around (Masnada being the oldest of this list with 27 y.o.), a relegation definitely wouldn't be a disaster. Although it would definitely hurt, for sure.
Thanks again for the extensive preview! Despite the predictions, I'm looking forward to the season, trying to defy the numbers
All the ranking predictions have been added in the reserved posts!
Fabianski wrote:
The category I actually struggle most to understand is the "hybrid" one. What types of riders did you take for this rating? In my team, I'd obviously rate Masnada as a "hybrid", with a really solid Mo/Hi/TT combo - but is Pernsteiner (75Mo/77Hi) a hybrid or a puncheur? I'm wondering because e.g. LPH - who end up one point higher in that category - have "just" Affonso I'd really classify as a hybrid, and I'd value him below Masnada. Obvoiusly, if you count Spilak in as well, then the rating really makes sense. But do you count riders in multiple categories?
But I guess hybrids aren't just Mo/Hi/TT riders, as I then couldn't see how Podium Ambition would end up so high. That rating really remains a bit of a mystery to me - maybe you can enlighten me there
We deliberately left that category a bit vague and all grade that category slightly differently which is why it sometimes has bigger differences than the other terrains.
The way i like to describe the category is: Any strength riders have that is not properly captured in the classical Mo/Hi/TT/CB/SP rating. So if i think a rider has scoring quality - possibly in a niche - but isn't as good enough in the pure [insert terrain] races i will grade the [pure terrain] a bit lower but add points to the hybrid grade.
Spoiler
That leads to effects as for Cedevita where i gave them a harsh lower hill grade (6) to emphasize that they are not at the top of the division in pure hill races anymore while i rated their hybrid rating really high (9) why the others gave a higher hills rating instead and didnt add as much on the hybrid category despite Beltran (and Saber) being obviously strong riders on two terrains ("hybrid riders".
This can be a HI/TT combo, punchy sprinter or someone like Lasse Norman Hansen with his TT/PRL/SP/Rouleur combo can also be included. For Podium Ambition it's mostly the number of sprinters that can also cobble well (very useful for races like Rheden), Cataford (who is far stronger than just his TT stat would suggest) or maybe even someone like Alaphliippe (who is a shit sprinter but potentially interesting as option for punchy sprints). For your team, i'd include Masnada, Pernsteiner, Lienhard, Boudat and Basso in the hybrid grade but Masnada is the only one of those that really could make a bigger splash. With the scale i'm using, anything between a 3 and a 5 could be reasonable for that
This is a highlight every season, and with the start of this year's edition, it feels like you've even lifted the bar further. Well done! 
I've definitely made planning mistakes, which is a pity considering so much in the PCT hangs on it, but there wasn't much choice this season. I'm just very happy (and grateful!) I was able to get everything in in time.
This is my favourite Daily thread every year, already bookmarked since I'll probably read it over and over during the season 
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
