I let it go the first time, but there's been a few people talking about things they don't know a lot about for the last few worlds.
First, pretty sure things are fairly squarely on Pete's side since Celt stopped playing US, and that was a fair while ago. Our team won 80 with BoB, and I believe the only win BoB (although Jcoo himself would deny that it really was BoB) has over a Pete team in the years since is 95 (I could be wrong, I took a couple years off, feel free to correct me, not that important to what I have to say).
So let's talk about 95 and clear something up for everyone: Pete didn't put a spy anywhere. Every time I play with Pete, I lead with Pete, and I made the decision to join and spy on BoB at the beginning of the world because we didn't bring a full team there, and I knew it would be a hard-fought world. This is, after all, a strategy game; my strategy was to build up in the enemy core, take cities, and hand them off to allies. Call it dirty-handed, but at the beginning of the world when I made the decision to join BoB, they had 5 guys spending money like Pete does and we only had Pete; my goal was to give us a strategic edge in a "strategy" game where 90% of skill is determined by how much time and money you're willing to spend on it. I don't really care what you think about my decision, but it's simply incorrect to say Pete placed me anywhere. I saw an opportunity to benefit my team and I took it.
As for not hitting the domination button, I've given Pete my fair share of grief about that, but I find it hilarious Al is on the externals liking and posting all these messages about Pete's flaws like Al wasn't a leader in that alliance capable of hitting that button the same way Pete was (not to mention, never once objected to me spying on BoB, and I believe recommended I stay and spy longer when I wanted to rejoin the group). There were probably more than five people in that alliance with the rights to hit that button—the only reason Pete deserves more of a share of the blame than any of the others is because he delegated those privileges to people like Al who were also too inept to press a button—too inept despite the fact that I warned them weeks in advance that the winner of the world would come down to who pressed the button first. Pete gets all the attention because he's at the top of the leaderboards whenever he plays, but if you want to point at a crap leader and player, point at the guy who hides in the core of every alliance he "leads" and then talks trash about former teammates on the externals.
I won't even go into much detail on how ridiculous it is that BoB even had a chance to win the world given how badly they were getting their butts kicked (we dominated something like 49% of the world to their 41%), but it's suffice to say that it's fairly obvious that this is a flaw with the endgame itself. BoB's title as the winner of 95 is nominal only—anyone who played that world knows they got their butts whooped (even if some might object to the method of whooping).
As for the name "Dream Team," fairly certain Pete named it that simply because Celt started Byblos with the team and he was pumped up to be playing with him. Sure, it's cocky insofar as he considered a duo of himself and Celt a dream team, but it was also a show of respect for a great player. Pete's combination of cockiness and high regard for his teammates is what makes him fun to play with—the people who dislike him are typically either straight-laced dudes who forget that this is a game we play to have fun or hypocrites who would have no problem acting the same way Pete does.
All I know is that if you're ever looking for a team you'll actually enjoy playing with, look for one with Pete on it. You may not win every single world you play, but you'll have fun playing them. Every hero story needs a villain—or, more accurately, someone that the author portrays as the villain.
Cheers,
LB
