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Anyways, welcome back Iron Fists League! Rhy'din just has not been the same without you. There are plenty of illegal pitfights to enjoy, sure, but now you can enjoy the best fighters in the city beating each other to a pulpy mass in front of your televisions, from the comfort of your homes, without risk of being pickpocketed or swindled in a game of bone craps.

And so I will give you, each week, my current Power Rankings for all of the IFL teams, as well as my insight into their performances both awe-inspiring and forehead-slapping. I will also rank and display my selections for the three most powerful fighters based on their weekly performances. And starting next week, I will track my top selections for this season's Most Valuable Player and Iron Fists League Rookie-of-the-Year (both awards are sponsored this season by the Jade Dragon Chinese Buffet).

Now, let's break it down.

Power Rankings

#1 Asian Invasian

I'm not one to dwell on past glory, and there isn't much to go off of after one week of dueling. That said, our top three teams this week won their matches by a total win-to-loss ratio of 3-to-1. And of those three teams, not only did Asian Invasian have the largest margin of points-gained versus points-against, but they were the only of our top three teams to win their Main Event card in the Iron Fist match.

Sorry TOP and COM, but if you want to be considered the best, you can't choke on the Main Event. Still, Asian Invasion's matches were all very close, with two overtime wins. Their Team MVP of the Week has to be multiple Panther Claw Tournament Champion and Team Captain, Kimone Kidd. She trounced Jewell Ravenlock handily 5-2. Hubba. That's a cat-fight that I would pay to watch every night!

The key for Asian Invasion staying on top will rest with their Captain. There is a lot of talent in this league, and Kimone is going to have to prove that she has a strategic mind to get her team favorable match-ups each week. This week, Asian Invasion will face Team Fist, a team hot off of defeating previous IFL Champions, Badside Brawlers. Let's see if these women (I am told that there is at least one man on this team, but they all look like women to me!) can prove that they have what it takes to win consistently throughout the season.

#2 Top Flight

A lot of journalists have decided that Top Flight, a team largely comprised of Outback veterans, is one of the three teams to beat this year. They certainly didn't disappoint in the first week by delivering a pounding against Team Dueling mainstay, Team Mercenarii.

Vincent Smith pummeled league veteran, Gaius of the Cassii, in the most lopsided bout of Week One. Seriously, if Cassius had fought more single-mindedly in this bout, he may have forgotten to breathe. That 5-1 win makes Vince an obvious choice for Top Flight's MVP of the Week. The only reason that TOP is sitting in my number two spot is that ex-Diamond duelist, Seirichi, lost a close Main Event match against FireStar-bearer Vanion Shadowcast in what must have been the most narcissism-filled duel of the week. Being that Vanion is almost as pretty of a girl as Seirichi, I skipped this estrogen-filled cat-fight and only caught the Instant Replay summary.

Harris has a talented team in Top Flight. If he wants to continue to bid for the top Power Ranking, he is going to have to rely on his talent to find consistency week in-and-out. As a new team with a lot to prove, the pressure is definitely on there. Thankfully for them, they go up against a very young and inexperienced team this week in Rock Hard.

#3 Champions of Mythos

COM is another favorite to contend for the IFL Championship this year. With a new Captain (the first time the team has been led by anyone but Rakeesh Sah Tarna), and coming off of a bitter second place finish in Hydra Season Two, this ripening team has a lot to prove. They started their season soundly with a 3-to-1 match victory over newcomers, Rock Hard.

Rakeesh Sah Tarna continued his tendency of dominating league play with the biggest win of the week for the Champions of Mythos, in a 5-2 trouncing of young up-and-comer Jonas Drava. That duel was lucky to not end in serious injury. Between that and the liontaur's changed attitude (I saw a lot of growling and roaring, and little speech-giving when I watched this match), it makes him a solid choice for the Team MVP of the Week. Joku Shoyia and Xanth Van Bokkelen also had impressive comeback victories that deserve noting.

Unfortunately for COM, just as it was for TOP, they lost their Main Event match when new Captain Aenlyn Hollow got drummed by Captain Kruger of Rock Hard. If COM wants to shrug off the sting of their brutal loss in IFL Season Two's finals, they will have to be able to prove that they can take home Main Event matches. They go up against Team Dirty this week, which is a good match-up for them on paper. They will need a strong start here, because their schedule becomes intense later in the season.

#4 Team Fist

Team Fist Nation rejoice! No wise betting man or woman will ever put money on Team Fist to take home a Championship, but they started this season out powerfully, by upsetting previous Champions, The Badside Brawlers, in a narrow 2-to-2 match victory. What can you say about a team that seems to be cursed, year in-and-out, in League dueling? Is it the management's fault? Consistency issues? Roster depth?

To be honest, Team Fist has a solid foundation, and more than a little depth this season. Kheldar Drasinia was the hands-down Team MVP of the Week here. With Team Fist down 1-2 in matches to the Brawlers, but still in close contention due to a strong victory by Sartan in the Push match, Kheldar needed to pull off a win in the Main Event by topping Candy Hart, one of the winningest fighters in Outback history. Candy has had her struggles as of late, and adapting to league competition can sometimes be rough for new Outback transplants. Kheldar, coming off of one of the most dominant season performances in Hydra Season Two, has been mostly off of the radar for the past several months. The rest seemed to do him well, though, as his return to league play was marked by a dominating 5-2 win over the Outback darling.

Team Fist still has a steep hill to climb if it wants to contend for the title this season. They have a history of winning matches by slim margins in the league, and it will take some truly standout scores to shake the gnawing feeling of inevitable disappointment that has almost become part of the team's branding over the past decade. Still, they have the talent and experience to make it happen, just as they always have. Taking down the Brawlers in the first week of play is as good of a start as you could hope for, and already you can hear the fan murmerings that this is "the year for Team Fist Nation". Only time will tell.

#5 Badside Brawlers

The most dominant team of IFL Season Two is back after years of hiatus, making it one of three returning teams (along with COM and TMF). They have the roster, they have the experience, they have the rank. But they lost in Week One in a close 2-to-2 bout to Team Fist. Not the way these returning Champions wanted to start off their season.

Both of their wins in Week One were close 5-4 bouts, so choosing a Team MVP of the Week is difficult. I've decided to give the nod to Lilly Hyde, though, as she took down Matthew Simon, the most decorated fighter in Outback history. Still, this isn't the Outback, and Matt's been known to struggle in league play.

Of all of the losing teams in Week One, only the Brawlers managed to win two (albeit, narrow, comeback) victories. There are six weeks left of regulation play, however, and plenty of time for this stacked team of dangerous fighters to climb their way up the rankings. They'll need to break in the Outback duelists new to League play, as both previous Diamond Champ, Gren Blockman, and longtime FireStar bearer, Candy Hart, were defeated soundly in Week One. Don't count the half-orc out, though. He's a cunning strategist, and look for him to adjust his tactics throughout the season as he learns how to best use both duelists new and old to the league. This week, the Brawlers will face a (so far) under-performing Mercenarii.

#6 The Rock Hards

Of all of the new teams, many the so-called experts haven picked this seemingly haphazard team of (largely) new league fighters to sit in last place. Well, the good news is that Captain Kruger's crew put up a good fight against a tough Champions of Mythos team. The bad news is that they still lost 1-to-3 matches in Week One.

Kruger is the obvious Team MVP of the Week here, being the only fighter to win from his team. Beyond that, he did so against Aenlyn Hollow, COM's Team Captain and co-founder. Onyx and Tex Wellington, two duelists with some experience (and perhaps some rust), fought and lost a pair of close matches that they held commanding leads in. Jonas drew the short straw, but looked spry and capable despite getting whomped pretty badly.

If Kruger wants to make a bid for the playoffs, he's going to need the few experienced fighters that he has on his team to step up and close out duels. If Onyx or Tex had done so, then this green team would have tied or upset COM in Week One. Rock Hards will face Top Flight in Week Two, so this exciting young team will have to continue teething pangs as Kruger learns how to contend with teams of more experience.

#7 Team Dirty

Team Dirty is another young team of newcomers to IFL, though they do have the benefit of having proved themselves with a solid fourth place finish in the recent Hydra Season Two. However, a lot of their success there was due to their combined talent level in Magic dueling on Twilight Isle. This isn't Twilight Isle, or even the Outback. This is Iron Fists! The level of competition here has to be daunting, and Dirty has to be thinking about that after being on the losing end of the most lopsided team match in Week One.

That said, not everything is bad here for their first outing. Khoom Helston took down up-and-comer, Morgan Chae, in a brutal overtime victory that would be Dirty's only win of the week. That makes Khoom the obvious Team MVP of the Week. That said, besides Jewell's big loss to Kimone Kidd in the undercard Crutch bout, Dirty kept the rest of their matches very close -- and Week One could have very easily gone another way.

But it didn't. If hottie up-and-comer Claire wants to Captain this young team into the playoffs, she will need to begin to learn the strengths and weaknesses of her roster, and improve upon match-up strategies. There are a lot of new captains to the league this season, and those captains that learn and adapt the fastest will, no doubt, lead their team to the playoffs. Dirty has a long road ahead of them, but as we've seen before, anything can happen in the Iron Fists League.

#8 Mercenarii

Mercenarii's been around for a long time, and has seen more roster turnover than just about any other team in any league play. Cassius has brought it back again, hoping no doubt to not only create another playoff-contending Mercenarii roster, but even to finally bring home a League Championship for the team. He even has a solid base of talented fighters this season, enough so to possibly pull it off. But those hopes are pretty distant right now, after a terribly underwhelming performance in Week One.

Vanion Shadowcast, known more for his spell-slinging on Twilight Isle than for unarmed combat, has been a strong Outback presence recently. The current bearer of FireStar managed a narrow victory over ex-Diamond Seirichi in the Main Event match-up. Being that it was Mercenarii's only win, he's the only sound choice for Team MVP of the Week, despite his lack of masculinity. Seriously, what's with elves? How do they even win fights?

All-in-all, Mercenarii's season is long from over, but Gaius is going to have to both perform better than he did in the first week and get better performances out of the team's veterans if he wants to make an impression upon the league. It might be time for a blood-boiling, Roman Gladiator-style, heart rousing speech. Mercenarii faces the Badside Brawlers in Week Two, and make no mistake: after a tough loss in Week One, the returning IFL Champions are going to be out for blood. I suspect that Mercenarii will be too, so look out for this match in Week Two - it's going to be one hell of a show.

Power Fighters of the Week

#1 Kheldar Drasinia

With his team down 1-2 in matches, Kheldar had to step up in the Main Event and defeat the very talented Candy Hart to steal a win over the previous IFL Champs. Not only did he beat Candy, he beat her like a gong. It's that kind of power-performance that makes him my choice for Fighter of the Week! If Kheldar can shake off the exhaustion from his top-notch Hydra Season Two performances, and continue to duel at a high level for IFL, then Team Fist Nation may truly have reason to celebrate. By the way, whatever happened to The Wrecking Crew?

#2 Vincent Smith

Vince has always suffered from consistency issues in league play, but he didn't disappoint in Week One. Going up against one of the top IFL fighters in Cassius, he not only provided an upset, he delivered the most dominant win of the week by any duelist. His match didn't have the same pressure as Kheldar's, but his victory was just as epic! Will Vince finally have a breakout year in League play? It's not fair to assess after only one week, as his opponents will first have to actually try to hit him if they want to beat him.

#3 Kruger

Kruger has style, and lots of it. He also has the duty of Captaining a team comprised of out-of-shape vets and league newcomers. When the chips were down, though, he proved himself in the Main Event card by beating Aenlyn Hollow, one of the most dominant fighters of the recent Hydra Season Two - and one of the stronger forces in Iron Fists League play. This was the upset of the week, and while his team lost, we have to think that Kruger won a first personal battle for himself in IFL.

And until next week, that's a wrap for Breaking It Down with your favorite (and most literate) Barbarian!

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