By Justice Feelgood Marshall, Last updated Tue Oct 30 2012 8:18pm

Jump to Team: Gotham | Philly | Charm City | Windy City | Minnesota | Naptown | Oly | Denver | Bay Area | Texas | Atlanta | Kansas City

Championship Bracket PDF via WFTDA

Gotham (1E WFTDA)

First Bout: Saturday 4pm vs winner of Atlanta vs Naptown

2012 WFTDA record: 12-0

2012 biggest win: 630-65 over Long Island

2012 biggest loss: No losses

2012 closest bout: 221-152 win over Rose City (East Coast Derby Extravaganza)

2012 background: After opening up their season with a couple of curbstomp matches against highly overmatched Long Island and Connecticut, Gotham played a very strong series of teams over the summer and cruised to victory every time -- they've beaten 6 teams that qualified for Championships this year, all of them by over 100 points. Notably, Rose City, the team that gave them their closest regular season match In both 2011 and 2012, didn't make it out of their regional tournament this year. Gotham has not lost on the flat track since November 2010 and currently holds the longest-ever win streak in WFTDA history with a whopping 26 straight.

Tournament history: Since 2007, each and every WFTDA championship tournament has gone through Gotham -- they won it outright in 2008 and 2011, and in the other years the eventual winner eliminated Gotham on their way to the Hydra. Overall, Gotham is 27-4 in postseason play and 9-3 in championship-tournament play, making them the winningest team in both categories. At Easterns, Gotham set a new record for fewest points allowed in a playoff game when they held Carolina to single digits in a 437-8 romp.

Lowdown: Gotham's style of sit-and-wait defense proved so effective in 2011 that it's been adopted nearly across the board by top-level teams in 2012; the tightest defense in derby rarely allows opposing jammers space to accelerate without contact. As has been the case in previous years, the only place where Gotham seems to have any trouble at all is jammer depth – the offense is generally built around Bonnie Thunders and Suzy Hotrod with the rest of a wide rotation notably less productive on the scoreboard. However, with Bonnie having scored over 100 points in 9 of Gotham's 12 games, it's been more of a theoretical than an actual problem thus far.

Players to watch: Bonnie Thunders (winner of Most Valuable Jammer in DNN's Reader Poll for both 2010 and 2011) continues to be the gold standard with the star, with a relentlessly aggressive style particularly well suited to Gotham's all-defense strategy. Rose City transfer Mick Swagger proved herself to be both a big hitter and an effective relief jammer in the East playoffs; Slambda Phage and Brazilian Nut have been slowly evolving as slightly more oft-used jammers. The Gotham 20 skater roster is unchanged from the one that appeared in the East playoffs.

Road to the championship: Unless there is a significant turnaround from previous 2012 results, Gotham will have a straight shot to the championship game. They would seem to have the easiest of the quarterfinal draws, as they face the winner of Atlanta / Naptown; following that, things get more challenging as they'd play either Charm City, Denver or Windy City in the semifinal. However, they've defeated Charm by 197, Windy by 165 and Denver by 125 points in just the past four months.

Roster: 8212 Em Dash // 500 Paperschnitt // 999 Puss N Glutes // 00 Ana Bollocks // 16 Brazilian Nut // 201 Sweet Sherry Pie // 8 Slambda Phage // 753 OMG WTF // 404 Hyper Lynx // 2 Donna Matrix // 241 Fisti Cuffs // 31 Hela Skelter // 1984 Claire D. Way // 68C Sexy Slaydie // 1818 Anne Frankenstein // 4 Violet Knockout // 55 Suzy Hotrod // 929 Davey Blockit // 503 Mick Swagger // 340 Bonnie Thunders