| As a founding babby, /sci/ has looked for a great many years like it used up its best chance out of the gate. Debuting to a bronze trophy in the 2012 4chan Spring Babby, the inaugural such event, /sci/ looked like it had the equation cracked until they ran into fellow math enthusiasts /3/ in the semi-final. Unfortunately it was not to be then, and for a great many years /sci/ floundered: yo-yoing in and out of the early elites until going so far as to not even provide an export and compete in 2016 for that Autumn babby. It established a pattern of staying under the radar no matter the success or failure of the run.
The would come back strong for another run that only halted in the infamous 'WHOOPS HAHA I CHANGED THE PRESET OF THE WRONG TEAM' moment of the 2017 summer cup, arguably forced to let /lgbt/ score a goal on its way to back to back babby and elite wins. While 2017 continued the good fortune of /sci/ for a time, there was no closer run to a cup yet again, and the sine wave of success inevitably had to cross back over zero on the graph, leading to a run of 3 years of solid relegation.
2022 finally started showing some yoyo potential again, and /sci/ even managed to stay elite in the 2023 winter cup and make it as far as a quarterfinal. While frustrating to be relegated in summer, it would lead to /sci/ finally getting a moment of cathartic triumph: The 2023 Autumn Babby Cup would feature a rather miraculous group stage promotion, a 9-3-3-3 being the team that got the least beat up by group terror /a/. This belied a knockout run where it seemed like nothing could go wrong, with only /vt/ ever holding a lead on them again for all of 11 minutes.
When /sci/ is clicking it looks incredibly calculated, and they had no hangover going all the way to 4th in the most recent 2024 4chan Winter Cup. With a run of older PES versions coming in, /sci/ will need to dig into the remarkably well archived game plans and aesthetics on their wiki page and try to define a function that doesn't involve another years long dry streak in the pursuit of victories, but their intellect seems up to the task as of now.
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