Hallelujah, Water Vikings!

As we enter Legends Cup XV, many newer people in the army ultimately have little clue about what Legends Cup is, our history with Legends Cup, and the importance that it holds. While I briefly explained in the Discord server a few times, including with a channel, nothing has quite captured the history and importance of the tournament. The goal of this post is to immerse you all with the history of Legends Cup, as well as Water Vikings.

The Origins of Legends Cup

To many of the newcomers here, they are not quite aware that the army community has been around since 2006. Indeed, the army community has been around for nearly 20 years, emerging only a year after the creation of Club Penguin – which was in the year 2005. Most of early army history had pretty much no tournaments or even central authority. It was not until about the year 2009 that proper central authority and structure began to emerge as the norm, with the foundation of Club Penguin Army Central. 

The first tournament that was coherently held in armies was known as the Decades End tournament, held by the Army of Club Penguin (an ally of ours) in December 2009. Water Vikings did not exist at this time, but this tournament ultimately laid the foundation for pretty much every single tournament that came after – with the first major tournament ever held in army history being Legends Cup.

Legends Cup was created by one of the founding fathers of the army groups, Oagalthorp, of the Army of Club Penguin in July 2010. While Oagalthorp created this tournament, the first Legends Cup was ultimately held by Club Penguin Army Central, the primary media organization at the time. The tournament, like the current one, was split into two conferences.

These two conferences split around forty armies up to fight across one of the LARGEST tournament participations in the entire history of the community. As you can tell, an extremely large number of battles were fought over around a one-ish month period. Instead of going super in-depth with every single battle, the finals ultimately resulted in two legendary armies, the Nachos and the Ice Warriors, duking it out in the finals.

Ultimately, on the day of the finals (17 August 2010), the Nachos were declared the winners of the tournament – marking an end of the first Legends Cup tournament, as well as crowning the first ever champion.

Since that date, Legends Cup has been held nearly every single year – with the sole exception of 2019. From that date, a total of six winners have been crowned the champions of Legends Cup, with a further six being finalists of the tournament, falling short of victory. Since that first Legends Cup in 2010, the army community has evolved DRASTICALLY; battling, organization, and judging has changed drastically, becoming far more intricate and organized in perhaps every single way. At the time of writing this post, the community is going into the fifteenth Legends Cup, conveniently marking the fifteen year anniversary since the first Legends Cup tournament was held.

Our History with Legends Cup

Due to Water Vikings being founded in 2010, we have had a very long history with the Legends Cup tournament. Throughout the years, Water Vikings has saw considerable success in numerous runs of the Legends Cup tournament – primarily in the years 2015, 2016, and 2022 specifically. Those three years are pivotal years in Water Vikings history, as the Water Vikings reached the finals in each of those runs. However, Water Vikings was unable to ultimately secure a victory in those runs – making Water Vikings the only army to reach the finals of Legends Cup multiple times and not win. While it would be nice to go in-depth with every single run that Water Vikings had in Legends Cup, this post will be used to describe more information in regards to the most successful runs at Legends Cup.

Legends Cup VI (2015)

In 2015, Club Penguin Army Central hosted the sixth Legends Cup tournament. 2015 was a significant year in armies; despite it not being one of the largest years by any means, it was one of the most competitive in history – with many armies, notably the Water Vikings, Rebel Penguin Federation, Ice Warriors, Nachos, and Doritos, having significant tournament and warfare success over the course of the year. It is important to note that, the real reality is, Water Vikings was NOT in a great spot prior to the summer of 2015. However, once summer came, the Water Vikings began to achieve one of it’s biggest rises in history, and one of the most exceptional rises in the community as a whole.

Water Vikings at this time had an extremely notable and successful leadership. Among the people leading at the time were Bepboy9, Kingfunks4, Change, Stromae, Buddy, Tymatt, and Adden. Many of these names listed are some of the most notable names in Water Viking history due to their long history of bringing significant success to the army over the years. In particular, Bepboy9 and Kingfunks4 are remembered as among the literal best in Water Vikings AND army history as a whole.

In the second round (the round that WV first took part in this tournament), the Water Vikings faced the COBRAS army (Chaos dropped out and instead SS fought COBRAS, who won). This battle, with all respect to COBRAS, ultimately was an easy Water Vikings victory.

We then moved into the Quarter-Finals, facing the Dark Warriors. Once again, we came out victorious. Following that, we faced the Blue Miners Army in the semi-finals, coming out victorious, maxing well over 50.

Indeed, the Water Vikings secured a finals position for the first time, after an insane run. 

After all things were said and done, Water Vikings was to face the Rebel Penguin Federation at 3 PM EST on Sunday, 23rd August 2015. The battle that ensued would be one of the most controversial tournament finals in army history.

Per the official ruling and summary, the battle was extremely close and could have went either way. Water Vikings in particular reached record sizes of over 80 penguins online, perhaps the highest in Water Vikings history. Ultimately (and controversially), though, the Rebel Penguin Federation was declared the winner. This loss is considered one of the most controversial in army history, due to allegations of extreme bias and rigging, those of which are still upheld as valid concerns to this day. Nevertheless, while it was a loss, the run that we had was one of the most impressive in the tournaments history; the entire community doubted Water Vikings could even make it. Following the conclusion of the tournament, Kingfunks4, leader at the time, had this to say:

Everybody thought that we would lose in the Quarter-Finals, but we got all the way to the final. It is incredible to think of our rise. The week before the Legends Cup started, we were the lowest ranked army in the whole community – but now we reached the biggest sizes we have ever had in the Legends Cup Final and are second on the top ten. To reach the Legends Cup final itself is historic, and we came so close to victory.

Do not be down about this result, you did the army proud and yourselves proud. 

This performance in Legends Cup was merely only the beginning of a legendary back-to-back run.

Legends Cup VII (2016)

The year of 2015 was a prosperous year for the Water Vikings, being a top contender once summer came, continuing for the remaining months. 2016, while perhaps not as insane as 2015, was still a notable year for Water Vikings in terms of our own history, but as well as history in the community. In particular, 2016 was the last year that Water Vikings would operate before the four year closure that ended in 2020. As mentioned before, the Water Vikings, while perhaps not in the most impressive run compared to the previous year, still had an amazing run in Legends Cup.

In the first battle, we faced the Penguin Army Force. Not much to write home about this battle other than it was not a difficult fight, and it actually saw someone bot raiding the fight out of anger, lol.

The following battle, perhaps one of the most chaotic ever, was fought against the Army of Club Penguin. The battle, while well fought, had numerous scheduling issues, bot raids, and wasn’t even judged. This cause us and ACP to move onto the semi-finals initially. Sadly, quite literally no videos or images exist of this battle, but the official ruling indicated that it was impossible to determine any fair victor. We both advanced to face the Nachos. After numerous schedule errors, we ended up facing the Nachos officially on 14 August 2016. 

We did it. Once again, we made it to the finals. Pictures unfortunately have been lost to time of this battle, but the official WV post shows the following:

Evidence indicates that it was a well-fought battle, but perhaps not as close as the battle the year prior. 

2016 would be the last year that Water Vikings would remain open during the original era. The army officially closed in September of the year, not re-opening until 2020. The next time that we would reach the finals in Legends Cup would not be until 2022. 

The revival of Water Vikings in 2020 proved to be an important revival, as we managed to grow in size quite fast and become a notable member in the community. It was not until the later parts of 2021, however, that Water Vikings became a name. In the year of 2021, we managed to secure a victory at the one-off revival of one of the major tournaments from back in the day, Champions Cup. This marked Water Vikings first major tournament victory in history.

Legends Cup XII (2022)

2022 was quite a notable year for the Water Vikings. Starting in the end of 2021, Water Vikings began a pretty notable rise as a dominant force in the community, but that would not be cemented until 2022. Notable leaders, some still around and helping out to this day, included the likes of Revan, Guncotton, Pjayo, and, most notably, the main leader Aaronstone42, took the helm during this era. 2022 was an interesting year in that it saw the decline of armies such as the Ice Warriors and Rebel Penguin Federation, the rise of armies like the Templars, and the proper “founding” of Water Vikings in the private server (post original Club Penguin shut down) era of armies.

Around the summer time, Water Vikings began a notable rise in size and notoriety in the community. While the army was not doing poor beforehand, it is important to note that the rise of Water Vikings around 2022 really cemented the Water Vikings in this new era of armies.

Legends Cup was actually announced, very late in the year cycle – September 2022. For comparison, Legends Cup was usually ALWAYS held in the actual summertime, not the fall (Champions Cup was usually held in the fall). As indicated by the graphic image, Water Vikings managed to get a spot to skip the qualifiers. This was one of the few tournaments where there were no “quarter-finals”. Indeed, due to the smaller size of the community at the time, it went straight to the semi-finals and finals. Water Vikings would ultimately face the Army of Club Penguin on our first round.

The Army of Club Penguin that year was not doing the best, and their rise did not happen quite yet. In addition, they were not in the best shape at that battle in general, due to much absences. That being said, Water Vikings ended up taking the victory home. The real challenge would be against the Templars.

A few things must be made clear – Templars was a controversial army at the time and we had a strong rivalry with them. The most controversial battle of this tournament ended up being fought between the Templars and Rebel Penguin Federation in the semi-finals. This battle to this day is disputed. Per the Rebel Penguin Federation, the judging standards were not held consistent in the battle, as well as alleging that Templars were cheating by multilogging (the act of playing on multiple accounts at once). This response post by the Templars does indicate that the judging review ultimately held favor that the Rebel Penguin Federation should have won the battle. The multilogging allegations would end up having a degree of merit, as official investigations did conclude that Templars multilogged the entirety of January 2023. Now, why is this relevant? This is relevant merely because we faced the Templars in the finals. Whether or not this was a fair outcome is still disputed to this day, but we pressed on and took the fight, like the chads that we are.

We ultimately did not win the finals. Water Vikings, maxing well over 50, was not able to overcome the 20 penguin size advantage that Templars had in the battle. Needless to say, though, it is important to note that we did manage to win a room with a significant size disadvantage, which if anything, showed our tactical prowess. 

Whether or not this loss is fair, valid, and justifiable is still heavily debated to this day. Was it another tournament (like Legends Cup VI) where we faced unlucky circumstances that did not benefit us? Were we simply just sore losers who could not accept defeat? Depending who you ask, it will be a different answer. Nevertheless of whatever the answer is, this ultimately marked the third time Water Vikings reached the finals without securing a victory in the tournament – setting a record.

In The Meantime

Since then, it is impossible to say that Water Vikings did not enjoy some success. Water Vikings secured various tournament successes throughout 2023 up until early 2024. In fact, these years were far more competitive in comparison to the 2016 and 2022 years, going to show the merit of these victories, even if they are not as competitive as the year 2025.

 

While we did not secure a victory in AUSIA Arena II, we secured a finals position – coming from an army with a crippled AUSIA, rising all the way back to the top.

In a bombastic Christmas Chaos (the main winter tournament of the year) run, the Water Vikings managed to just edge out the victory against the Elite Guardians (my home army!) in the finals of Christmas Chaos XIII, making the second major tournament that we won, and the first Christmas Chaos win.

Once again, the Water Vikings managed to back-to-back win tournaments, securing a victory in March Madness IX (the main tournament in the spring of each year). This marks the third major tournament victory, and the first for March Madness.

2025 and now..

Water Vikings, following the victory in 2024, ultimately began a bit of a decline. The second half of 2024, in particular, was not a great time for Water Vikings. Our army began to become revitalized towards the end of 2024, with the development of long-term plans by the team at the time. Following the return of our army in January 2025, we began to show signs of improvement almost immediately.

Things began to change once the summer came. In May, following the implementation of various structural changes, the implementation of the Viking Academy, and following various high-profile hirings – the army began to become completely changed, showing one of the largest rises in Water Vikings to date. 

In addition, for the first time in a while, we have reached the top 3 in the top ten armies for the past few weeks. The top ten that just passed right now, specifically, saw us reach a number two position.

Why It Matters

To be frank, I cannot ask for everyone to care about this as much as the legends, co-leaders, or I do. Many of us have devoted countless of hours, days, months, and years into this project over the years. The biggest thing I can tell you guys is that this is making history. 

This army was founded in 2010, ran to 2016, and has re-opened in 2020 and has been running since. So many people have come and gone in this army, trying to make it prosper because we love the community here. Indeed, many of us are here merely because we love the people and everything that we stand for.

This is why it matters. We have been on a historic rise lately, and if we keep this up, it will be one of the better rises in recent army history. This cannot be understated. While we may be entering Legends Cup in an extremely competitive situation with numerous armies doing really well, we honestly have a decent shot to finally bring closure to this decade long debacle. This is a decade in the making. This is our time. To those of you new, you may not quite understand everything just yet, and perhaps you might not ever care to the level that we do – but I can tell every single one of you that this matters. For the history, for the family, and for the ones who have came and went – a success in this tournament inside this niche little community will bring fulfillment to ourselves and many.

Now is the time to prove to everyone that we can do it. We can deliver an upset in this tournament if we truly try. We can do it. Not me, not my co-leaders, not my staff – us. It counts on us all. If you want to help, I highly encourage reading this post. Money will be offered to those who contribute the most – we are that serious about securing this victory.

I wish all of us the best wishes in this tournament, we will do our best and we will not let anyone down.

A decade in the making,

Fear the Wave.

SavageCobra

Viking Commander

Filed under: Army Updates, Community Updates, Ocean Oracle, water vikings, water vikings of cp, water vikings of cpr