TCFL 17 All-Stars // Draft Recap & Analysis

First off, thanks again to everyone who decided to be part of TCFL this season. By the time the deadline passed, we reached 34 entries! We have grown each year that we've done TCFL. Thanks to everyone for spreading the word. Here are the payouts for this season:

1st Place: $225.00 & ownership of the TCFL Cutting Board Trophy for one year

2nd Place: $65.00

3rd Place: $35.00

Mr./Ms. Irrelevant (Last Place): $10.00

($15.00 will be kept for Trophy shipping purposes, if needed/required [it's heavy].)

Secondly, some housekeeping: If you submitted an entry, but have not yet paid, please do so ASAP. Payments can be submitted through Venmo, PayPal, or Google Pay. If you need to arrange something different or can't remember if you paid or not, shoot me an email.

Now, let's check out the draft!

• Gregory's Episode 1 performance resulted in him being chosen by 31 out of 34 teams. Shout out to Dave's Landlord, Wutang Flan, and myself for being contrarians. That decision will either be awesome or awesomely stupid.
• I'm not surprised that Melissa was the female chef chosen most. I am surprised that Stephanie was right behind her.
• All Chefs were chosen at least twice, except for poor Mustache Joe. 
• We have two sets of duplicate teams:

Eric, Karen, Kevin, Gregory, Melissa, Voltaggio

(shared by Maria E., EY's Mise en (Shelter in) Place, The "No Malarkey" Tour, and The Losers)

Eric, Karen, Stephanie, Gregory, Melissa, Voltaggio

(shared by Barbara P. and Team Franklin)

• There were a whopping nine different answers to our first Tiebreaker question with Gregory and Voltaggio leading the way.
• Shout out to Frank's Favorite and A Nonessential Essential for picking Lisa to win the whole thing. You guys are nuts.

• Kristen (Season 10), Brooke (Season 14), Joe Flamm (Season 15). All won their season after winning Last Chance Kitchen. Yet none of us think it will happen this season.

Lastly, let's do some superlatives:

Best Topical Team Name: Eric Y. with EY's Mise en (Shelter in) Place

Meanest Team Name: Bo and Kathy W. (but definitely more so Bo) with NoHoopsForYou

Best Team Name Inspired by Leslie Knope: Kelly M. with Thyme to Turnip the Beet

Best Attempt To Defer Payment: Mrs. Commish: "You know where my purse is"

Most Ridiculous Trash Talk by a First Time Competitor: Frank's Favorite: "Thank god this is not my only outlet during quarantine.  Winning is surprisingly boring."

Most Polite Trash Talk: Team Awesome Tobias: "You're all going down (I don't want to get too mean because I'm not actually in this friend group BUT YOU'RE GOING DOWN)"

Best Venmo Trash Talking:

Deliberately Just Trying to Antagonize The Commish: Mighty Dishes: "PADMA STILL SUCKS. I hate her. I hate her so much. Okay, “hate” is mean. I strongly dislike her."

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That's it for now! Stay tuned for the Episode 2 Recap later this week.