Reddit Yankee is a clan that has been around for a long time
within Clash of Clans, nearly as long as Clash of Clans itself. It is one of
the original 26 members of the RCS (Reddit Clan System). All these clans were
named using the NATO alphabet, hence the name Reddit Yankee. When you think
about how the clan has been around since 2012, it makes you wonder about the
history of the clan and what has happened over all those years.
Well that’s hopefully what this article will try to fill you
in about. I have been in this clan since 2014 and have seen my fair share of
good and not so good things over that time. To help fill in the blanks and
write about the time before me, I have enlisted the help of longest standing
member, SleepyKeefe, who has been here since near enough the start and is still
active in the clan.
Clan Beginnings: War Eagle and Ethan (2012 – 2013)
The clan’s first leader was War Eagle. War Eagle was a
well-liked and efficient leader. He didn’t do much to change the status quo and
let things be simple. He started up the clan and recruited many loyal and
trustworthy members. As this was near the start of Clash of Clans’ life it was
an enjoyable time of learning together and progressing bases. Everyone was
learning new things and making new online friends. Things were simple and the
search for gold and trophies was everyone’s priority.
After a time, War Eagle started to lose interest in running
the clan and wanted to move on. This meant he needed someone to pass the mantle
onto. Unfortunately for the members, the loudest person in the clan, Ethan, was
picked.
Before he was chosen to lead, Ethan just seemed like a loud,
excitable member of the clan but things weren’t great back when he was just an elder.
Within hours of first becoming an elder he got into an argument with another
member and kicked them stating they ‘should respect their elders’. Not the type
of person you’d expect to then become leader. But sometimes being the loudest
person in the room can pay off.
People accepted it and just kept on clashing. He didn’t do
much. Then suddenly and completely out of the blue, Ethan left the clan without
saying a word. The leadership then automatically went to the highest person in
the clan – Jon. Thus, started the golden era of the clan.
Golden Era: Jon (2013 – 2015)
When Jon suddenly came to power as leader, the fate of the
clan became unknown and all depended on his approach to leadership. Luckily for
everyone, becoming clan leader was a natural fit for him. Jon was very
different to Ethan and War Eagle, he treated everyone with respect and
constantly pushed the clan to be the very best it could be.
At this point in time, the clan was constantly full, with
new people begging to join every day. Spots didn’t stay open for long, so you
had to keep an eye out and jump in and apply as soon as you saw an empty space
available.
In April 2014 clan wars came out. This was an exciting time
for all and pretty much every clan became a war clan, with constant warring
taking place, including Reddit Yankee. GoWiPe and Mass Hogs became fast
favourites to secure the 3 stars and clans were battling it out to become
number one. As people tried to work out how to match up with their friend’s
clans, RCS did the same. All RCS clans changed their clan location to Niue and
tried to synchronise war start times. This was successful a few times for
Reddit Yankee and the clan got to battle against fellow RCS members.
As the fun of clan wars started to wear off, and the
consistent activity required for the previous few years of being leader began
to take its toll, Jon decided to step down as leader and take a break from
Clash of Clans. All members were sad to see him go but accepted his decision
and were happy with his replacement – Low_Freq. Unfortunately, however, this
change in leadership brought a whole lot of dismay and drama for the clan and
the RCS.
Unverified, The RCS Drama – Low_Freq and Lobsternuts (2015-2016)
Low_Freq was a nice, kind and humble member of the clan,
with no one having a bad word to say about him. His time as leader should have
been easy and not required much effort to carry on the success of Jon, but this
was not the case. Poor Low_Freq had a lot in store for him.
Unknowingly to those of us in the clan, one requirement of
being a part of the RCS was informing them of leadership changes before they
happen. When Jon stepped down and handed leadership to Low_Freq he had not
informed the RCS mods of the change and Low_Freq was unaware that he needed to
tell them what had happened. The RCS had never actually played a big part in Reddit
Yankee, besides for it being listed as an official member on Reddit, which
helped draw in players. The clan didn’t partake in any Reddit events or have
much contact with the other RCS clans but just did its own things. Because of
this, most current members didn’t expect any contact with the RCS mods was
necessary.
When the RCS mods found out about the change, they were
furious that they had not been informed, so in response they withdrew the
clan’s official RCS verification. This was a big blow to everyone in the clan
as RCS verification, at the time, was very hard to get and being an original
RCS verified clan was the main selling point for recruiting new members.
Considering the clan was as old as the RCS itself, one would presume that for a
simple mistake of just not informing them about a leadership change, it would
be a simple apology and move on, but this was not the case. It was a huge kick
in the gut and made it feel like the clan didn’t mean anything to the RCS mods
who were supposed to look out for all RCS clans.
Many months followed with Low_Freq having heated discussions
with the RCS mods about re-verifying and giving the clan’s status as an
official Reddit clan back. Eventually he managed to convince them, and Reddit
Yankee once again became an official RCS verified clan, but communication with
the RCS became cold and distant for many years after, with distrust and dislike
from all Reddit Yankee members at the time towards them.
After all this, clan wars participation and general activity
started to decline in the clan. Lots people had been playing for many years now
and were starting to burn out. Low_Freq himself began to have an increased
amount of real-life necessities to take care of and decided he could no longer
be leader. He chose to pass leadership onto his real-life friend and co-leader
Lobsternuts.
Lobsternuts now had the difficult job of trying to keep the
clan active and running smoothly. He quickly promoted long standing members
within the clan and all started pooling ideas together in an effort to increase
activity, which worked for a time. Approaching the end of 2016, Lobsternuts
decided it was his time to step down as he had nothing more to offer the clan
and his own activity had fallen. His successor was long standing member
Eternal.
The Clan’s Decline – Eternal, Thawn and Dyno (2016 – 2018)
At this time in Clash of Clans history, war clans were the
main form of clan and there weren’t many players wanting a more casual/farming
play style. Most members within Reddit Yankee however, had been playing for
many years at this point and didn’t want to war, so were happy just playing the
farming game.
Things were simple and peaceful, with Eternal relaxing the
rules and wars only being started when members asked for one. Although the
time’s of having a full clan with new members lining up to join had long
passed, there were still enough new and existing members to keep things ticking.
While this was successful for a time, soon players began to
lose interest in the game completely and started saying their goodbyes.
Eternal’s interest himself had started to fade and the once active and engaging
leader started to become silent. When this happened, he decided he did not have
the drive to stop the clan from losing all its members or to recruit new ones
so thought it was only fair to hand the clan over to someone else. At this
point there weren’t many people left from the golden days of past who knew how
successful the clan had, and could, be, so his choice was someone that had been
there for a while, Thawn.
While Thawn was a very capable leader, the clan was not in a
good shape and required a lot of work. Thawn had to try with the few co leaders
and elders around him to try and lift the clan up out of its pit and towards a
brighter future, which he attempted as best he could. He had to do all of this
during a busy time in his life, with a new job and family to think about, after
just 6 months he stepped down and handed the clan over to the one person left
he could trust and was willing to be leader, Dyno.
At this point in time the clan was pretty much silent. A few
donation requests were thrown up here and there and the odd thank you said in
chat but besides for that, activity was at its lowest point ever. Dyno himself
became inactive soon after his promotion and with there not being any reliable
people left wanting to be leader in the clan for him to pass leadership over
to, he was stuck. For the members left in the clan it looked like the days of
activity were over and Reddit Yankee would be their place to slowly retire from
the game and quietly farm alone.
Clan Revival and RCS Takeover – Zag (2018 – 2018)
The RCS had by this time made many changes to their mod team
with many of the mods around during the unverified drama no longer being
around. They had realised that one of their clans was no longer active and was
slowly dying. They decided that it was their time to act and try to save it
before it was too late.
After some time of RCS mods joining the clan and trying to
get in contact with Dyno, they were finally able to do so and got him to agree
to hand over leadership to one of them, Zag. For the members left in the clan,
this was both exciting and scary. Those who were around during the days when
the clan struggled to regain verification were sceptical of the RCS’s claims that
it wasn’t a hostile takeover and others were getting ready to be kicked for
their general inactivity.
Within a short period of time, Zag had cleaned out the clan
of all who no longer played and started heavily recruiting, using her pool of
other RCS clans to fill up the clan with more active members. After being happy
that the clan was now getting back on its feet, she handed the clan over to
FlashBang, a member that joined from another RCS clan, to lead and look after it.
FWA – FlashBang (2018 – Current)
When FlashBang became leader, he decided to continue Zag’s
work on cleaning up the clan and recruiting new members. He introduced new
rules to ensure activity of members and demoted/kicked those that were not
active. Whilst his mission was to revive the clan and get it to the standard of
other successful Reddit clans, he tried to accommodate those he knew had been
in the clan a long time and who treated it as their home.
After a few months leading and realising that those in the
clan were not looking to be part of any hardcore wars but instead preferred a
more casual and farming play style, he thought of another direction to take the
clan, FWA. The Farm War Alliance allows clans to be part of casual wars that
are just for loot, not wins. This became a win-win situation. An easy way to
monitor activity and would keep members happy with non-stressful/time consuming
war attacks.
FWA, along with clan games, has become the identity of
Reddit Yankee now. A casual, farming and fun place to farm and play the game.
The clan has been though many ups and downs in its history
but hopefully this period of time can continue in the direction it is going and
maybe in 5 years time, will become the second Golden Era. With all the current
support and activity going on internally, it’s looking like it just might be!
