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!