I think one of Aqua29's (H, Dave, False, Cub) best qualities is that they were an extremely forgiving and consistent team
(I know the MCC just happened, but my brain is going crazy right now and all the details are flying past my head but I hope you'll get the general idea.)
MCC's nature is that it is unpredictable. That's what makes it fun! The chickens, the weird lag (sometimes 💀), luck, sudden clutches, etc etc. But this unpredictability can sometimes mess up teams on a really good trajectory. One "bad" or "unwanted" game would kill a team's morale- I've seen that before.
In the midst of the MCC chaos, Aqua29 is very solid. They were steadily climbing up the ranks and kept their morale high. Even when they won one round of Dodgebolt, they convinced themselves to act like they "were losing". I forgot the English word for it but their mental states / attitudes were very consistent throughout the entire MCC. This helps them power through the unpredictability. Especially for MCC29, which is a well-balanced MCC and pretty difficult to predict (and the stats don't do False and Cub justice in this particular situation).
As I said before, Aqua29 is very forgiving. This allows them space to make mistakes and to bounce back. Dave felt pretty guilty over dying to speedbridging in Sky Battle and said he really usually doesn't do that, and while the loss of the team's best PvPer might be fatal in some other situations, Aqua honestly did fine. Their morale wasn't affected.
In Rocket Spleef Rush, sometimes a teammate would die "early", leaving two teammates behind, and it felt like they took turns dying early, which showed how balanced they were. Same with TGTTOS. Sometimes an individual teammate might get unlucky in a round of TGTTOS, but overall they all worked hard, and they could pull it back.
Battle Box would be another good example, in which they lost the first two rounds, adjusted their strategy, and then did better. Dave also apologised for missing the comms during the round against Purple, but like SkB, they progressed normally.
In Grid Runners, sometimes they placed bottom half in some rooms, but they steadily improved and cleared them faster- ending up in the last room in which H bossed everyone around and they got through it the quickest. There is a narrative: they learned from earlier "mistakes", had the room to afford making mistakes, and improved. Therefore, they rose up.
And Dodgebolt. Dodgebolt! All four of them are good at it. Of course, we have HBomb, king of Dodgebolt. Then Dave, confident PvPer. The two hermits, both great shots, have grown more confident in their skills. They all trusted themselves to the point they didn't need H to nudge the arrow in their direction- they just picked up the arrow if they felt like it. Cub did that, and he got his kills. Even if half of the team was taken out, or heck, even if it was a 1v3, they had enough skill to power through. All four of them were in good shape, felt great, and meshed well together.
In a way, Aqua29 are each other's safety nets. No one got top 10. Their placements were: 12th, 13th, 20th, 21st. Which honestly wasn't too far from each other. You won't really expect a team with those individual rankings to get second in coins, but they did. Even if False ended up losing the 1v3, her valiant efforts would motivate the team even more and I'm sure they would've won (even though a Cyan reverse sweep would be cool).
And it's this kind of stability and mutual support that powered them through MCC. They didn't get the finale they wanted (Survival Games), that was out of their control, but they squeezed themselves into Dodgebolt anyway. I won't deny that they were lucky- MCC is unpredictable, so luck is often a factor, but I feel they could weather a storm.
Aqua29 is a nice team to watch live. They always bring it back, and I'm not just talking about placements or coins, it's also their morale. This team is going up with Blue9 and Purple15 as one of the competitive hermit teams with best overall team synergy. They were very stable and encouraging of each other <3
