The early days of q2wf were dominated by people with good network connections. 90% of the community then were on dial up so if you had some LPB's you were going to at least be competitive.
=UA= was the first top clan. =CC= was usually up there, but only because they turtled like mad. Guild Dracul was good for a minute, but their leader was a prick so they disbanded shortly after getting annihilated by the clan(who's name I can't remember) that would eventually form Legacy. HO! was a clan of friends who would all play together at their workplace so they always had sub 20 pings. They were undefeated for a while until the =PCI= crew got together with their sub 20 pings and beat em. HO! disappeared right after that. I still remember being jealous of that match cause it was the first full LPB match I'd ever seen. Legacy was good at the beginning mostly because of Snow and Twitch. {IS} was starting to come around before I left in January of 99. Last time I played was a Legacy vs {IS} scrimmage that we won handily.
I wasn't around for the [SR], :RR: days. I had heard of them when I got back around computers but by then the golden age of clan matches was gone.