S20 - Week 2 Recap

[FML|red7z7]

This past week saw the wrap-up of the first round of qualifiers. There have been a lot of upsets so far this season, which means a few of you have been getting really great payout on your bets (ahem Persuade). Without further ado, congratulations to this past week's winners:

Ludix
Tleilaxu
AlienWareOwnZ
SuperPrometeusX (no points gained as sub)
CallMeImba
Noexxx
Malboy

Twilight Ruins Matches


Q2:
Nooblex spawns in a surround between Qwest (lower left) and SuperPrometeusX (upper left), with Brainman alone on the right. SPX and Brain were subs for TorpedoBuster and Noexxx. Noexxx was not able to play due to scheduling conflict and ended up in Q8, while TorpedoBuster was dropped from the league for complete inactivity. Everyone takes their 3 expos, although Nooblex struggled to do so versus the bottom red camp, nearly losing his panda. Blex was the first to break 50 food, going hard on Qwest, while SPX and Brain form a short peace before Brain hits SPX's expo. Qwest rises up to 100 food gargs and is able to fight back Nooblex all the way to his base, where Nooblex surrenders and gg's. Brain and SPX continue to battle until Qwest gets involved, at which point Brain had over 2x the gold of his opponents and transitions to necrowagon. Despite SPX having the least gold, he is teamed until Brain and Qwest are satisfied and the teaming turns towards Brain. Brain lands a huge Death and Decay on SPX's main and towers, but they soon find Brain's necrowagons with their pants down in the middle of the map, marking the beginning of the end for Brain's main base. The power shifts again, this time with Brain and SPX teaming side-by-side against Qwest, where he loses his heroes and base. SPX then reveals he has gyros and begins a dual-assault on Brain with gyros and Qwest with heroes and tanks. Qwests last wyrms/gargs are not enough to stop him from being based. Then it all comes down to a final attack on Brain's last buildings/ high-level undead heroes. SPX's assault was enough to clinch victory.

Q7:
We got Malboy and DV- surrounding LifeForRent on the left side, while Bryan has the best spawn alone on the right. LFR started the action with a rush on Malboy's expansion. Malboy was able to bounce back and take down LFR. Meanwhile Bryan and DV- creep the rest of the map, expo, and hoard nicely. The game moves quickly into a 3-way hoard. Bryan open's up fire on DV- which is followed by heavy teaming on Bryan with his big orc heroes. Bryan is able to take DV- down, and Malboy has a good head-start on the 1v1 with mass TP and up 7k to the 2k of Bryan. Bryan beat army after army from Malboy and established a couple mines for a short time. This close 1v1 carried on with both players broke. Malboy was able to take down the harassing BM while it was away from the rest of the army before the final fight. Then Malboy was able to finish it, and Bryan taking his 11 points for top score.

Q5:
In this game, Audigy and Ludix had close spawn on the top of the map, while Wreck and SweeT had the right and left, respectively. Each player took his 3 expos soundly. Wreck opened up aggression on SweeT, which was soon discontinued as Wreck noticed Audigy building a proxy necropolis outside his base, and necrowagon incoming. Audigy goes balls-deep with 3 sappers to take down Wreck's expo. The 1v1 swapped for SweeT and he then had to go up against Ludix's orc army which was well-prepared for fighting against dryads. Audigy and Wreck trade units for a bit at first, with Wreck coming out ahead. Meanwhile Ludix took a massive lead against SweeT, reaching up to 20k gold. Wreck and Audigy made a soon-to-be-temporary peace while Wreck sought to balance the power of Ludix. Ludix fights Wreck at his base, TPs out, and then Audigy comes in to try to finish Wreck. Wreck ends up essentially finishing Audigy instead while Ludix finishes SweeT, although Audigy holds on with a few buildings and revives his heroes. Audigy harasses Wreck's buildings while Ludix cleans up the game.

Deadlock Matches


Q10:
htrt and Duck start with close spawn on the top left, with Seksi and Tleilaxu taking the right-side corners. Duck picks up a panda for his 3rd hero with ghouls/aboms and clashes with htrt who goes pala, BM, MK rifles. Tleilaxu and Seksi hoard for a bit before Seksi goes on Tlei's expo, having DR first as orc. A great abom/wyrm fight happens at htrt's base and htrt is able to fight it off, gaining the upper hand against Duck. After htrt takes down a couple of Duck's expos, Duck then launches his final army at Seksi, loses all and gg's. The middle phase of the game consists of a lot of Seksi running away from htrt's army, while charming many units, and htrt picking units off with banish and stormbolt. Seksi has about 2x the gold of either opponent. Then teaming on htrt for a bit before htrt launches a massive assault on Seksi's base, in which he is forced to TP. However, Tlei siezes the opportunity to finish off Seksi's main right after the battle, with Seksi still at 10k gold. Seksi and htrt looked to be moving toward Tlei together, but then end up fighting one another instead. Tlei bases htrt, and seksi does not have enough to fight Tlei in the end. A well-played patient game by Tleilaxu who was able to strike like a cobra at just the right moment.

Q9:
My personal vote for match of the week! It was a pleasure to watch this game live not knowing who would win till the very end. The match started off with all players uncharacteristically going random. Mog spawned lower left, Seksi spawned bottom right, with AlienWareOwnZ and fow sandwiched in a double surround between them. Alien started aggression on seksis right-hand expo, while fow expands across map and throws a small harass at Mog. Neither surrounded player is able to break out, and Alien falls back on his base and seksi levels up his DR/panda. Meanwhile, Mog levels up against fow in the other 1v1, but turns-down for WHAT? To keep toming of course while saving massive bank. Teaming then happens against Seksi in the middle phase of the game, as seksi nearly goes extinct -- but he hangs on by a thread, building enough scattered buildings to revive his heroes and scrape together a chim army in the corner. During this, teaming then happens against Mog, while fow and Alien are able to hoard. It comes down to a base race on Seksi while Mog's high level orc heroes continue to be a threat. Ultimately seksi is based out, Mog only has a BM to cast bladestorm alongside fow's last stand, and Alien is able to clean up the match with mass TP.

Q8:
Noexxx and Vyvanne start with close spawn in the top left, with Ostone bottom mid and Lightweight mid-right. There was a steady start by all players taking their expos with no rushes. Noexxx and Vyvanne choose panda and begin by clashing over Vyvanne's natural expo. Noexxx was hungry for battle from not being able to play his original match due to scheduling conflict, and subbing KenoStrikesBack in this game. He then takes the upper hand against Vyvanne. On the other end of the map, Ostone clashes with Lightweight in back-and-forth trades. After finishing Vyvanne, Noexxx doesn't hesitate to go onto Ostone and take out his main. Lightweight goes 100 to stop Noexxx, but mass TP is a great advantage on the side of Noexxx. Ostone BM harasses while he can but is based. The hero and gold deficit for Lightweight could not be overcome and Noexxx takes it home.

Q12:
We got another double surround with WarchiefRich on the top right outside, Hudkraem and CallMeImba on the inside on the right, and Screpi on the bottom outside. WCR is the first two get up 2 expos, with CallMeImba soon to follow, however -- his mid expo falls to WCR harass. Hudkraem takes the safe cross-map expo and builds the htrt hero combo. WCR then aggros on screpi next. Early teaming against WCRs non-stop aggression ensues, with an unfortunate disconnect by Screpi. WCR continues to attack all his opponents by going on Hudkraem next, while CMI simultaneously takes down WCR's expos. WCR is worn thin on gold, loses a big battle to CMI and says gg. Hudkraem hanging on in tatters from WCRs attacks, does not have enough hero levels or production buildings to make an army to match CMI, and it's a straightforward cleanup for CMI.


Thanks for checking in this week, and if you haven't taken notice yet -- Mage has posted the round 2 matches, so go schedule your games and best of luck in week 3!

[FML|Mage]

Awesome work!

[CallMeImba]

Good job! 

[Wrecktify]

Nice writeups.  The last batch up them actually made me watch a few games, and this group will as well :)