King's Corner - Issue 1

[Wrecktify]

Round One Recap:

The season kicked off with everyone's favorite map, Deathrose, and in typical fashion it led to some (thankfully) quick games.  In the East Division, several players finally got off the with their first wins (at least in this reporter's memory, which is admittedly not very good.)    SenorQuackers finally proved that 15 fiends are better than none in his thrashing of Maga's expert human usage.    Kajetan and his fellow muskateers teamed rightful winner htrt out outlasted a cat and Napoleon to show the alchemist can brew up a win.    SteppinRazor finally put the pieces together for the rounds most convincing win.  Meanwhile some guy named Wrecktify massed gryphons and towers and won his match too.

The West played out much more expectedly, however, with  Starshaped putting his ragey, impatient personality on the sidelines and taking home yet another win.    Lightweight! proved his orc reigns supreme in a serious beatdown of his opponents in WM2.    XoZ_Magadansky did what Maga does, and dominated from start to finish.   Wrapping up the West we had Rain winning his match as well, which makes you wonder whether or not anyone in the Eurozone will be able to challenge team DKH!

What to Watch For - Round 2:

• Will Players Show? -- Abysmal first round attendance was a big hit to the quality of play in round one.  Was such a large player pool and such a low-stakes regular season a mistake?  Given one can qualify for the playoffs with possibly only playing 2/4 games this season, this will be a good bellwether.
• Who will win? -- We saw upstarts in the East and the old guard in the West.  With 3/4 first round winners tied up in WM8 (Match of the Round) there will certainly be some new 25-point faces in the West.  Can players like  i.never.smile and  viki.so continue the upstart trend of the East? Maybe!
• Will Persuade use a real strategy?  He promised me so!  Will Ugril dual tech an FML record 108th game in a row?  I hope so!  Will Starshaped play seriously two games in a row?  We're all praying so!

Three Quick Questions: htrt.

1)  What made you want to come back to FML after so long?

2) You had a 300-style stand against a 3v1 in your first match, fairing better than anyone else could have.  Did you enjoy this game, or was is frustrating?

3)  What are your goals for the season?

YOU DECIDE! Round one Nominations!

Rules:  Since there were too many categories last season with too much ambiguity, we're gonna keep it simple (and do away with negative category.)  Cut, paste, respond with your nominees!

Best Match - (Match you could watch again and again.)
Best Move - (Feel free to add a screenshot if you want to be fancy.)
Best Diplomacy - (Player who best used chat to get the results they wanted)
Best Macro - (Aggregation of map control, resource management, creeping, etc)
Best Micro - (Player who did NOT lose 100 food to 3 towers and a militia.)

King's Corner
(Disclaimer: This is an editorial and does not reflect the views or stances of the rest of the administrative staff of FML.)

Rather than going on a rant every week, I will do my predictions here, which allows me to go on several rants in one piece.

EM5
viki.so
SteppinRazor
Mr.Sparkle
i.never.smile

Viki is experiencing new-to-FML-syndrome, and will probably struggle through the season.  IBS will probably ragequit after someone banish-bolts his ranger again, so it will come down to the two round one victors.  Steppin had a bad habit of fighting very bad fights the previous two seasons, but pulled it all together last week.  Mr.Sparkle persevered against, among other things, a zombie canadian juggernaut from the past and the march of the ents (move of the year, catlord.) in his first week, so its hard to pick against him.  It will come down to heroes, and Sparkle's MK/Pally will make life very sad for Steppin's nukebait heroes.

EM6
Persuade
PLZLEAVEDUCK
llVllaJiN
redkeekee.

If Persuade wants to play seriously, he'll grab HU and nuke the bejesus out of two UDs, and abuse the ballsack out of DS/Avatar against commander chippo.  I have zero faith that he wont simply random and go a 'fun' strat though, so hes out.  I finally remember Majin from TJOC, where he built atrocious deathstar bases with about 500 ziggurats.  As a dick-swinger he will find himself finally winning against RKK, since she doesnt have a penis.  However RKK will be offended someone is trying to out Sim City her, so she'll mass 500 APs.  With both RKK and Majin broke and armiless (but with 9-screen sized bases) it will become a 1v1 between Duck (DK/Lich/DR) and Persuede (Elf Ground, Kotg/firelord/Naga) 

EM7
Renaud
Surroundking sub Persuade
Wrecktify
htrt.

I dont think Seksi will show, which is a shame since he would be my pick to win the East had he showed for all his games.  Renaud and I have a habit of fighting to begin with, and now that I am an admin I have sworn an oath to super-suicide him.  I will be mid-toming him when Persuade will roll in with Bloodmage/tinker/pitlord and 20 griffs and kill me, cause thats fun.  And kewl.  Htrt will finish Renaud, who will proceed to gorge on poutine, then watch an epic 1v1 between Jon and Pers.  Jon will take it.

EM8
Ugrilainen
Mog[Skynet]
practicemage 
ATi.Bright

Louis will be mid-discussion of the state of Diablo II in 2006 with Practicemage right about when Mog rolls into his base with 40 faerie dragons and level 3 trueshot.  He will break his mouse when attempting to haze/bof them in vain, then hurl his new rig out the window and run off into the sunset, where he will live with the wolves.  Mage, distraught his nostaliga buddy was felled, will build 40 hippos to counter Mog's imbalance.  Mog will remember he doesnt care, and wander off.  Ugri, who at this point has 40k and tri-tech, will build one of every ground unit, and roll into Mages base, demanding a surrender.  Mage complies, earning France its first surrender in history.  Magnifique!

WM5
aQ.Gammel sub FML|Worpex
ONCE_FFA sub FML|Renaud
Pinballmap
alkorax FML|Wrecktify

Per admin rules, we will suicide Daselend the orc in the game.  Satisfied God's will be done we will all leave to let Worpex have some glory. 

WM6
lill0r
DkH.Starshaped
Q-veta
Fs.Jehu.

WM7
Slythe
gnom
iG.PARTYROCK
Camp_and_Spank

I actually think Slythe will win, Partrock wont show, and Camp will still fail to unleash his classic CS-style on FML.  But with everyone voting for Slythe, and with Gnom having the cutest avatar ever, I feel obligated to pull for him here. 

WM8
XoZ_Magadansky
DkH.Rain
Darkermirror 
Lightweight!

Should be the round of the week, not only because of the cast, but because hte last time Rain and Lightweight were together the game was pretty awesome.  It has all the makings of a good match -- good map, cast, and drama.  Maga v. LW is probably my favorite rivalry, because its so one-sided in reality (for Maga) and one-sided in fiction (Inside LW's mind).  Maga knows not to let LW mass gold and imba items, so I imagine he'll kill or neuter him early.  Rain is hard to get a read on, but I imagine he'll end up either fighting Darker or cleaning up LW.  Since Rain randoms and I only think he could beat Maga as orc, I will go ahead and pick Maga.  Also because I have a gaycrush on Maga.  Then again who doesnt?

[SteppinRazor]

Nice write up!  You should be the new anchor on sportscenter...err e-sportscenter I suppose haha

[FML|Mage]

10/10 would read again. 

Had me cracking up at a few points so well done Wreck.  The article itself was actually very well written, and your editorial style of writing makes it both amusing and informative (okay that part was a lie.)

Only criticism I might have is that it was too short.  That being said, I understand this probably took a while to write up as is and you don't have unlimited time.  I hope that you manage to keep doing this every week.

Maybe you want to think about including a guest piece in it somewhere?

Best Match - EM2.  Good combination of action and length. 
Best Move - Duck's garg surrounds.
Best Diplomacy - htrt refusing to try and to whine about being triple teamed.  How many people could honestly say that they would do that?
Best Macro - Wreck.  Made for a hell of a boring game but he ended with almost 10k banked and a fortress
Best Micro - Didn't watch every game, but of the ones I saw I would have to say Duck. 

P.S.  When are you announcing your pregnancy Wreck?

Edit:  Ever thought of doing a shoutcast or audio commentary?  I think you could be really good at it.

[FML|WorpeX]

Bahahahaha. Great write up! I was laughing my ass off for most of it. Hopefully no one takes these comments too seriously as this is all in good fun.

[FML|Renaud]

I can't tell if WM6 is empty because you forgot, or because there is nothing to talk about :P

[Wrecktify]

Haha thanks guys.  I was a staff writer for WCReplays for a while, my crowning achievement being able to interview ToD.  At which point I realized having to write seriously and kiss e-athletes asses was gay-to-the-max, and if I cant make fun of everyone (including myself) its no fun.   I dont think Bunny would have let me post this article, for example. 

Gonna try to get some post-game interview with players and do some writeups on the better games each round, this is kind of free form.  It was originalyl going to be me and Kruppe, so if anyone is interestied in a blurb on the next newsletter PM me 

@Ren -- I have to rewatch the Lilor and Jehu games.  Its hard for me to predict games when I have no clue who the players are (like my first few predictions when I first came back and didnt recognize anyone.)

[Redkeekee]

Best Match - EM4 only cuz the others were all like 20 mins or landslides.
Best Micro - HTRT
Best Macro - Sir Wrecktify
Best Diplomacy - Ugri's vicious blackmail forcing me and sparkle to give up parts of our base/army just to team with us!
Best Move -

[Redkeekee]

march of the ents.

[Slythe]

good idea and nice execution. i did not understand every word, but it was funny anyway  .

[Pinballmap]

A really well written excerpt.Well done Wreck

ps: Voted ofc for WM8

[gnom]

ahah great idea! and ty wreck for my avatar :) :)

[kazupi]

Really funny, well written! Hopefully gonna read this every round.

[Magadansky]

Good one wreck, very xozy.