The Low - Unity vs BK 2.0 [MSW #3]

Match Spotlight Weekly Issue #3
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Article #1 - Last Week's Predictions by Various

Sorry! Unavailable for this week's issue. Be sure to check our previous predictions and future predictions!​

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Updates by gamren

> Most matches will be livestreamed! We will be releasing a list of our streamers, their links, and hopefully schedules on which matches they can be present at, so look forward to that sometime in the future.

> We now have guest passes for community members that do not want to be involved with Match Spotlight Weekly but want to help out and commentate specific matches every now and then. These passes are very limited and will be handed out before matches, and will be removed right after. The referee of the match can at anytime limit the people and amount of passes that are allowed per match, as well as the rep of any teams involved. The blacklist will ALWAYS affect these passes. Guest passes will only be given to those that want to assist MSW in a form, and will not be given out at random. These passes can also be given to newer/inexperienced community members that want to learn about the team system and how matches work.

> The guest pass system is currently only a trial to see how it works, and if teams do not like this system, please send concerns to @gamren and we will remove the guest pass system with proper reasoning. ​

Notice
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Please do not ask MSW members for permission to spectate matches. We cannot speak for other reps and their wishes, so please ask both reps BEFORE matches. Referee consent will also be in play at all times if they wish. MSW can issue guest passes to those that wish to help out with things like commentating and related, but these passes are highly limited and will only be handed out to those that will add on to the quality of content covered by MSW. Passes are affected by the blacklist, referee preference, and refs/teams consent.

Team leaders/reps, you can always limit the amount of spectators that are in your matches if you wish. If you are bothered by the amount of spectators coming into your matches, then please feel free to pm your match referee and any concerns to gamren or MSW leaders/representatives. All we ask is that you may be thoughtful and fair if you do request to limit spectator numbers accordingly. Your match referee can also control the amount of spectators allowed.

If you have any questions, ideas, comments, or concerns, please feel free to message @gamren either in-game, on the forums, or on his skype (gamren40).​

Match Of The Week #2 - Unity vs Black Knights 2.0 by gamren
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Going into this match, BK was definitely a favorite and expected to take this win quite easily as shown from their past matches. Unity, although looking strong with recent roster additions, were questioned with their ability against the returning powerhouse called BK. A highly anticipated match, everyone was curious to see how this one would turn out.

Occurring on October First, the game was 8v8 with the maps being Valley of Ruin Original, Opposites Collide V, and Skyworlds (Rotation) in that respective order. Immediately starting into the game, both teams archers were having tremendous effects as they rained down arrows and decimated their enemies offense. @LordCh4os was noted at one point of the game for single handedly taking down the whole BK offense, a very respectable feat. Not many notable offensive events occurred due to the impact of archer until about 6 minutes in, when @8BitCyber stepped up and gained a clean steal, resulting in a capture for Unity. Afterwards though came another period of “nothing” as both teams struggled to get past the annoying archers. Finally a BK offensive push came through, leading to a BK capture to tie the game 1-1. With nothing else occurring afterwards, map 1 was indeed a tie with the same scores listed earlier.

Going into map two (Opposites Collide), BK gained a swift capture around 3 minutes in to gain a lead over Unity. Never giving up, Unity responded with a quick capture to yet again tie the game. After a long period of time, Unity broke the ice as @TomD53 led the charge, resulting in a capture for Unit, putting them in the lead 2-1 mapwise and 3-2 total. Nearing the end of the game, both teams stepped it up and held the flag to cause a stalemate, ultimately ending in a Unity capture to win the map 3-1, with an advantage of 4-2 going into map 3.

Map 3 (Skyworlds) was definitely quite interesting as there were many roster substitutes due to factors like lag and people having to go. Also on the side there were some hackusations, but we will not be getting into that. 4 minutes into the game, BK came out with a very close capture, making the last map 1-0 in their favor, with the total score being 4-3 in Unity’s favor. Although quite close, both teams offenses started to fall apart, and the game ended in a victory for Unity 4-3. ​

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Article #2 - Interview with LordCh4os by gamren

Anyhow, congrats on the win. What was the mood of your team before the match? Did you guys expect to win after BK's dominating win against TC?

Firstly, thanks. To be honest, I'm not really sure any of us were really expecting to win the match. We've been practising a lot recently but from my perspective I didn't think it was going that well. We'd been working on a lot of teamwork, but the effort didn't seem to be having any effect in the practises. It seemed to go much better in the match which is definitely something I was very surprised about. I didn't really go into the match expecting to win either just because of the strength of BKs roster. There's a lot of powerful people that I was worried we wouldn't be able to handle.

As for the mood, well it was really nervous, particularly from my end. We just wanted to do our best no matter the result. As we started to get into it and cap though, the mood began to improve dramatically. The moments when we were ahead were definitely the happiest I've ever seen some of the members


Nice, so the win must have felt very good to the team. Next question, what was the call like with incoming hackusations and ongoing banter?

LC- That added to the fun. Whether we lost or not we were determined to try and have as much fun as we could with the match, and we stuck to that. I think it's rather flattering if you're not hacking and yet still being hackusated because it means you have to be doing something pretty well. All of the members of course were playing in the call and so we could hear them controlling their players, so we knew that they weren't hacking. I suppose given the context the hackusations only really added to the elated feeling we got from the match, particularly after we managed to win. We tended to shrug off the banter, and treat it as if it wasn't serious. I'd hope that none of it was meant in a serious way, that would really spoil what we found to be a really good match


Alright, so it sounds like you guys had a lot of fun. Can we be looking forward to a BK vs Unity rematch in the near future?

Well, it's not really in my power to decide whether or not Unity rematches BK in the near future given I'm not a council member. With that said there are quite a few teams Unity hasn't faced yet and I think it would be more fun to try against those teams rather than to have constant rematches against the people we've already fought before. I definitely wouldn't throw the idea off the cards because you never know what will happen, but I'd hope there might be at least a couple matches with Unity involved versus some other teams before any rematch with BK.


Last question; You were killing it that match as archer, heck there was even one point where you wiped out the whole BK offense. What led to such great success for you during this match?

To be honest, I didn't really feel I did as well as I should have. Sadly I'd been ill for a couple days prior to the match and so I wasn't really on my best form. There are a couple things I think I'd have done differently with a clear head, particularly some of the short range encounters on Skyworlds. With that said, I've been practising archer for a good long time and it's given me a good chance to gain some experience in these situations. I guess it just gave me the edge I needed to be able to kill the people that mattered in the match, and of course to impact on the game. I suppose on another level it was also partly down to wanting to really pull my weight in the match. It's not fair each player on my side pulls their weight and then I let them down. And of course also there's the fact that BK's a really good team, I wanted to give them a good match as well


Awesome, ty for taking out some time to allow me to interview you! Gl to you and Unity in future matches!

Thanks! Good luck with the Newsletter!

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Article #3 - TT vs MI by gamren


Occurring on October 1st, the match was previously a 10v10, and then later changed to 9v9 due to player counts on MI. With recent wins, many people were looking forward to see how MI would do about the reigning powerhouse called TT.

Hopping right ingame, MI had what seemed to be an insanely strong looking defense, involving multiple buffed heavies, a ninja, assassin, and a pyro (+1 archer). At first this gave the TT offense quite some trouble until @Creux literally 1v3d the flag room for a quick and easy steal from @Snowleak14, resulting in a clean capture. MI recovery seemed to be strong as well, but with one downside: They would leave the flag room wide open when attempting to recovery. With this weakness exposed, TT went on to sweep MI 3-0 on map 1, but MI certainly gave them trouble.

Map two was TT’s legendary pick of Pagodas. Nobody expected 5 heavies (and an assassin up top) to be the defense of MI at the start of the map though, and @Hugmaster lasted not even a second upon showing his face in the flag room.​

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Putting the surprise strategy aside, MI then gained a pyro and moved their setup around. Still though, 3 buffed heavies doesn’t sound like fun. TT easily overcame this obstacle though with mobile classes and distractions, yet again sweeping MI 3-0. Although a clean sweep from TT, MI showed many interesting strategies, and props should be given to them on how they held out against what is believed to be CTF’s strongest team. ​

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Article #4 - Unattendance by patriq

> This is a new segment, nothing too special really. The MSW team can not always be of attendance to each and every official but we will still provide the scores for the community that enjoys reading our articles.

> BK vs MI (Scores 3-0 3-0 in BK favor)​

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Article #5 - DF vs TeamG by Regulations_

Occurring on October 2nd: A sunday. And what better way than to enjoy the eagles bye week than by watching CTF matches and Football. The highly anticipated “Clash of the titans” both of these storied teams went head to head. These teams have not squared off in a while and plenty of people were heavily awaiting this match. I for one was intrigued on how Genetics roster without some of their famed players like Quar and June, as well as Adam who left the team recently. Now without their defensive and offensive anchors will they hold up vs arguably the best ctf team? Lets find out.

Coming into this match it was originally a 10v10 but bumped down to 9v9. DF has had a lot of success recently with new additions like Gamren, Congruence, and Daniel. These new recruits helped boost DFs image as an active team. Although nobody questioned DF’s skill, ever since the TT match in the finals of last years tourney there was a lot of speculation that DF was losing its spot as the team to beat, due to lots of players getting a little less active (like many teams they too face activity challenges xP). But I think it's safe to say DF is back to normal, if not better, mainly due to the increase in matches, active recruits, and good leadership. Now let's take a look at Genetic, as i said before they were without June, Quar, Adam, and stud ninjas like Luna and Minehero. But nevertheless this was a very solid genetic roster. Headlined on offence by standout capper, Patriq, along with the formidable Sona. This team was not to be overlooked.

Now to the match. Game 1 was on the ever-so-loved Giant Chests. Many can agree that soldier would be the offensive class of choice. The game started out slowly, with genetic playing very defensively to counter DFs high powered offence with a 6 man defence. A steal or two by Patriq and Link were quickly recovered as well as a laggy stal by MonkeyCyclops that was handled promptly. Both teams seemed to be checking out what the other team had to offer before really going all in. About 7 minutes in Link and Sona both stealed. Sona seemed to have a solid route to Genetics flag but a well coordinated recovery lead by Obikenobi halted genetics attempt for a cap. Meanwhile Linkcookie had been out as a soldier and already almost to DF flag. Seconds later ot was 1-0 DF. The game finally opened up and about a minute later Pedru stole and was almost to DF flag as a pyro but was blindsided by Dunnydude and was swiftly executed by the assassin. Monkeycyclops stole soon after and got to midway but was bombarded by the DF recovery team and jammed into a wall. Lead by TheDarkness DF got yet another classy recovery. Meanwhile yet again Link was out as soldier and quickly making his was back for the second cap BUT a great snipe by Mh and a recov by lugia denied DFs attempts to go up by 2. As Genetic kept stealing DF’s wonderful recovery team kept on keeping Genetic from getting out far enough for a medic. With 8 minutes to go Link stole and went right down mid and was almost frenzied in front of DF flag but link got in for the cap just in time, with 1/2 a heart to spare. DF 2-0. Then almost instantly after he capped he went in for #3 and went right down the middle (seemed to be working) and passed it on to Suntail a little past mid. Suntail got to DF flag and did a cheeky little crouching dance (It would be a shame if someone were to steal or recover while he was doing that :3) In fact Sona did steal but DF shut him down. Then Suntail smartly capped. 3-0 DF gg.

Now for Game 2: Can Genetic pull of a comeback? Lets see. On to Genetic’s pick, Desert Strike III. This seemed to be a good map to counter DFs high powered offence with a closed in flag room made for a pyro-oriented defence. The sponges leading to mid could be a problem for both teams. As they take the user to midfield, which brings them much closer to support. This game started out much more high-paced. Both teams rather than taking the “Sitting with your toes in the water then slowly getting in the pool approach” seemed to go to a “Cannonball!!!!!” approach. As only about 2 minutes in Patriq had stole and was more than half way back before getting stuck in a brilliantly placed web by Rabious on the bridge. A chem steal by Suntail about 3minutes in, with great flagroom coordination as the pyro was eliminated by obi and pedru had healed Suntail. Suntail took the sponge to mid and got back on pretty much a solo run back to flag. Other than a good ninja bodyguard in Obi taking out the approaching Dunny. Suntail got the cap 1-0. Another steal by Sun a minute later looked promising after he got Genetic to go to the wrong side of flagroom after he stole but a solid recovery by MonkeyCyclops stopped him in his tracks. The flagroom was open for Link to elf steal, which he did but he appeared to lag out and was killed. A minute later (Man Genetic can't seem to catch a break D-: ! ) Pedru got out as medic and took the far right sponge out to the side of map and went on from their to get a simple cap. Well done so far on all sides of DFs game. The hope for a comeback was slowly dwindling. Only 6 minutes in 2-0. Seconds later a very well coordinated offencive strike by Genetic got in and out of DFs flag with relative ease for once. Patriq seemed to carry Genetics chances of a comeback on his soldier shoulders. At the same time DFs offensive machine was firing on all cylinders as Suntail stole yet again. After a Genetic hs on Suntail and a Lugia recovery, the flag was then stolen by Link, who got out as elf and was back to DF spawn. It was now into the stalemate faze. Which lasted all of 1 minute…. Link went for a pass. A debatable call but hey they were 2-0 up. Patriq was in for the cap and it became 2-1… is their hope??. A minute or so late Link was out again, he was back in front of DFs base and passed it to the legendary Wintergreen for the archer cap, Sona slowed her down by pushing her off the bridge under flagroom but Winter still got back up and through for the cap and DF had won. An archer cap won the game, who woulda thought?. Overall a fun game to watch and i'm sure both teams enjoyed themselves. 6-1 DF​

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Game One
Unfortunately twitch stream links aren't format-friendly for the forum's media, and it's currently the only available source for the match recording.
Click Here to see Game One!

Game Two
Click Here to see Game One


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That concludes this week's edition of Match Spotlight Weekly. Thank you for checking in, we will see you next week!​

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> Here is last week's edition.​

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