Status: Finished
Match: 9L vs. take over
Date: 22nd of November 2009, 20:00 CET
Maps: ns_veil, ns_metal
9L: Almaty (merc ns_veil marine), dux, Fana, koetje, morphz, pantsu, Sublime
take over: beefcake, Danny, franky, king_yo, s4druid, Scale, x-man
Result: 1 – 3
Downloads: HLTV demo
Recap
Not a good day in 9L land. With three commanders you would imagine we have it covered, but unfortunately that isn’t the case. Sherpa lost his connection to Steam and couldn’t reconnect, while our two other comms were nowhere to be seen. And if that wasn’t enough, the plugin malfunctioned and refused to let Sublime join on our ns_veil marine round. We tried our best to cope under the circumstances and I think we did fairly well, but it wasn’t enough.
I’m actually pretty happy with our alien rounds, even if the score doesn’t reflect it. We lost both rounds, but it was mostly due to specific mistakes. Our scouting was abysmal, letting them get PGs up all over the map without any opposition and my Fading was worse than ever. There’s a good chance you’ll be seeing me do something else in our next matches. With some more practice I’m confident we can work out these issues and more however. Taking on Saunamen in the semi final is going to be a monumental task, but we’re going to give it our best shot.
As for a quick and dirty recap, here goes: We started out as alien on ns_veil, with a spunky new strat. We controlled the game fairly well early game, but let them get a PG up in C12 unopposed. They quickly reacted to the Hive being dropped and with me completely failing as Fade, it was game over. Second round marine we decided to shotgun rush, as we didn’t have a comm. Unfortunately the plugin malfunctioned and refused to let Sublime join the team, so we had to do it with five players. We made a good effort, but failed to kill the hive. After a quick map change, take over agreed to replay the last round. After a lengthy debate between the teams, we got Almaty from UGO to merc as commander. We tried to play it properly, but as is often the case when you play with a comm you’ve never played with before, things got very confusing. We pretty much got rolled and the score was 2-0 to take over.
Change of scenery to ns_metal, with 9L starting as aliens again. This was pretty much a repeat of the ns_veil round. Solid control early game, followed by horrible Fading and confusion mid to late game. On marines we once again opted to go for the cheesy shotgun rush, after some group therapy on vent (read: rage). Take over quickly realized what we were doing and dropped SCs. Hilarity ensued, but in the end we managed to come out on top through mixed skill, luck and OP mines. Round very much worth watching.
Thanks to take over for replaying the round where the plugin malfunctioned and to Almaty for stepping in as merc one round.
Preface
This week’s top match and Group B’s deciding match, as old school meets new school. We’ll be facing take over, the recently formed clan that stole franky from us earlier this season. We’ve been slowly but steadily improving lately, while they’ve been simmering on a reliably high level since day one. There’s no denying that they’re the favourites going into this match, but we’re going to do our best to put those predictions to shame.
Not only is this going to be a very exciting match to play and watch, it’s also of great importance to both teams. The winner of this match is likely going to win the group, and thereby getting the number one seed for the semi finals. A likely prediction would be that the winner of this match faces UGO, while the loser faces Saunamen. While both Saunamen and UGO are formidable opponents, UGO seems like the easier route to the final. I’m sure both teams are well aware of this, and the combination of prestige and rewards should make it a very tense match indeed.
