Week 2 update
From 12 teams, down to 8. This is where the business end of the tournament begins, as teams are eliminated and the final brackets start to take shape.
There were in total 5 matches this weekend, with 1 x winners bracket being fought, and a second winners bracket match being forfeited the day beforehand.
To kick off the weekend, the sole AP (mixed NZ/Australian) team in the semi finals (Clan Crossfire), faced off against the primarily German Phoenix Legion.
Both teams were well and truly prepared in advance, and this (to date) has been least time between drops in the tournament.
The first drop was taken by CXF 8-5 on Rubellite Oasis, capitalising on some early mistakes by Phoenix Legion, ending in a decisive envelopment by the remaining CXF mechs to wipe out the last of PHL.
Drop 2 showed the near invulnerability of the Commando chassis on Frozen City, Knivez of CXF managing to tank down to 7% health before finally going down.
Both teams, after initially having a light engagement at Theta elected to settle it in the upper city in a slugfest (despite both teams fielding ERLL and ppc's).
Final score: 8-5 in favour of PHL, taking this best of 3 match to a decider.
To round out the set the two teams faced off on mining collective. PHL came out aggressively out of the blocks, and despite some desperate fire from their mechs as they were being swarmed, CXF struggled to deal with the aggressive right side push from PHL, who won the drop 8-1. PHL advance, and CXF are the first team in the semis to be eliminated.
Next up, an EU vs EU match, with NOT Dropship 5 (A mix of EU, OC and NA pilots) facing off against The Gudron Synergy (a Russian collection of pilots who primarily play faction warfare together), again in a best of 3 series.
Drop 1 was fought on Boreal reach, and despite every single mech for Not D5 being either cherry red or sub 66%, ended the match 8-1 victors.
Drop 2 was fought on Mining Collective, and featured a costly early mistake from Ghogiel of D5x who over extended and was punished for it. This provided a clear basis for Gudron's 8-2 victory, and set up another tie breaker to decide the set.
Drop 3 was a comp classic for veterans of previous years world championships, with Tourmaline Desert being the stage.
Gudron's biggest mistake in this match was to not take account of how large the map was - their 3 man light pack moved to Gamma at the north of the map after surrendering an early cap lead to D5x, which allowed D5x to exert pressure on the remaining Gudron mechs with very little risk in return. D5x won by caps in the end, 6-2.
D5x advance to the next round, and Gudron become the second team to be eliminated from the tournament.
Next up was the first winners bracket match (best of 5) of the tournament, between Russian Jade Falcon and Oops it's the wild ones.
RJF are one of the oldest units in MWO, having formed initially during Mechwarrior 2, with many pilots having played together from the earliest days of comp in MWO, and through multiple world championships together.
OOPS it’s the wild ones is a conglomerate of pilots from 228, Oops, PHL, Emp and ARMD to name but a few, all from various time zones.
On drop 1 it was Rubellite Oasis. Jay Z and Poly Cat baited RJF into a costly early push, allowing Oops to dominate the engagement - watching Bowser's Annihilator cleaning up with 5 of the kills one after another once he reached the engagement was a sight to behold! Drop ended in favour of Oops 8-1.
Mining Collective was next up, and RJF clearly had a point to prove, capitalising on some costly early positioning mistakes by Oops and taking the drop 8-1 in turn.
With the set tied at 1 apiece, we moved onto Frozen City, scene of RJF's very impressive wolf pack from last week.
Their play was extremely similar to then, with 3 x overwatch assaults trading, whilst a 5 man wolf pack pinned the opfor in the upper city after an early scrap over theta.
Strikes played a big part in damage suffered here - whilst Bowser pulled out a massive 909 damage/3 kills, RJF had too much of a cap lead for he and Poly Cat to kill the remaining 2 RJF mechs or decap prior to the end of match occurring. RJF took the drop on caps, with the kills tied at 6-6.
Flush with momentum after back to back wins (and given how late it was getting in Russia likely wanting to go to bed), RJF came out of the gates on Hibernal Rift swinging - this match was over in 3:25, with a fast and merciless push by RJF ending the drop 8-0. Again, strike placement played a massive part in damage numbers, with Doobix pulling 696 damage in just over 3 minutes.
The series thus ended 3-1 in favour of RJF.
With Oops moving to the losers bracket, RJF continue on to face off against JGx next week, who advance due to peepeepoopoo being unable to field 8 players in what was a disappointing moment for the comp community as a whole.
Next up was the second last match of the evening, with Diamond Shark (DSx) facing off against Smoke Adders -373- (SA). This was an EU v NA match in the losers bracket (Bo3).
Diamond Shark are largely a group of pilots who play faction warfare together, with a couple of experienced pilots who've had previous exposure to comp such as Nightbird and Fess Faulk. Smoke Adders are a long term comp team who've added some new faces to their roster since the end of the last player run tournament.
On Frozen City, Diamond Shark from T1 yielded map and cap control in favour of a fast, decisive push, with streaks, mrm's and fast movers such as IV4's, Gargoyles and Hatamoto Chi's. The experience of Smoke Adders showed here, as they simply shifted position and kept putting distance between them and Diamond Shark's push. By the time DSx's mechs could actually engage they'd shed so much armour it was a slaughter, with the drop ending 8-0 in favour of SA.
Next was Hibernal Rift, again with DSx favouring a decisive push tactic, which unfortunately (for them) didn't quite work out - despite the score ending 8-3 in favour of Smoke Adders this was much closer than the previous drop, with DSx at one point having a chance to really heavily punish SA before retreating back into the valley next to Theta. Every single remaining mech for Smoke Adders on the field was heavily damaged, with Unfearing the healthiest mech on the field at 57%.
With the score ending 2-0, DSx were eliminated, and Smoke Adders move onto the next round.
To finish off the weekend's matches, we saw Doq Squad (NA) - primarily the second Oops team filled out with pilots from 228 Wild Ones, face off against Ghosts Of Nox (NA), a long term faction warfare unit who've steadily progressed up the comp standings over the past few seasons as they've learned the ropes and built their familiarity with it.
Drop 1 - Rubellite Oasis. GNX set up ready to receive an aggressive push with a trading deck.
Three factors were decisive in this match - Dog Squad were ready to go for caps with a commando, which GNx had no ready made counter to, yielding cap control for the entirety of the match. GNx also lost their Anni pilot to a disconnect halfway through the match, though this was not a deciding factor. Finally, the fact Dog Squad weren't pushing meant GNx spent a significant amount of time repositioning to get shots off, whilst Dog Squad from the outset were set up in favourable positions to overwatch. The match was won on caps, with the kill count at 5-2 in favour of Dog Squad.
Drop 2 - Mining Collective. Often you'll see teams react to going down by a drop by panicking or over committing in an attempt to force a comeback, losing their cool and their tactical awareness of the overall situation in the process. This wasn't the case here - the match was very close on caps (614-750), but Dog Squad surrendered too much armour for caps early on, which meant when GNx had patiently whittled them down they could retake the caps as well as the kills. 8-3 in favour of GNx here, and onto the tiebreaker.
Drop 3 - GNx's positioning in the lower ridge next to Epsilon cost them dearly here. Dog Squad correctly identified where GNx's main force would be, and quickly (within 2.5 minutes) had eliminated 3 of GNx's mechs in exchange for 1 of their own. The match snowballed from there, with Dog Squad taking the drop 8-3, for a series win of 2-1.
In closing, the following teams were eliminated this weekend:- Ghosts of Nox
- Diamond Shark
- The Gudron Synergy
- Clan Crossfire
The following teams move to the loser's bracket:- peepeepoopoo
- OOPS it's the wild ones
The following move to the next stage of the winner's bracket:- Russian Jade Falcon
- 1st Jaguar Guards
And the following teams progress to the next stage of the loser's bracket:- Dog Squad
- Smoke Adders -373-
- NOT Dropship 5
- Phoenix Legion
MWO CS 2020 - Loser Bracket - PHL v CXF
https://youtu.be/o-8Igit6KYY
MWO CS 2020 Losers Bracket NOT Dropship 5 v The Gudron Synergy (EU)
https://youtu.be/6rVf1phgIxc
MWO CS 2020WB OOPS v RJF
https://youtu.be/Ywa8wyv0qLY
MWO CS 2020 Losers Bracket SA v Diamond Shark
https://youtu.be/pvdjEztnxEU
MWO CS2020 LB Ghosts of Nox (NA) V Dog Squad (NA)
https://youtu.be/vjiGE5NZ3fQ
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Edited by live1991, 22 November 2020 - 06:32 PM.
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