Review by Duck-Face Killah - Overview This match was a surprise for me, because I thought it was a blowout. Watching the match, it seems that MBA miscues and some mental innovations combined for some exciting chances. Although Mental seems to be held back by inexperience, it also seems to be their greatest asset as they are utterly unafraid of so-called unconventional tactics.
While they still don't quite have the grasp of strategy that would make them a true Contenda, anyone who saw these films would not be surprised they made it this far.
If there's a myth world cup next year, I sure hope these cats continue to improve, because they are certainly fun to watch.Game 1 - Flag Rally on Lichen unto Death Final (light) Wow.
Right off the bat, I can tell that mental is the coolest team in this tournament. Kick ass tags, a General from the red light district, Ninja Turtle Archers (!!!!!!!), and MacGuyver style tactics:
This is definitely a team to watch.
In the blue corner, we have the heavy favorites for this match. The Body Counters, a motley mix of Abercrombie & Fitch, steroids, THOR god of THUNDER, led by the worst alias-picker in the 10-year history of Myth, this team wants, nay, needs QR differential.
Let's see what happens.
MBA (white) from the southwest sends most everything mid with a small S rush. The mid forces (shitloads of archers), are suddenly stalled at finding:
a) a huuge mental temple defense, heavy on the arty,
and
b) a roaming rushpack mid, discouraging any S support.
Unfortunately for mental, they don't even scout far S, sending a puny garrison to the SE flag with little warning that it's about to be crushed.
However, MBA leaves NO DEFENSE on either W flag, and Kythras's GeneralXXX mounts the offensive.
With mid holding strong, it's now a race for both team's backflags... mental has basically no defense, and Mate's roaming warrpack decides it's better to stall mid than risk dying while stalling NE for time.
At the SW corner, Jotun sends back his gen/duff to interrupt Kyth's dirty mission. However, in a chance meeting of captains, HMP rears his roaming ghols and pusses the would-be cockblock into submission. Dwarfless, Jotun sends his general SW anyway to get mauled by Kythras. Get a salve.
MBA tags first... but now the game has been reduced to capture the flag... and mental has 84% to MBA's 71%!!!!! THEY'RE GOING TO DO IT!!!! THEY'RE GONNA GET IT!!! CALL THE UPSET POLI—
Wait... wait just a minute... MBA plays the wary turtle, and mental closes in around its shell.
HMP sends "all but Wis[muth]" on offense, but Wis goes and PowrUp stays in his stead (a smart choice. if you have two arcs and a dorf, and you need to defend a flag at all costs, what better player to do it than a gru).
MBA has abandoned all hope of attacking at this point, and it's up to mental to lay siege to the MBA temple...
...aaaand here comes the push!
Mate's warrs get pussed by thor but tie up equal numbers...
Wismuth gets a dwarf IN RANGE and!!!.....
a fire arrow to the heart, courtesy of THOR, dashes the hopes of the would-be liberators.
There are two main reasons mental didn't take the last flag:
1) early on, Kythras gets a little too close & carelss with his CB'ing duff, and loses it doing not much damage. This hurts quite a bit, as there is no better weapon for laying siege on lichen than the gen/duff combo. (especially when MBA had already suicided their own)
2) THOR. You animal.
Game 2 - Territories on Caer Cadarn (Trow) Caer Trow Terries, no strategy?
Don't tell that to mental.
Up against a heavy favorite, they confidently throw a 3-flank strat at a conventionally all-mid game, but come up short mostly due to inexperience.
MBA runs the middlepottamus, while mental flanks a trow and 2 fetch per N and S flanks. Interestingly, while mental seems to intend for the soulless to help defend the mid assault, their mid force (which has most of the mental fetch) holds in the middle forest, too far away from either mountain for the souls to help.
Without much else to defend, mental's soullers turn to mid to hold off the masses (which seem content to sit on the island). However, MBA sank wights behind the middernaught, and both gabba and powrup suffer massive casualties. Mental flanks their wights, but the waterwar is long over before they can even come close to affecting anything.
Besides the wightings, there's one main factor that dooms the mental scheme:
In a 3-flank strat, the flanks HAVE to push hard in order to make up for the bulging pressure on your wayyy-undermatched mid stalling force. If your opponent sends anything less than your flank, then you should consider those forces as waving the white "rape me" flag, and give them no less than the full geneva convention.
Whatever the case, you have to push. Otherwise the only fight going on is the one featuring your teammates vs. 3 trow.
As bizarrely as MBA's mid stands and watches alric's tattered army, the mental mid decides to attack uphill against larger numbers with three trow behind them after all the soulless have died... yeah.
As expected, the MBA middlepottamus wipes the floor, and then gobbles up each smaller flank, one by one.
Game 3 - Capture The Flag on Grilling Grounds (Light) 
Unfortunately, this game isn't that interesting.
Both teams basically go all mid, but MBA flanks a trow and 8 zerks to the flag. When mental sees this, they order both trow back to the flag. This proves to be an unfortunate decision, as on Grilling Grounds, the trow are really the movers and shakers of this map. Case in point: although technically, HMP's 2 trow (48 pts) occupies a an equal force (DA's 1 trow + 8 zerks = 48pts) in the standoff, it is a LOT harder elsewhere for 8 mental zerks to have the same kind of impact as, say, THOR's trow (as he wrought havoc on mental's artillery).
Mostly due to this, MBA builds up a large lead, then closes in on the flag after mental retreats. Mental just can't quite coordinate the D well enough, and MBA guns them down, but not before DA walks his red trow in front of friendly arcs, losing a whole MWC point.
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