After five weeks of play, standings have become a choke point toward the top, with scant room for error as lower-seeded teams are a mere 6-8 points away from claiming first place.
League Week 4:
This week's tilts included a a 2-1 match advantage for Arts & Crafts over Easy Kills. While we did fairly well on the first few maps, our team lost momentum on the wide open Graveyard map and our Dominator was persistently targeted by the other team. As a result, our offense suffered slightly and we gave up a 0-5 win to Easy Kills. Well played on their part as they brought a Stalker to provide an extra damage boost; Stalker epics, especially "Sharks", do a tremendous amount of damage thanks to the new damage per activation ruleset.
In other matches, Exile overcame 0utcazt 7-5, 4-0 and 1-2, Broken Chains won 3-0, 1-0 and got a 0-0 draw while dUmb's match vs. Single Target Assassins went from a 9-8 shooting gallery to a tightly contested 0-0 draw and a nailbiting 1-2 loss in Perez Park. The Perez match was a squeaker at all levels, as dUmb scored an early kill but STA clawed back and scored a mid-game and very late-game kill as well, snatching victory.
This week was a fairly quiet one from a meta standpoint, with no votes and little drama expressed on anyone's part.
League Week 5:
This week will be more notable by the loss of (at least?) two ladder teams. 0utcazt, who have a great cadre of disruption and attack scenarios, bowed out after dissatisfaction with events during the fight nights and internal discussions as well. They'll be missed as they certainly have two of the most vibrant players on the server in ELF STALKER and Budweiser. We wish them well. For the record, their last matches were a 1-0 win and two 0-0 draws vs. Easy Kills.
dUmb won by forfeit over GDHRT, who also seem to be heading to better and bigger things.
Broken Chains, a team with a good amount of potential and some fun players, decided the League wasn't for them and have called it a day as well. Single Target Assassins defeated them 6-0 in Outbreak and then received two forfeits as well.
Arts & Crafts played decently against Exile but couldn't crack more than one win against them. A 1-2 loss in Atlas Park preceded a 2-0 win on the same map in match two. The third map (random) was Striga Isle; our team generally does quite well on open maps but we stumbled in this one, dropping a 0-4 decision to Exile, good job you guys!
In closing this week's column, we'd like to thank PerilX for all the PvP fun. From the early days of Test with HVND to the Freedom Ladder and even offering some great support and teaming in Arts & Crafts, Peril's one PvPer that doesn't take himself or the game too, too seriously. A vari-talented PvPer, he's as comfortable in a disruption role as he is healing or on offense. Outside of that, his ability to settle things down in our group was fantastic. Peril also put in yeoman's work in the PVPEC and by producing Glad Jav procs seemingly out of thin air, much to our appreciation.
Hard to follow all that action on a YouTube vid, but here's one of dUmb vs. U2BG (Used 2 Be Good) in the Freedom Ladder earlier in the year.
U2BG vs. dUmb, 7-7 tie.
GLHF Peril and everyone.
