As ever, any offence is not intended and I am trying not to be too biased!Introduction
There were 3 big games in the 2008 Squad Tournament last week as the top 6 places started to be sorted out. The community voted on who they thought would win, and the votes & results went like this...
SysX 11 - 30 PK.... SysX wins
RT 23 - 19 XT.... RT wins
ACE 45 - 4 GB... ACE wins
So, the System X are safely through to the final of the competition, having beaten GB, ACE and most recently PK to reach the final. But who will have the honour of facing them in the final? That will be decided in this Sunday's "last chance saloon" showdown between Palidor's Knights and Rolling Thunder.
Palidor's Knights
As the 2nd ranked team in the competition, PK as expected beat RT and XT to get their first chance of reaching the final last week, where they were beaten by the top-ranked team, SysX.
Last match review
PK (IC) built an expansion but then invested fairly heavily in a shipyard rather than in upgrading their expansion. In the meantime SysX (belters) engaged in a bold expansive strategy, and did a very good job of disrupting PK's economy thanks to their tac. Ultimately this economic advantage won them the game as PK's capital ships were destroyed by belter dis2/df2 ints (dis2/df2 ints just sounds wrong!). However PK's top commander aarmstrong (with apologies to Orion) was not available for this game (rumours of a hot date have been denied by aarmstrong in favour of a "meal with friends/family" story) - perhaps if he had been around, and Saxy had not been persuaded into investing in shipyard by a certain vocal member of PK's team, things would've worked out different.
-------------------------------------------
PK have been one of the dominant squads of the last couple of years, and they would dearly like to win the tournament to underline this. They beat RT last time they met, and beat SysX in their last but one meeting, so belief is not a problem. Aarm has recently declared SysX (or spidey?) PK's nemesis, so desire will be high to reach the final and beat SysX where it really matters. Their talent is not in question, comprising of many AZ/FZ players (such as Aeris, Shotgun), some former Cadets who have been around a while (eg juckto, ogorass) and some talented acquisitions from other squads (such as apochboi, Correct/IB and former RT pilots da_muck and fingerbang). However they are not invincible, having lost to both the other teams in the competition in recent months.
Rolling Thunder
Whereas PK have played only 3 games up to this point, RT have played 5 games, losing to PK earlier in the competition, but defeating the lower-ranked Roman Legion (SPQR), as well as the higher-ranked Steel Fury (SF), Wildcards (ACE) and XenoTech (XT). They have out-performed all expectations and predictions by reaching this stage and defeating two such well-regarded teams.
Last match review
In a surprise move, XT flew as pheonix - a rare appearance for the community-made faction in a squad game. RT stuck with tried-and-tested IC and it worked really well for them, as they destroyed XT's opening constructor and went on to wreck havoc with XT's economy thanks to an exp followed by an ad sup and some excellent int/fig piloting. XT never got going as RT mined unhindered, destroyed the two cap ships XT managed to buy and finished the game off with bombers within 40 minutes. It was a surprisingly poor showing by XT but take nothing away from Rolling Thunder, as they did everything right in winning the game in a controlled manner, not bombing until a significant advantage was secured and working well as a team to kill miners and cap ships - including XT's last miner which was defended by an turreted attack cruiser.
--------------------------------
RT are the underdogs of the campaign and have had a fantastic competition thus far. If a poll had been done prior to the competition to see where the community thought RT would finish, the results would probably have been something like 20% 6th or below, 60% 5th and 20% 4th place (where they finished last year). RT's own chief was aiming for 5th place, so to be in the top 3 is nothing short of sensational for this squad once thought of as "enthusiastic newbies" who 3-4 years ago were getting beaten resoundingly by squads who had been around a lot longer. 9 of the 14 players who played against XT have been part of the squadron for at least 3 years - these guys have come a long way. Their team spirit is arguably second to none - they have been through so much together over the years - getting repeatedly stomped in squad games before finally starting to become competitive, and a few incidents resulting in some members leaving appears to have only made them stronger.
Previous tournament meeting
As previously alluded to, the two teams played each other earlier in the competition, on Sunday 28th September (weekend 2). It was IC vs IC on limited diamond. RT started off quite well, harassing cons & miners quite a bit, but gradually things started to fall apart, especially when it became clear that there was only one U rock on the whole map and it was in a very good position for PK to claim and defend (RT had to walk about 7k across a sector to bomb it). PK also managed to have most of the map to themselves, killed miners aplenty as RT's enh fighters (I think we got a sup rather than just tac?) were no match for PK's interceptors. PK won within bombers in around 50 minutes AFAIK.
RT's commander on the day commented that he was outcommanded, but also that if the U rocks were distributed more evenly the game would've gone on a lot longer.
In summary....
PK are admired for their skill and arguable the best commander in the game. However RT's incredible run has caught the imagination of many a member of the community, as reflected in more people tipping them to beat XT than to lose to them last week.
PK did defeat RT in their last meeting, two factors being a below-par day at the office for RT's commander and the distribution of the rocks. If these two factors are not present in Sunday's match, we could have a real hum-dinger of a game going on. Already there is hype building regarding the final, but I think this match could be every bit full of excitement and quality, if not more.
These two squads are quite familiar, in their last but one game RT beat PK in the (in)famous Orion is correct game in August 08 which must give RT some hope. Also, RT played a combined SRM/PK team in August in a truly epic 4 hours 10 minute game, which RT eventually lost. Could we see another marathon game of endurance this weekend?
This should be a close match and is a tough one to call. You'd have to make PK slight favourites due to their quality and better record in beating top teams but RT are a solid outfit nowerdays and the fairytale could yet go on. A big turnout is expected, with both squads showing 20+ pilots last week.
-----------------------------------
A note on the poll this week - since there is only one game I added another question just to make analysing the results a bit more interesting
Finally, I would like to end with some words from Rolling Thunder's own Abomination1, who uttered these words of prophesy after the previous encounter of the two sides...
[quote=""Abomination1"]Well let's just focus on winning our next games and maybe we can face PK again and get our revenge!!! =][/quote]
