Welcome to the Matchday 7 preview! - So, here we are with just two games left, and as suspected the best three squads of the last 12 months - PK, SysX and RT, have made it to the final three (when asked near the start of the tourney, RT had over twice as many votes as anyone else for the squad most likely to be in the last three with SysX and PK). The penultimate game of the tournament is PK at home against RT, for the right to play SysX in the championship decider. First up, a look to the past, here's how the teams who have left us have ranked. Note that not all these rankings are official, as there were no play-off to determine exact positions, so I have used a variety of measures to rank teams individually where the tournament does not provide a clear ranking. See if you can figure them out
Rankings so far
11th : SPQR
10th : DSM
9th : BS
8th : ACE
7th : SRM
6th : XT
5th : SF
4th : GB
OK, so it's Palidor's Knights against Rolling Thunder (hey, I got predictions last week!) yet again. These teams are tough to separate, but a good place to start would be the results from last week.
Last week's review
SysX vs PK (SysX win vote 39-15) An age-old matchup between these two squads happened with age-old faction choices (IC vs IC) on an age-old map (HiHigher). Some things never change! SysX had the better of the opening, winning the opening con battle. As is often the case in IC vs IC games, the focus then turned on getting an expansion. There were three U rocks on the map (none in people's homes) - SysX built one next to their home and, after messing-up their chance of building one midhi, PK build theirs in another sector next to SysX's home, though bizarrely build an op in that sector as well...? Then it was on to the miner-killing stage of the game - SysX pushed home their advantage here as they had more of the map and heavy ints first. Eventually they got rich , built a sup and SY and won the game in about two hours.
RT vs GB (RT win vote 42-11) - bios vs bios on limited diamond. Last week was not one to match different factions up against each other... some of us in RT were a bit worried about GB, previously not considered to be that great a squad in recent times but had beaten all these teams to get this far. We had to be on our guard for sure, in the end we turned in one of our top performances of the last few months to score a resounding win, though I think also GB did not perform to their best (this is a problem RT have had in the past - winning until coming up against someone that we're not sure we can really beat, and putting in a poor performance). Opening ops went the same way, but our opening con d was heavier and faster than theirs so they rerouted, however we intercepted it and killed it. After 30 minutes we had the map (apart from their home) and 4 miners to nil, and it was all over after 42 minutes. Almost everything we tried came off, and there were always people where they were needed. For example, several times the comm called for probes only for someone to say they were already on their way there.
So, PK had perhaps a sub-standard game (or were SysX that good?) whereas RT had a very good game, albeit their opponents did not play to their best. If this continues to next week then RT certainly have a good chance, but perhaps PK will hit back like a wounded animal.
Another way we could separate them would be to look at their old results. Thanks to RT's obsessive log-keeping, I can bring you the last 6 results between them...
Past meetings
Oct 2009 - Squad Tourney, played on US server, IC vs IC, PK win. An even opening, but then RT tries to build a tac, but PK cover it and kill the con. Then we build a sup but cannot compete with PK's ints, that kill our miners. PK win with HTTs.
May 2009 - Squad League, played on US server, IC vs IC, PK win. PK build opening op next to RT's home, and manage to get another op in the other sector next to RT's home, boxing them in.
Jan 2009 - Squad League, played on GPZ, Dreg(RT) vs Belters, RT win. The best SG I've played all year - RT build a forward sup and defend against the most ridiculous bomb runs but the sup survives by the most ridiculously small margins. We went on to win (just) and the sup got a name - Jim!
Oct 2008 - Squad Tourney, played on US server, PK win.
Sep 2008 - Squad Tourney, played on US server, IC vs IC, PK win. One U rock on the map, about halfway between the two home sectors, it's a nice one for PK, they claim it, kill miners, gg.
Aug 2008 - Friendly, played on GPZ server, IC vs IC, RT win. Only U rock on map is PK's home, so RT go tac/sy and win in the "I agree with Orion" game.
In summary...
Well, the game will almost certainly not be on GPZ, and the stats of our last meetings clearly show that GPZ = RT win, US server = PK win. For me it's hard to look past this fact (despite grav in the USA at the moment) so I have to go for a PK win this Sunday, though I am hopeful that at the least we will still be in with a genuine chance after 30 minutes, which often isn't the case on our American match-ups. Now if only we hadn't lost to SRM and SF near the end of the league, we would be at home right now....
Finally, I would like to dedicate this thread to the Irish football team.
Poll results...
PK 27 - 22 RT
IB will play for... PK! 26 votes, to RT's 24 and SysX's 16.
Finally, I might be Sparticus.
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ACS grad since 2nd Feb. 2010
