First week has seen a great number of games, Minions Alfa group contributing the most of it, but also Masters played the record number of week for a season opening as far as I can remember. No group deciders yet of course, but lots of stuff to see. Let's pick a random batch of matches and look at how they went.
Weekly highlights
:: ZeroOneFris 0-2 Barf
It may have been a costly (pun intended) mistake to put Barf in Minions, but nevertheless it was a fair rule application that a person who forfeited the season starts next season one tier down by default (and only then there might be exceptions). Anyway, Barf started a little rusty, and decreased pressure allowed him to "do the Abarrat" (or "do the WhoCares", depending on which season you started to follow the league from) and play the season as early as possible. This was the inaugural match.
First game on Trapped, a map making its glorious return to RAGL, saw Barf and his mighty ranger getting reinforced with two light tanks; this didn't actually help him much, as Fris did a good job getting ahead on the oils and also trading better in early engagements. Barf decently played the wait game and turned the tables in the next two minutes, managing to get the bottom-left corner first and driving Fris' MCV away. Not commiting into a counter-attack through the middle didn't help Fris either, and his retreating army got stomped by a smaller squad of Barf. The advantage wasn't that big and got leveled as Barf lost flanking tanks (a rare sight if you ask me) without taking any ore truck targets out. Game stalled into T2 (Fris picked Germany and Barf randomed Germany) and came down to top-right spot artillery base assault where Barf lost less assets than Fris, also managing to inflict more structure damage. Tanya's laugh coincided with a gg message.
For the second game, Fris picked Windige Gasse and went 1ref-wf while Barf implemented the usual double ref with a pinch of dog. Faster War Factory was a stepping stone for light tank rush by Fris, and as Barf didn't have a defence prepared, his power got quite a bad hit in a true Nod fasion. That wasn't going to be the decisive move though, and Fris didn't do an effective followup, wasting time on buildup and useless army movements across the map, as Barf just went straight through the middle and dismantled most of the expansion and army of Fris; it was over in a minute when Fris overstretched the expansion on the right and Barf converged all his forces there.
:: Anjew 2-0 Admiral Mo
Initially I've thought to fully write it up and make one or two gifs along the way, but you know, it's actually an entertaining watch and will probably be a highlight of one of FiveAces' shoutcasts later. Just a note that both games were practically won by Demo Trucks; hats off to Anjew for a bold and adventurous approach to the games.
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/0kNDJ5m.gif)
:: Bain 2-0 Zaqzorn
The fight of two fresh Masters, though definitely Bain is to be considered one of the top4 contenders at the moment; still Zaqzorn was a formidable opponent some years ago and is able to take points from anyone if he tanks enough practice.
First game on Marigold Town saw both players start aggresively with a double-ref build and oil derricks switching hands. Then Zaqzorn decided to do a Gatekeeper moveout with original MCV moving towards top-left natural; while doing that he lost a chunk of his army at the inside ore patch to Bain's ranger-fortified infantry and, I guess, stopped the MCV in the mid-move making it a one large base. That, coupled with the general lack of army presence on the field, got him locked in with Bain fully controlling all the exits to the middle of the map. Zaqzorn did try a rocket drop to Bain's main and largely succeeded at that, but didn't have time to fully implement a flame drop follower as Bain just went through with a large army and leveled the base.
Second game on Climate Crisis (the last map in the pool to not be played yet) both players switched to 1ref-wf and played a completely identical game for the first 4 minutes, when Soviet (Zaqzorn) to Allied (Bain) differences showed up with a rocket drop yet again. It was stopped with a swiftly placed Pillbox as no Ore Truck got destroyed. APC followed the fate of rocket soldiers shortly after, able to spot the MCV moving out. By this time Zaqzorn had built an odd composition of 6 flaks and rocket/flamer infantry, also adding 2 Service Depots to that list of odd things. This didn't look any effective though with not enough of anything to make an impact. Also by this time Bain had as much as 9K ore mined advantage directly transferred into army value, so the outcome was known.
:: TiTo 0-2 goat
Day 1 saw Minions Alfa to play a great number of games. One match though happened in Minions Bravo as well, where two League rookies, TiTo and goat, got the initiation.
Goat managed to snipe an early engineer from TiTo on Marigold Town, which immediately set the tone of the game as TiTo was on the backfoot. Both players expanded top-left to their naturals, and then goat accumulated a sizeable army midmap, killing a small enemy regiment in the process. Next move was a mistake from TiTo as he drove his main MCV without much support right into that army at the base entrance, and goat didn't wait for another invitation, attacking both bases simultaneously.
Followup on Mountain Ridge Redux (or MRR from now on) was a 3rax all-in throw by TiTo which almost worked. That "almost" was the difference between a loss and a win in this situation. Kudos to TiTo for trying though!
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/Tfs2GuU.gif)
Streams of the week that had RAGL matches going on:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/488538362
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/491012333
Agenda
Masters division should start to shape up this week, though we're not to expect Top4 clashes here. Admiral Mo vs FiveAces should be entertaining, also expect Anjew to take points from Punsho and/or ZxGanon.
Minions Alfa promotion zone is currently predicted by most as Barf/Blackened/JackoDerp. No doubts about Barf I guess, but we still haven't seen Misery perform, he has Barf and Kernel Panic to fight now, as well as 2 delayed week1 matches.
Minions Bravo is more open; goat and eskimo are likely top-finishers here, with Dualwarhead making a great first week input by taking 7 points from 8 games.
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