RAGL Frontline Reports :: S08.5

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netnazgul
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RAGL Frontline Reports :: S08.5

Post by netnazgul »

Weekly highlights

:: Barf 2-0 PieChild
As a prelude to the final week lets cast our sights on one of Barf's matches who's a little on a quiet side this season.
First game on Marigold Town, the opening was rather solid from both players, with Barf being a bit more consistent at keeping the middle, but nevertheless expanding top-left and all the way to the entrance of PieChild's main with a base outpost. PieChild took the midmap route and held the defence there, but still managed to get Barf's armored wedge to slip right into the heart of his base, though stopping it more or less effectively while also waging a counter attack at Barf.
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The series of exchanges that followed brought more destruction to Barf's bases than his opponent, and were it seen by the map presense alone PieChild looked on a winning side, especially if he to take his time and defend the better eco potential; but Barf had bigger assets and more resources already gathered (1.5x times more Ore Trucks contributing to that) so he correctly utilized the situation and rode to victory by methodically destroying his enemy's economy hopes, as PieChild was unsuccessful and probably untimely at his own attacks.
Second game on Onyx was a Kennel double-ref from PieChild met by Barf's usual suspect of Ranger from ref-wf build. Even though Barf couldn't catch opponent's engineer early he still did it a minute later, also capturing closer oil from PieChild. PieChild himself responded with a grenadier raid, putting Barf into low power; scales tipped yet again when Barf answered with a pack of Light Tanks that did the same to PieChild, evening the score. Both players went top as their expansion route, and PieChild won the initial stand-off with a ground-deny Tesla Coil. The small-scale attack on the main that followed didn't achieve anything as Barf had a large army mass of his own there; he also did have another army top-side which razed an unprotected expansion, took an MCV and then cleaned up the now abandoned mining outpost. Even with a larger army PieChild attempted a second attack at Barf's main, only to be met there with a proper defence, leaving him completely stripped of economy lines and army assets.


:: FiveAces 1-1 Orb
While other assumed-top players continue to evade Orb, FiveAces keeps his schedule tight and plays everyone per fixtures like a clockwork. This season it seems to work effectively.
Game one, Marigold Town picked by Orb, both open with ref-wf, but FiveAces choosing to go Light Tank instead of common Ranger. This didn't really produce much benefit to him, as Orb also found some timing advantage and got his MCV a dozen seconds earlier. FiveAces managed to kill one oil with that tank though, and this resulted in a 2-0 lead on oil in his favour. At the same time, Orb's MCV got tangled with an outward rally point, then troops, then too close to ore, so when it got to splitting the top-left, FiveAces almost got there first at Orb's patch.
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It could have gone either way, and maybe for FiveAces it would have actually been better to keep MCV farther away from that expansion and lock Orb in; it went as it was and FiveAces' forces were routed, with a counterattack netting only a single Ore Truck. Orb also salvaged enemy MCV with a mechanic, getting the MCV count to 3-1, and all FiveAces needed to lose here was a little push. As always, FiveAces did continue the struggle for another couple of minutes, having a glimmer of hope for a comeback. This chance he got, as Orb hesitated to finish him off and opened up the right side of the map for FiveAces to pop a good number of refineries and tech as well. An overstretching with a main MCV costed Orb an attack through the middle and resulted in a base trade; this time Orb kept his ground, brought back the only MCV he had left (after selling the captured one) and fought the assault off; his own forces had better trade, completely destroying all production for FiveAces and leaving him with only helipads on the field.
On Forgotten Plains later, Orb did a no-rax Kennel build. First dog went straight into the rifles line while second found its target and got an engineer. Satisfied Orb continued on War Factory production and sold the Kennel; the remaining rifles and two grenadiers from FiveAces came in just at the same time and Mobile Flak that popped out couldn't hold them from getting Orb into 0 power, which required Orb to swap second refinery he was building to a power plant. Oil grab was delayed for both players as a result, with Orb getting 2 oils first as he denied FiveAces a run for them with Mobile Flaks. Orb's engineer was too hasty and got needlessly killed at the frontline, allowing FiveAces to recapture the middle south oil.
Game continued with normal expansions for both players. FiveAces got a quite early second War Factory, aiming at getting an edge on Heavy Tanks count. Orb dashed to kill an oil derrick and traded that for an army; FiveAces responded with a massive attack through the front that didn't produce any immediate results but allowed him to set foot at teslacamping his opponent's doublemine patch. It was already mined out but still had 2 Ore Trucks that FiveAces killed. An attack follow-up did nothing, a counter-attack by Orb at 5A main only drew some attention from Orb's base; this allowed Orb to launch a reclaim operation that got a conyard destroyed, but the rest of the base (now including 2 airfields) for FiveAces was still holding, a single V2 now dealing a lot of damage.
Next move was FiveAces locking Orb down in the middle with another MCV and several Tesla Coils. A lapse of attention for V2s chasing Heavy Tanks left infantry forces dismantled, which turned out to be the decisive edge for Orb's attack there as it snowballed into a complete rout of FiveAces' fortifications. Though behind the scenes FiveAces also managed to do some economy damage north, so by the time the middle fight was over, FiveAces got twice the lead on Ore Trucks and more or less equal assets. His problem here was the lack of actual mining expansions as he also drew his second MCV north instead of expanding south. The battle over the north ore patch seemed hopeless for FiveAces, even though he managed to get an advantage in numbers over there for a brief moment; another base energing in the middle splitted Orb's supply lines but was also vulnerable to a 2-side attack which Orb did in a minute. It all looked like FiveAces almost got a win here but couldn't capitalize on it. Though actually the next minute finally tipped the scales.


:: goat 1-1 eskimo
One of table deciding matches for Minions Bravo (the other two being these guys against Dualwarhead).
First match on, you guess it, Marigold Town. Fairly standard opening from both players, with eskimo being faster on building placement and goat winning the oils contest which allowed him to get all three; eskimo's grenadiers didn't make an impact. MCV timing was similar, eskimo skipped any T1 vehicles, had an extra Ore Truck and expanded into the middle. Goat popped a Refinery near his main and went to eskimo's side top-right where he'd already kept ground with an army. Two fights commenced at the same time at eskimo's main and in the middle of the map, and both dealt the better trade into eskimo's favour. This allowed him to dash through to the north with the remainder of his squad and right into the unprotected Refinery of goat, routing several Ore Trucks from a still decent ore patch. The odds were stacked well for eskimo at this point, as he also expanded to the right and generally had a better map disposition, only requiring to finish it off soon. This he did after achieving a tech advantage with V2s/Yaks on the field denying any hopes for goat to salvage a point. Backyard tanks did a pretty good job too.
A follow-up on Forgotten Plains, this time a fully mirrored ref-wf Ukraine matchup. Again, eskimo skipped a vehicle for an Ore Truck, not contesting the oils and only picking one. Expansions went safe, and the game as a whole was relatively quiet up until 8th minute. Goat attacked at both north-west and to eskimo's main south; the latter attack was stopped by two Flame Towers, but the former one, even though initially running back and forth around a lone Flame Tower leftover from an expansion that never picked up for eskimo, finally went in. The opportunity window was already closed though as eskimo got his own army back to close that off and relocated MCV as well. Goat responded with another attack through the middle, already having a V2 with him. The wall Flame Towers was quite handy for eskimo here as it slowed the assault for enough time to rotate the army again. This time, goat didn't rush in but kept on the active-defensive side, picking off Flame Towers from the distance. Eskimo attempted to uplift the siege and failed. By this time goat already rolled two Mammonth Tanks and started to combine a formidable squad in the middle of the map. Eskimo's Yaks started to pop up as he tried to keep up with tech, trying to snipe V2s but only ever managed to bring them to low HP so those dealt some damage yet, picked by Flaks a minute later. 10K army difference as well as 20K assets handicap and overall better map control by goat only meant one thing - goat is to win this game if he didn't throw it to some miraculous mistake.


Worth noting are also games between Sigil and eskimo, as well as Fahrrad playing against Tailix.


No RAGL match casts except Tailix perspective of his fights. Again, those are temporary, so watch them before they get deleted.
Be sure to visit today's stream from FiveAces as it might have some games going; also RAGL stream is planned to be held somewhere around the weekend.


Agenda
Last week of the group stage is upon us. Expect high amount of whining, mis-schedules, "I would have played you earlier but you refused" and the like. Practically this concerns all the groups, though Minions kept with their schedule more and only have most of the deciders to play, while Masters (with notable exceptions) have to play half of the season in a week.


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RAGL is a casual tournament, but still providing some real money prizes for the winners. It is community funded with 100% of donations go into prize pool, and you can support the league by contributing to paypal account: https://www.paypal.me/openraragl

Follow the competition on OpenRA Discord Server, with live RAGL scores updates and stream announcements

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