Celestial Tournament LiveBlogging: iQ vs LaG

23:59GMT: And we're back. That break was a little longer than I thought but there was a guild meeting I forgot about that I figured I should attend. Not much interesting, really, but you know being part of the wider community and all.

Anyway, it took me about five hours to get a third of the way through the twelve matches played today. At this rate, it'll take me until 5GMT to get through these, another break, and I'll just be finishing up by the time the next rounds are being played. That sound you hear is me huddling in the corner crying to myself.

A few things before I get back to it.

Interesting fact here. Although only six European guilds made the Sweet Sixteen compared with eight American teams, three Euros have moved on to the Final Four and only one US team advances. That team is [iQ] but, still. Historically, the Euros have dominated ladder play but haven't done so well in tournaments. Maybe that's turning around.

And, I'm feeling much better about my disastrous picks now. Take a look at the selections made by the official ANet writing crew. Lots of [MH] love which, you know, since they likely had to get past both [iQ] and [eF] doesn't make a lot of sense. Lots of respect for [tag] too and nobody went for [iPod] at all.

00:02GMT: Hmm, I want to check out the first round of the [iQ]/[LaG] match but it seems to have disappeared from obs mode. In fact, there's only six round one, game one matches up now. Uh oh, maybe I'd better hurry up here.


Anyhow, no game one (which is a shame because I hear iQ pulled some lame SBRI thing on Jade Isle) so we'll start with game two.

Match Two - Game Two
Idiot Savants vs Zero Files Remaining
Druid's Isle

iQ
A/Me - Shadow Prison Webber
W/Mo - Dev Hammer
W/E - Eviscerate Axe with Grasping Earth
A/Me - Shadow Prison Webber
Rt/Mo - Weapon of Remedy Rit with Renewing Memories
E/Mo - Mind Blast with Mark of Rodgorts and Freezing Gust
Mo/Me - RC
Mo/Me - LoD

LaG
W/E - Shock/Axe
W/E - Earth Shaker with Shock
E/Mo - Fire Runner. Mind Blast
Mo/E - Healer's Boon
Mo/E - RC
A/Me - Shadow Prison Webber
A/Me - Shadow Prison Webber
Rt/A - Weapon of Remedy Rit

[LaG]'s set up in a recall split to take advantage of Druid's, no doubt. [iQ] is running with a recall split with two Sins and a weapon Rit (albeit a bit of an odd one).

00:05GMT: A little over five minutes in and the rout is on. [LaG] has just nearly wiped and the few remaining members are retreating to their base. Meanwhile, [iQ]'s recall split has just finished decimating said base a few minutes earlier and it's their collapsing back on the main group that lead to the wipe.

00:09GMT: This is a painful beatdown.

00:12GMT: Just after 10 minutes, [LaG]'s whole team wiped and it's game over. Um, yeah, not a lot to say about that other than [iQ] is really, really good.

00:13GMT: Still missing two Round One, Game Ones - looks like [MH]/[one] and [iQ]/[LaG], the first two to go up and, likely, whatever glitch fix was put in earlier in the day extended their time span for a few hours but not as long as the others. Oh well, I saw the Mostly Harmless one but I did want to see the Necro wackiness. Moving on...