Celestial Tournament LiveBlogging: iQ vs ONE

00:23GMT: Oh, this is going to be a good one. The only second round match to go all three games. Before I start, though, here's something about map choice in the playoffs so far:

• Jade: 13
• Burning: 5
• Weeping: 3
• Corrupted: 2
• Druid's: 2
• Frozen: 1

In Round One:

• Jade: 8
• Burning: 4
• Corrupted: 2
• Druid's: 2
• Weeping: 1

Round Two:

• Jade: 5
• Burning: 1
• Frozen: 1
• Weeping: 1

Basically, you can split these maps into two types. The first, Burning and Jade, by far the most popular, are the anti-split maps. The second, everything else, are the split friendly maps. There's no messing around with seige maps or plays like Nomad's here. It's all about whether you want to play split or not. And, overwhelmingly, it seems the top teams prefer to fight 8v8.

00:33GMT: That took a while. Math is hard, yo. Anyway, on to the games.

Match Ten - Game One
Idiot Savants vs Time Is Running
Isle of Jade

iQ
R/Mo - Crip Shot
W/Mo - Dev Hammer
R/Mo - Standard Ranger with Apply and interrupts. Didn't catch the elite.
W/E - Eviscerate Shock/Axe
D/Me - Melandru's
P/Me - Expel Hexes
Mo/Me - RC with Hex Breaker
Mo/Me - LoD with Hex Breaker

OUT
N/Rt - Icy Veins defensive spirit shitter
N/Me - Recurring Insecurity hexer with Mantra of Concentration
N/Me - Recurring Insecurity hexer with Mantra of Concentration (but different than the first one)
N/Rt - Icy Veins offensive spirit shitter
N/Mo - Icy Veins Necro Monk
N/Mo - Necro Monk
N/Mo - Necro Monk
Rt/D - Runner. Spirit shitter with Pious Haste

Jade so, you know something lame is coming. [iQ] runs a weird balanced build that I've seen somewhere before but damned if I can place it at the moment. Notbly it features a really weird Paragon/Mesmer build - Expel I can understand but this have Mirror of Disenchantment, Leech Signet, and things like Blaxzing Spear. What it has going for it is a lot of hardened targets infront of the Monks. But [OUT], yeah, they bring the SBRI - [one] did something similar but it wasn't the real deal. This is seven Necros on Jade Isle, what the fuck do you do with that? Well, [iQ]'s answer is to load up on the hex removal. There's Purges, Expel, Hex Breaker and more here.

00:37GMT: First kill goes to [OUT]. Otherwise it's just a scrum around the flagstand as the teams trade flags.

00:44GMT: The fight's been pressed into [OUT]'s base while I've been looking at what people are running. And [iQ]'s just blown their flawless.

00:46GMT: Just saw an Icy Veins spike first hand, as it were, on one of [iQ]'s Rangers. Brutal. Just a screen full of small damage packets until the health bar popped.

00: 50GMT: [iQ] really has a handle on the hexes here. When [OUT] manages to spike it's nasty but they just can't do it often enough. Fighting's in [OUT]'s front door with [iQ] in permaboost land so the few deaths they're taking don't matter. Although [OUT]'s making a push now.

00:53GMT: Still can't get over that Paragon Chuck is running. Okay, I get the hex removal and all but with all those damage dealers already in the build, why not just run a straight primary Mesmer? Of course, the Go For The Eyes is probably nice and you can't underestimate the damage output of a Paragon but I'd at least have gone for Spear of Lightning over Blazing Spear if I could swing the energy - sure Blazing's adrenal and the Fire damage helps but, you know.

00:54GMT: Whoops, phone call meant I missed the end of the game. It went to VoD and I can see [OUT] just dropping like stones so I'm going to take a wild guess and say that a bunch of people raging in your face is better than a spike with a bunch of hexes at VoD. Shocking, I know.


Match Ten - Game Two
Idiot Savants vs Time Is Running
Isle of Jade

iQ
A/Me - Shadow Prison Webber
W/Mo - Dev Hammer
W/E - Eviscerate Axe with Grasping
A/Me - Shadow Prison Webber
Rt/Mo - Weapon of Remedy Rit
E/Mo - Mind Blast with Mark of Rodgort's
Mo/Me - RC
Mo/Me - LoD

OUT
W/E - Eviscerate Shock/Axe
W/A - Dev Hammer (Also, nice to see somebody using Power Attack in high-end tourney play? I guess...)
P/Mo - Cruel Spear with Aegis
P/Me - Crip Anthem
Rt/Mo - Weapon of Remedy Rit with Splinter Weapon
Mo/E - RC
Mo/E - Healer's Boon
D/N - Orders of Apostasy, Dark Fury Orders Derv with Imbue Health, Signet of Pious Light, Vital Boon, and both Watchful and Faithful Intervention. Also the runner.

Hey, finally a winning team switched up their build. Looks like [iQ] was hoping for, well, something other than Jade since they're in their Recall split setup. [OUT]'s gone for just a lot of physical attackers with an some offensive buffs. This is going to be interesting.

1:06GMT: About 3 minutes in (Amazing how that's always how long it takes me to settle in and start noticing things, isn't it?) and, for one thing, [iQ] just looooves the Orders Dervish. They've had a Sin just training on him non-stop.

1:07GMT: [iQ] just got pushed off the flagstand. They haven't killed a thing yet and they've been taking a lot of damage. Neither team has their gate NPCs but [OUT] is well up on morale.

1:08GMT: Timely push by [iQ] keeps [OUT] from getting a morale boost. [iQ] is below the 3/4s mark on the morale chart and [OUT] is still in flawless territory.

1:09GMT: Recall split made it throught the teleport and are now working over [OUT]'s base. Both the Rit and the Derv are back, though, so I don't like they're chances. Yep, the managed to take out an Archer but also got wiped. Morale boost for [OUT] just hit, too.

1:10GMT: [OUT] just lost a Paragon - trapped behind enemy lines, there's not going to be a rez here. So much for the flawless. And, oops, there goes the other. Of course, another morale boost just hit wiping out the DP, so, it didn't do much harm and only recovered a bit of DP for [iQ], they're still well behind here.

1:13GMT: Watching the Paragons now. One's using Blazing Spear followed by Spear of Lightning. The other Cruel with Lightning. I don't know, maybe I've been overlooking Blazing Spear. For me, the combo is Lightning to Harrier's which is expensive but a nice quick spike that punishes anyone trying to kite. They don't use Anthem of Flames to maintain their Aggressive, either, relying on the adrenal Go For the Eyes!. But, oh well, if you're running an Aegis chain off your Paragons I guess you need the energy...

1:16GMT: About 15 minutes in now. Story's still the same. [iQ] is about to dip under the half way mark on the morale chat and [OUT]'s boosted back up to the maximum. The fight's back in [iQ]'s base at this point.

1:21GMT: Still fighting around the [iQ] base. VoD is about to hit and the teams are disengaging. [iQ] is really Dped up and down several NPCs. [OUT] is still at max - they've only died twice all match - and have only lost a few NPCs.

1:22GMT: The teams collide at VoD and the bodies start dropping on both sides. [iQ]'s taking the worse beating though and just their healers are left as they break off the flagstand and head back to their Lord. They're going to try and push out again but I'm afraid this is gg folks. Let's move on to the third and final game here.


Match Ten - Game Three
Idiot Savants vs Time Is Running
Isle of Jade

iQ
R/Mo - Crip Shot with NR
W/Mo - Dev hammer
R/Mo - BHA also with NR
W/E - Eviscerate Axe
D/Me - Melandru's with Leech Sig
P/Me - It's that weird Expel Hexes Paragon again
Mo/Me - RC
Mo/Me - LoD

OUT
W/E - Steady Stance/Fear Me hammer
W/P - Steady Stance/Fear Me hammer
Me/E - Panic with Price of Pride of all things
N/E - Wither with degen hexes and melee hate
N/Mo - Reaper's Mark with melee hate
Mo/E - RC
Mo/E - Healer's Boon
Mo/E - ZB

Hey, it's Jade Isle again. That's a real shocker. Anyhow, [iQ] is running NR with a Dervish instead of a second Paragon. And [OUT] is running Reaper's/Migraine hex pressure. This should be a hoot.

1:31GMT: First kill goes to [iQ]. Also, Ensign likes to attack through Price of Failure. That's pro strat right there. Makes me wonder how he handles Empathy.

1:32GMT: [iQ]'s pushing [OUT] off the flagstand. That puts them out of range of Nature's Renewal, though. And they've gotten another kill. And a third. So they're already doing better than last game.

1:34GMT: And this time it's [iQ] boosting while [OUT] flails away in futility.

1:35GMT: 4 second cast hexes make my inner Necro go all flaccid.

1:40GMT: The battle's still going [iQ]'s way but [OUT] has managed to push out. LoD is owning their hexes.

1:42GMT: Mirror of Disenchantment. Pretty nice counter for that whole Aegis thing.

1:45GMT: Battle's still rather deadlocked here. Interesting thing about [iQ], they tend to run by committee. Whoever's not really needed at the moment will head back, grab a flag, and run it in. It' something that doesn't really happen a lot today but used to be standard practice before the development of dedicated runners. I wouldn't want to do it unless I was as experienced as [iQ], though. [OUT] on the other hand, has a dedicated runner. It started out as Monk #8, which isn't unusual. But after they kept getting pounded, they switched it up to one of the Necros - the Nemo, I believe. Anyway, it goes to show that the job of running a flag can be a lot more flexible than most teams usually make it out to be.

1:46GMT: Why do I say these things? [OUT] just pushed out, got a morale boost, and then nearly wiped while I was dithering around about running. Costly but it did get back their sigs in time for VoD.

1:48GMT: VoD time. The NPC picture is fairly even. The morale? Not so much. Any benefit from the boost has been erased by the wipe.

1:50GMT: Oooh, one of [OUT]'s Warriors made the mistake of running over the coral with a Derv on its back. At VoD those pointy things hurt and he went down in a hurry. And, yeah, there goes the body guard. Flagstand fight is over and [iQ]'s taken it cleanly. One of [OUT]'s Warriors resigns and he's got the right idea, this one's over for all intents and purposes.

1:52GMT: Slow trickle of resigns but [iQ] drops the Lord before it matters. Huh, overall, a nice series of games but not as exciting as I'd been led to believe. Really, just Build Wars in action. That display of yomi is, of course, what tournament play is all about but while the match went to tthree games, it was pretty much a blowout in each and I'd have liked to see something with some more dramatic comebacks.

Ah well, half the matches in my personal book. And half to go. Time for a quick break and then I'll try and decide which series to scope out next.