Celestial Tournament LiveBlogging: RUS vs OUT

17:19GMT: In case it's not obvious, I'm going to be dividing things up based on the various matches. Stumbled onto a little glitch here, though. Apparently whoever's in charge of the obs mode stuff forgot to set the toggle that sets the tournament matches to remain for several hours. They're disappearing in the normal 20 or so minutes rather than sticking around so far. Makes it a bit hard for me to follow all the matches and all but, if memory serves, this sort of thing always happens and they fix it before too long. I've PMed one of my admin friends and they assure me it's being handled.

17:19GMT: I wanted to check out eF vs SiN next but since RUS vs OUT is the only Game One left, well, the choice has been made for me.

Match #7
Rus Corp vs Time Is Running
Burning Isle

RUS
W/A - Shove? SHOVE?!? There's something you don't see every day. Anywy, it's a Hammer war with Way of the Fox, Death's Charge, BoA, and I think my brain just exploded.
A/W - Speaking of things you don't see very much, it's a BoA Sin with Shadow Prison!
M/E - Surge with Cry of Frustration, Diversion, GLE
M/Mo - Surge with Diversion, Guilt, hardrez
E/Mo - Glyph of Energy obs flamer/warder w/ glyphsac hardrez
Me/A - Runner with Shadow Shroud
Mo/A - LoD/Infuse
Mo/E - RC prot

OUT
D/A - Melandru's
D/A - Melandru's
Me/E - Power Block with Diversion, Gale, GLE
Me/E - If this guy has an elite I don't know what it is because I watched him for four minutes and he literally didn't use it - let's just say it's MoR and not something that he didn't have caus to use. Anyhow, it's E-Burn, Spiritual Pain, Diversion, that kind of fun stuff
M/Mo - Expel Hexes with HumSig, Diversion and, I'm guessing, the hardrez
Mo/E - RC prot
Mo/E - Healer's Boon
Mo/E - ZB Runner

Burning Isle it is. Not quite as groan worthy as Jade but I guess people just don't like to split. Anyhow, getting past the weird eurotech, [RUS] seems to be running some version of the latest jump spike. [OUT] is fairly similar with the three Mesmers backing their frontliners - the choice of Dervs and a three Monk backline is an interesting wrinkle to me, though. Nice Aegis chain, though.

17:20GMT: Standings update straight from #gwp. [eF], [tag], [iQ], [MH], [Vibe] (Sigh again...) and [EW] have all won 2-0. The RUS/OUT and wR/iPod have both gone 1-1 so far.

17:25GMT: Might have to take back that update since there seems to be some confusion over the results of the RUS/OUT games. Seems the word is that, as I expected, OUT took the matches easily.

17:30GMT: I haven't said much because this is, really, a very boring game (That plus I've learned from the last time around to hunt out builds nice and early. You'd think I would have remembered but I always have to relearn that lesson when I obs stuff for any lengthy period.). It reminds me of nothing so much as GWWC era matches where two relatively balanced builds would just meet at the flagstand and beat on each other until one side broke.

17:32GMT: No sooner do I finish making that point than [RUS] collapses. They looked headed for it as they were taking deaths while only earning one early kill. At this point, they've been pushed back to their Guild Lord area and lost most of their NPCs. [OUT] is in permaboost land and still landing the occasional kill.

17:33GMT: [RUS]'s Sin is working his way back to base after trying to infliltrate [OUT]'s base. I'm not quite sure why he stopped as it's going to take a sustained gank push to pull this game out for [RUS] at this point.

17:34GMT: Ah, I see now. OUT has one of their Monks, #7, back protecting their base.

17:35GMT: No, wait, that was a base rez as [RUS] is trying out. This is really bugging me.

17:38GMT: Two minutes to VoD and [RUS] has...their Bodyguard while [OUT]'s horde is unscathed.

17:40GMT: Yeah, VoD is not going well for [RUS]. [OUT] just sent a 3 person gank squad and almost got their Lord before they responded but even then they have no NPCs and a lot of DP worked up.

17:43GMT [RUS] sent their #6 Mesmer and their Sinoff on a split, They ran into [OUT]'s 3 person split of a Derv, a Mes, and a Monk. Bad things happen.

17:45GMT: Lords walking. This isn't going to end well for [RUS].

17:46GMT: And resign spike. That has to be the most unexceptional game I've seen in a while.

17:48GMT: You realize that at the rate I'm going, it's going to take me 12 hours to get through all of today's matches? That calls for a drink. Break time!

17:50GMT: And looks like the matches are properly up on obs mode at this point. Told ya. Oh, and also the tournament coordinator Mr. Gills has logged on under an assumed name.

18:05GMT: Back with a fresh cup of giner tea. Mmm. Word from the [MH] camp is they were, in fact, chanting "This is Kryta" in loud, manly voices in their matches against [one].

18:06GMT: Looks like all the match results are in - I can tell because the conversation has shifted to post game drama and tomfoolery on the #gwp. Everyone won 2-0 except for [wR]/[iPod] which went 2-1 in favor of Listen To. Match 3 isn't up yet but that'll be next on my list if it is.

18:06GMT: Loading into game two of the [RUS]/[OUT] match now. You are, no doubt, thrilled.


Match #7
Rus Corp vs Time Is Running
Jade Isle

RUS
W/A - D-Slash
D/A - Melandrus
E/Mo - SF with Ward Against Melee
E/Mo - Invoke Lighting spiker
Me/Mo - Surge/Burn with Diverison, Power Leak and Power Drain
Mo/Me - ? with Inspired Hex, Hex Breaker. Um, he had Prot Spirit?
Mo/E - RC prot with Aegis
Mo/E - Runner. ZB with Aegis

OUT (same build from last match)
D/A - Melandru's
D/A - Melandru's
Me/E - Power Block with Diversion, Gale, GLE
Me/E - Again, no clue on the elite. Still the same fun Mesmer stuff
M/Mo - Expel Hexes with HumSig, Diversion and, I'm guessing, the hardrez
Mo/E - RC prot
Mo/E - Healer's Boon
Mo/E - ZB Runner

Jade Isle again. Blargh. Insert fix this broken crap comments here. Anyhow, [OUT] sticks with what worked. While [RUS] switches things up considerably. They put in an Aegis chain and a 3 Monk backline while running with two Eles and a single Mesmer while dropping the jumpiking frontline. I really just don't get European teams I guess.

18:10GMT: Looks like the same thing as last match. One thing I've noticed which has been brought up before is that neither team is very eager to cap the flagstand at first. This is something that a lot of the better teams do while lower ranked teams are very eager to just get that cap in and start trading flags. There's a message there and I'm sure it's play on highly ranked teams.

18:15GMT: Excuse me while I stiffle this yawn. Same thing as last go-round. Big scrum ast the flagstand, [RUS] taking deaths, [OUT] not.

18:16GMT: Nearly at the 7 minute mark. [RUS] just ceded a bunch of territory to [OUT]. I'm guessing their Monks were running on fumes and they needed to retreat. As you'd expect, [OUT] rushed in the flag and they're pushing [RUS] into their base.

18:20GMT: Her's how the battle is going. [RUS] is penned in their base delaying the inevitable. [OUT] is swarming around killing stuff and working down NPCs. I'm falling asleep here.

18:25GMT: Yep, still going. No split attempt, no attempt to push out, [RUS] is just turtling and taking losses while [OUT] permaboosts. If I wasn't still curious what Mesmer #4 on [OUT] is running I'd be out of here.

18:30GMT: 2 minutes to VoD and [OUT]'s pulled back tot he flagstand. [RUS] is milling around their base. They've only got their Guild Lord NPCs left - two Archers and the Body guard - not doing much of anything. Yeah, I'm out of here.

18:31GMT: This just in from a guildie: "Rex, I understand why you like Shatterstone so much. Sometimes it's just like BOOM HEADSHOT!" Truer words...

18:32GMT: Something of a dilemma here. There's only a half an hour (Really 45 minutes with the observer mode lag time) bfore the next round starts. Should I start a new series of matches or should I just wait and jump ahead to the second round. Ah, how tricky the flow of time gets in the virtual world...