Celestial Tournament LiveBlogging: tag vs iPod

1:10GMT: And we're back again. In case you're wondering, it's not a good idea to go grocery shopping when you haven't had anything to eat besides soup for four days. Also, food is the stuff that helps you live. Good to know.

Anyhow, let's get things going again with [tag]/[iPod].

Match Eleven - Game One
#5 Ominous Latin Name vs #13 Listen To
Isle of Jade

tag
W/Mo - Earthshaker
D/A - Melandru's
P/Mo - Incoming
P/Mo - Incoming with Fallback
Me/E - Hex Eater vortex
Mo/E - BLight
Mo/E - LoD
Mo/E - LoD

iPod
W/D - D-Slash
R/Mo - BA
A/D - Shadow Prison Sin with Death Blossom->Impale
Me/E - MoR
E/Mo - Water with Trident
Mo/E - Didn't see the elite but basic prot stuff. Probably an unneeded Divert.
Mo/E - Healer's Boon
Mo/E - ZB Runner

Just, wow. I'd heard [tag]'s builds in this match were, shall we say, questionable but that is just a really weird build there. Dueling Incomings, two LoDs, and an Aegis chain. [iPod] on the other hand running what amounts to a Balanced build with a three Monk backline - looks like they weren't sure if they'd have to split or not and decided to cover all the bases here.

1:21GMT: Two minutes in and [iPod] is rolling at the flagstand. [tag] has several deaths already.

1:22GMT: An early boost for [iPod]. They're still chopping down [tag] like they get paid to. The Latin Named ones are being slowly but surely driven back to their base and they're not getting much done on offense - with four damage dealers and a Mes, that's not a good thing.

1:24GMT: Finally got a kill of [iPod], they're pushing out but they're not going to make it in time to prevent another boost.

1:25GMT: [tag]'s standing up to the pressure much better now. But that Healer's Boon Monk is just blunting all their spikes.

1:27GMT: More deaths and [tag] is starting to crumble again.

1:29GMT: [tag] pushes back. Everyone's still fighting around the flagstand. This is what the battle is going to be like all game. Because it's Jade Isle. And you can't do anything on Jade Isle except beat on your opponent. Better than they beat on you. You can't split. You can't gank. You can't swing a game around when you get behind. If I were talking. I'd be doing the Ben Stein drone. Because that's about how exciting this is.

1:30GMT: Most of the deaths have been on [tag]'s frontlines. Their Monks have been able to stay alive so far. That's good in that they haven't managed to completely break into tiny little defenseless piece but bad because they can't sustain any offense for long. And they're slowly ceding ground. This match looks to be all [iPod] but it's going to take awhile to close out.

1:31GMT: Ouch, someone just ate a Frenzied Hex Eater for 240odd damage.

1:32GMT: In case you're wonderin, no, I'm really not liking those Incoming Paragon bars.

1:33GMT: About 14 minutes in, the fight's been inside [tag]'s base for about a minute or two now. NPCs are going to AI heaven, the DP is mounting up on [tag] (they're about to cross the halfway mark on the chart), their sigs are long gone, and [iPod] is permaboosting and hasn't had a death in about ten minutes. It's only a matter of time now.

1:35GMT: [tag]'s turtling around the Lord now. Yep, only a matter of time.

1:36GMT: You know, if you ask me, [tag] is in trouble here because even with a 3 Monk backline they just don't have enough damage mitigation. And [iPod] is just as aggressive as they are only, you know, better at it. But, what this build could really use is a little more disruption - they're just unable to stop [iPod] from doing their thing. Which, in this case, happens to be raging all over [tag]'s faces about six different ways.

1:37GMT: Yawn, party wiped and the Lord killed off just after the 18 minute mark. Ho hum.

Not stopping now. Let's keep rolling.


Match Eleven - Game Two
#5 Ominous Latin Name vs #13 Listen To
Frozen Isle

tag
W/Mo - Earth Shaker
W/N - Hammer of some kind. Got DPed up very early. Pretty sure it's a Backbreaker, though.
P/W - Incoming
P/Mo - Incoming
Me/E - Hex Eater Vortex
Mo/W - BLight
Mo/W - LoD
Mo/E - ZB Runner

iPod
W/A - D-Slash
R/Mo - BA
A/N - Shadow Prison with Death Blossom -> Impale
Me/E - MoR
E/Mo - Water with Trident
Mo/E - Healer's Boon
Mo/E - Didn't see it. Probably a Divert which wasn't needed.
Mo/E - ZB Runner

Oooh, hello interesting map choice. Frozen is an oldie but still a goodie. It's still pretty distinctive and interesting to play on because of the importance it places on movement control. Both teams seem to be running with similar builds from the last match.

1:41GMT: Just settling in and getting all my windows and doohickies properly arranged - always tweaking my interface, I am. It's about three minutes in and, oh yeah, [iPod] just got rolled at the flagstand and pushed back to their base with heavy loses. Maybe I should start paying attention to that kind of stuff, huh?

1:42GMT: Both teams are down players. Both players are strranded behind enemy lines and foced to wait on the auto-rez. It's coming up shortly but [iPod] is pushing out strong to cap and prevent a boost.

1:43GMT: They just made it. The dead Warrior from [tag] had rezzed back at base and brought in a flag for the overcap.

1:44GMT: The teams are going back and forth here, deaths and morale are just about even and they're slugging it out at the flagstand.

1:45GMT: I just want to repeat that. They're slugging it out at the flagstand. On Frozen. I swear, it's like teams don't even try to split anymore.

1:46GMT: Some nice snare/blocking work gets [tag] a boost by narrowly stalling the runner a few precious seconds. But it's costly as they get chewed up and wipe except for three who leg it to their base. Getting those sigs back, though, is probably worth it.

1:47GMT: Though not if you have to burn them right away. [tag] rezzed up, ran smack into the collected [iPod] team and they're getting slaughtered again. And they didn't split because...? Yeah, it's permaboost time now.

1:49GMT: Unless [tag] does something drastic like, I don't know, send off a gank squad they're not winning this one. It's ten minutes in by the way, and their base is clear of outer NPCs.

1:51GMT: Hey kids! Do you know what time it is? That's right, it's turtle around the Lord and try to delay the inevitable time. 12 minutes in. This game is over except for the details.

1:52GMT: Fourteen minutes in, almost. DP is mounting. [tag] can't buy a kill for all the ectos in the world. Of course, when your frontline is so DPed they disintigrate when the other team looks at them, it's hard to do.

1:53GMT: And....wipe. Game over. That's a wrap. See you in editing, people.

1:54GMT: Wow, just extremely crummy games. Not so much because the teams involved were bad (Although you have to question what [tag] was thinking not only with that build but running it the second game) but because they were so one-sided. [iPod], for real? Well, we'll find out next round, won't we?