Celestial Tournament LiveBlogging: iQ vs eF

1:57GMT: Before I move on (And I think before checking out the [EW]/[iPod] match I'm going to get the [iQ] one out of the way), let me just update you on the tournament's progress. And, well, it's over. [eF] beat [iQ] 2-0, and [EW] beat [eF] 2-0, as well. They met up in the finals but I don't know the result because I actually want to find out when I watch the match. It went three games with both teams ceding home field advantage so it should be a good one.

That's not necessarily a bad thing because now that I'm not racing the clock trying to keep up to date I can concentrate more on being thorough. I've done a bit of advanced scouting here - I've got the build basics and everything, so I can just concentrate on game flow and my normal useless observations. I've also jotted down the map choices for the semi- and finals and it's the same pattern as before. Limited set of maps to draw from. Pretty well divided between the split friend and unfriendly ones with the maps restricting splits vastly more popular, overall.

In the [iQ]/[eF] map both teams went with Jade.

In the [EW]/[iPod] match [EW] went with Corrupted and [iPod] came right back with Frozen (Why, given what they did with it last time around, I don't know but, what the hell, it worked for them before, right?).

And in the finals it went Burning then Jade, Jade.

So...

Final Two Rounds:
Jade: 4
Frozen: 2
Corrupted: 1
Burning: 1

Overall:
Jade: 17 (50%)
Burning: 6 (18%)
Corrupted: 3 (9%)
Frozen: 3 (9%)
Weeping: 3 (9%)
Druid's: 2 (6%)
Total Games: 34

So, something like 2/3rds of the games were played in the no-split zone. Exactly half on the "everybody thinks it's broken so let's abuse it" Jade.

Also, I've noticed the tournament has it's own little meta game. While you have the occasional eye-scratcher like [iPod]'s SF spam it really boils down to how you want to treat the archetype. There's either SBRI, some kind of heavily offensive NR build, a balanced which likely features some kind of jump spike and/or water snares, hex pressure with a Mesmer and Necro pair, and a recall split. That's so far, we'll see if anything gets wacky in these last seven games.

SBRI is, well, it's a metric fuck-ton of Necros doing things with their secondaries and Icy Veins along with Soul Barbs (It's named, of course, after Recurring Insecurity and that's featured in a lot but not really the defining feature for me.) - the SR is high and that leads naturally to Icy Veins. Just tons of spirts, tons of hexes, and nasty low damage, high volume spikes. This gets run on Jade. And this is perfectly fine. Because there's absolutely nothing broken about Soul Reaping at all.

The heavy offense builds are the ones where you'll see the Paragons show up. They usually have one or two. Plus two to four other attacking types - Ranger, Dervish, Warriors, whatever. And they usually have an NR included to deal with Aegis chains or things like SBRI. They really hate out hexes and then they just punch you in the face until you fall over. I, um, kinda like this one.

Balanced builds have, of course, the most variety and it kinda depends what region the team's from. You get paleo-tech like the two telespikers with three Mesmers from the Euros. While Americans seem to like several frontliners with a buffing weapon rit of some kind (Not Weapon of Remedy but stuff like Fury, Warmonger's, or Splinter) with, of course, crunchy Weapon of Warding goodness. There's generally speaking two or three frontliners with two or three casters backing them up. A lot of /A secondaries get used, not just for the teleports but for things like Siphon Speed and Disrupting Dagger. It's not very popular and seems to be used only when a team is either pretty sure they're going to roll or they're unsure of what to expect. Which, you know, makes sense.

Hex pressure builds are built around degen. The core of the build is a pair of midliners - a Necro and a Mesmer hexer. The Necro uses Reaper's Mark and just screws over any melee characters with the usual suspects. The Mesmer's gold standard is Migraine but they tend to be much more flexible. Sometimes you see panic. Sometimes it's Mantra of Persistence to get more mileage out of Conjures and Images of Remorse, sometimes it's Mantra of Inscriptions to get more out of HumSig. They're behind a solid frontline - usually at least one of them is a Derv because this build can't stand the whole NR/Tranq thing and the trapper that usually protects the spirits. In a fight, they lay on too many hexes for anything but ridiculous amounts of hex removal to deal with and can still split fairly well.

And a recall split is, well, the build you run when you have map choice and don't want to run Jade, basically. It's a 5/3 - and there were some old school 5/3s with the stereotypical Warrior, Ranger, Monk gank squad in the tourney, too - where the three off on the split are two Sins and a Weapon of Remedy Ritualist as a healer. The Sins put up recall on the Rit which allows them to teleport away when they're in danger. The worst thing a split can do is get wiped. If you are they can collapse on your flagstand team and/or work your base. So the fact that it's extremely hard to kill those characters - you pretty much can't touch the Sins and they can spike you down fast if you extend to get at the Rit (if they're playing it right anyway. A split rit is hard to get down.) - makes it a very difficult split to deal with.

2:30GMT: Talk of sealed play is really in the air today. Gotten into several conversations about it already. Anyhow, moving on to the match.

I'm not really looking forward to this as word is it's brutal. And, you know, [iQ] are my boys.


Match Fourteen
#2 Idiot Savants vs #6 Team Everfrost
Isle of Jade

iQ
R/Mo - Crip Shot with NR
W/Mo - Dev hammer
W/E - Bull's Charge sword
W/R - Axe with NR
D/Me - Melandru's
P/Me - Expel Hexes
Mo/Me - RC
Mo/Me - LoD

eF
W/A - YAA with Signet of Malice
D/W - Melandru's
N/E - Reaper's with melee hate
Me/Mo - Migraine with hexes
E/Rt - Water runner with Trident
R/Mo - BHA
Mo/E - ? with Aegis. Probably Divert.
Mo/A - LoD

[iQ]. Well, I'll say this, it's not SBRI. But a single Expel just isn't going to hold up against the kind of hex and degen pressure that's going to be pumped out here. [eF]'s got the whole Mes/Necro hex thing going here.

2:41GMT: Ah, nice to see those iQ boys can still have fun. On a completely unrelated note, I didn't know Trex had joined iQ. Good for him.

2:43GMT: Whew, yeah. [iQ] is just getting pounded on. Not 3 minutes in and they've already been pushed back into their base. They're actually without a Monk but [eF] is working down the NPCs rather than hopping on the Lord area.

2:46GMT: Crip Shot is old school but it's still good. Except, you know, against walking trees with condition immunity. But who the hell runs those, really?

2:48GMT: [iQ] is still hurting but they're putting up a strong defense in middle of their base.

2:50GMT: Ah, okay, they've at least got a Purge on their Wammo. So that's a Purge, an Expel, and a /Me on the Monks for Hex Breaker. It's safe to say [iQ] saw something like this coming. And they're still getting rolled.

2:51GMT: Everyone's dead at the 8:30 marks. It's all over as soon as the Lord drops. Flawless for [eF]. Wow. Just wow.

2:54GMT: That was just a spanking. Alright, as far as I can tell Broad Head was wrecking some havoc there. The [iQ] Monks were having a hard time. And [iQ] was having trouble getting through the Aegis chain - I'm not sure if they had Mirror of Disenchantment like earlier rounds or not, but if they did, I didn't see it. Some good snares, too, and they just could beat on any target long enough even with all those melee characters.

2:56GMT: To go back to a point I made during my picks, [iQ] is a very scary team. But they're scary not because they're the best players around but the smartest (Or close to it, anyway.). And that makes them very good at what people call Build Wars. Which is to say they know how to craft and execute builds which give them an advantage. Take away that build advantage, though, and they're not skilled enough to overcome their shortcomings. I mean, make no mistake, those are good players and they'd wipe the floor with most teams out there (including mine) but we're talking about the absolute elite teams here. Most of them have just better player skill than [iQ]. And [iQ] beats them by finding, developing the strat, better and faster than others and knowing so much that it's hard to get them to make a wrong move. And that's, I think, what happened here - [iQ] did not have a build advantage. [eF] did. And they hammered it home.

3:00GMT: Damn, still hurts to see them lose. It's like the GW Championships all over again. But, you know, that's friendship for you.

3:01GMT: Moving on to the next game.

Match Fourteen
#2 Idiot Savants vs #6 Team Everfrost
Isle of Jade?

iQ
R/W - Oath Shot spirit shitter
N/E - Reaper's with Glyph of Concentration, Blurred Vision, Suffering, Soul Barbs, Faintheartedness
N/Rt - Icy Veins with Painful Bond, Minions, Spirit Rift, Destruction, Bloodsong,
N/Me - Recurring Insecurity, Conjure Phantasm/Nightmare, Images of Remorse, Mantra of Persistence
N/Rt - Icy Veins with MB&S, Life, Spirit Transfer, Weapon of Warding, Recuperation
N/Rt - Reaper's with Weapon of Warding, MB&S, Spirit Transfer, Pain,
N/Mo - Spoil Victor, Defile Flesh, Scourge Healing, Parasitic, Soul Barbs, Price of Failure
N/Rt - Spirit Light, Spirit Transfer, MB&S, Weapon of Warding

eF
W/A - Eviscerate Axe
D/W - Melandru's
N/Mo - Reaper's with melee hate
Me/Mo - Migraine with hexes (I know, I know. How descriptive. But it's a mixed bag of degen, melee hate, and shutdown.)
E/Mo - Water Trident with Convert
R/Mo - BHA
Mo/E - Divert with Aegis
Mo/A - LoD with Dwayna's Kiss

Ah, there's the SBRI I heard about. And, yeah, it looks damned nasty. Especially on Jade. But, you know, I think [eF] knew it was coming and they're set up to handle it. Oh man, this is going to be frowntown.

3:01GMT: What we have here is a contrast in styles. Do you run thing and run it well, making minor tweaks to suit your opposition? Or do you run several different builds and hope to get the most advantage out of the situational differences each offers? Switching builds and even roles between rounds. You don't really get the surprise factor at this level so...

3:03GMT: Not one minute in and [iQ] is taking it on the chin again. They are just getting pounded.

3:04GMT: Going to watch for a spike, as it were here.

3:05GMT: They've been trying to hammer out Conzpi several times. But the infuses are money. It's just not working. [iQ] can't get a kill like this. And they're getting slaughtered.

3:05GMT: One thing I'm noticing is that the [iQ] spirits are being bunched up when they're laid down. That's just not good technique where there's AoE Eles and Dervishes around.

3:06GMT: Morale boost for [eF]. The retreat is on.

3:06GMT: About five minutes here. I think the [eF] Ranger has lagged out.

3:07GMT: [iQ]'s dug in at their front gates. This is Alamo time. But they still can't manage to get that final push of damage to get a kill.

3:08GMT: Oh man, this is tearing me apart. This isn't even a fair fight. This is like what happens when my guild lands someone in the top 100. I can only imagine how it must suck to have been playing in this match.

Then again, it could just by my lingering sickness making my stomach reel. That's it, yeah.

3:10GMT: They finally got a kill. So at least it's not the dreaded double flawless ftl. But it's too little too late.

3:11GMT: People don't lay awake at nights coated in panic sweat over the thought of being bounced from a tourney with a double flawless? Must just be me then.

3:12GMT: I know it's getting blown apart but it really is a nasty SBRI. One thing I like is how the Monking is somewhat hidden. You'd figure it would be on the N/Mo. But most of it is coming from the Weapon of Wardings and healing spells from the N/Rt. It's distributed and hard to take out which, if you ask me, is one of the weakness to exploit in most SBRI builds.

3:14GMT: On the other side, well, it's hex pressure. Loaded with hex hate and disruption. [eF] just knew this was coming, planned for it, and is executing to perfection. Man, they're going to be great in the finals.

3:16GMT: If you want to know why I'm not talking about the game it's because there's really nothing to say. It's about 14 minutes in, [iQ]'s been inching backwards from the beginning. And it's only a question of whether it's going to be VoD or DP that does them in. there haven't been any pushes or spectacular things to report, it's just a stalling action. And, again, that's the big problem with Jade. That lack of flexibility from the terrain is a double edged sword - if you get penned up in your base, just what can you do to turn the game around? If you can't beat the other team in a straight fight then you're screwed.

3:19GMT: 17 minutes. [iQ]'s turtling around the Lord. A lot of teams would have, I think, resigned by this point. But that's what makes [iQ] [iQ]. They're not going to stop looking for that single chance they need to turn the game back in their favor. Quitting means they have 100% odds of losing. But if they keep playing they have at least a chance. Not going to happen here, though.

3:21GMT: 19 minutes. [eF] has pulled back for VoD.

3:24GMT: VoD is fierce fighting. No one's managed to die yet. But it's not for a lack of effort.

3:25GMT: [iQ] is taking the worst of the damage and they're just not landing spikes at all. The fight's not pushed far enough to engage the NPC horde so it's not even like they're working down the Archers successfully in favor of killing the opponents. But I'm amazed at how they're able to stay alive.

3:26GMT: They just broke. There's nothing between [eF] and the Lord. Resign spike and [iQ] is out.

3:30GMT: Sigh. If you'll allow me to quote myself here: "Frowntown. Capital of Painsylvannia."

I've got to go pour some liquor out for my homies. I'll be back.