Week 2 Predictions

...Better late than never. Should be a busy weekend, as Quaxy and DiE are the only clans to have played their week 2 matches so far!

Week 2 maps

tommyd's 3.5 year old brain-child ns_tanith gets its 2nd round this week. A nicely balanced map (with the exception of the Waste hive) that allows multiple strategies- everyone loves tanith!

The usual marine tactic sees one squad of grunts heading straight to double with another squad getting the unenvious task of building base then getting their asses kicked in chemical transport. With double res being so close to MS (and thus a good supply of res), the marines can afford to put a lot of pressure on alien RTs. If the marines win, chances are the 2nd hive never went up.

A disciplined alien team stands a good chance if the hive is SatCom or Fusion. An RT in acidic and the 2nd hive location puts you in a good position- concentrate on defending the RTs until you have a Fade. The Waste hive poses a bit of a problem. Your best bet is to finish it quickly with a zerg-style Skulk rush at the start; or build 1 RT in Fusion and get 2 flash-Lerks to defend it with their lives.

The semi-popular ns_origin is this weeks new map. I always see this map as an alien-biased version of tanith.

The marines have no set start-up tactic: the only thing you should know is that a relocation won't work. Persoanlly, I feel that it's too hard to take down alien RTs early-game; my advice would to be to whore res and keep the aliens restricted to 2 RTs max.

For the Kharaa- assuming you have good Skulks and a good SoF Lerk then regardless of your hive, I'm a fan of building both double res towers and planting an SC on the top rafters. Although with the Biodome hive, it might be best to ambush the Computer Lab marines, then head over to MS for some fun.

Oh, bonus points to anyone who frags a Fade with the double res lift.

Premiership Predictions

saunamen - bte (Match of the week)

This one could go either way. Both teams had a great 1st week, with bte only losing to storm due to a bte base rush on caged that, if anything, worked too well and got their team spawn-camped. saunamen will be high on confidence after the demolition of new comers rage.ns, and the Finns have a knack for playing exceptionally well on origin.

Prediction 2-2. Too tight to call.


[EoD] - Insane

Billed as "team Spain Vs. team France" this should be another good game to watch. Both sides took the scalps of Finnish teams last week, although Insane had the tougher opponents. EoD have some great players, but I think Insane will edge this one- their awesome team-play, capped with animz's Fading makes them the favourites.

Prediction 4-0 to Insane, but EoD won't be push-overs.



|el'pheer| - Levitacus

This all-Finnish clash has the potential to be a bit one-sided. Maybe el'pheer rely a bit too much on ots and TriggerHappy. If Trigger has a bit more luck with his Lerking last week (his connection died on him last week during the caged round), then they may well stand a chance on the alien rounds, but I fully expect Levi to dominate their own alien rounds- the Levitacus clan of Spring 2005 had the strongest alien origin round in Europe.

Prediction 4-0 to Levitacus. This could kick-start their season.



rage.ns - storm

rage.ns will be disappointed with their 4-0 loss to the saunamen last week. I feel that they have much, much more to offer- but nevertheless, I can't see them turning a 4-0 loss against saunamen into a victory against Europe's strongest. By their own admission, storm had a disappointing alien tanith round last week- something I'm sure they have worked on. Out of nowhere, all-rounder b1 has turned himself into a decent Fade- as if they didn't have enough class across the board already!

Prediction 4-0 to storm. Cue Unreal Torunament announcer: "unstoppable!"


Select lower league predictions


rainbow - fbh (Division 1)

After favourites Devil's Talon slipped up against Random this week, it is now expected that one of these 2 clans could top the table (and be in the Premiership next season!). rainbow would have been the pre-game favourites, but with the loss of commander and leader 'Xassidy from the ENSL, rainbow look to have been thrown into chaos. JetJaguar looks set to lead the line-up with his decent aim, with bp being his opposite number.

Prediction 3-1 to rainbow. Assuming they find a new commander!


Evil | - TeaMf | (Division 2)

A tough one to call- TeaMf didn't have the easiest time last year, having been seeded in the 2nd division (this years equivalent of the 1st division)- but having the experience of last year should make them a stronger clan. Opponents Evil have a large roster with some good names- Ghost and T7 to name but two. Unfortuantely due to inactivity, a question mark remains over those players. If they had them, Evil would definitely put up a good fight.

Prediction 3-1 to TeaMf. The experience of TeaMf will show.
sherpa on 21 October 05 11:23

Comments

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Blank roflwaffles

Nice Predictions.

21 October 2005, 11:47

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Blank ben

errr what waste fucking rocks

21 October 2005, 17:12

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Blank Johs

Yeah, waste is not a bad hive for an exsperienced alien team. But nice predictions, except that I think rainbow is going to play draw against fbh.

22 October 2005, 01:25

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Blank Nirgal

Good predictions.

22 October 2005, 09:54

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Blank sherpa | cisequaltothree

Ben only says waste rocks because his mapping skillz never touched it

22 October 2005, 11:48

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Blank aA

HI BEN

22 October 2005, 13:11

176

Blank jiriki | old people

Roflcopter:

'After favourites Devil's Talon slipped up against Random this week"

22 October 2005, 14:20

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Blank verrektemongol

waste is shit. kthnx

22 October 2005, 16:53

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Blank ben

Waste is shit if you're an amatuer alien team.

22 October 2005, 21:44

86

Blank B1 | iMAGINE

you lose more games in waste than any other, but it's not shit. shit is mineshaft ok

23 October 2005, 11:19

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Blank sherpa | cisequaltothree

Waste is shit, -relative- to satcom/fusion. You can't keep your res

WAC RT = 1 marine camps the long corridor, another knifes the RT

dbl res, satcom, chem = lol

cargo = can be shot from range from a full 360 degree radius

fusion = yea, defendable, but once the marines (early game, marines > aliens) break through the 1st wave, it takes too long for the aliens to re-group and take back the location before the RT dies.

acidic = same as fusion

tn had it sussed by rushing double res and keeping the marines early-game res down; but that takes a fair bit of co-ordination.

im not saying it's the worst hive in the game (1.04 maint on eclipse was gg f4) but you'd rather have fusion or sat, surely.

23 October 2005, 12:14

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Blank Fana | Archaea

tanith is an alien map no matter which hive you get. It's more difficult to defend res with waste, but at the same time you have better access to marine res. Marines lose to RTs that are easy to build and maintain (west/waste) and instead have to rely on two that are difficult to build and maintain (chem/sat). On top of this, double res, the main source of marine res income, is only a stones throw away from waste meaning you can quickly get some skulks in there to chew them down turbo speed while the marines are busy respawning/gearing up/whatever. If you have a good Lerk that can keep marine offence teams down, waste is easily on par, if not better, than Fusion or Satcom.

OMG DIDNT I QUIT WTF IS THIS

23 October 2005, 18:25

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Blank Fana | Archaea

oh, and also: Cargo is one of the best RTs to get on tanith if you have half-decent Celerity Lerk.

It's all about the Lerk yeah?

23 October 2005, 18:27

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Blank bertz

b1 was a fade in mtme, no? or was it v.early knife?

23 October 2005, 23:25

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Blank sherpa | cisequaltothree

bob was a fade for team Sweden in the early days (iirc). Not sure about mtme- either way, I didn't know him as a player back then; in the way that I remember the ariadne lads.

23 October 2005, 23:48

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Blank sherpa | cisequaltothree

@ Fana:

What you are saying is true, but I think that assumes a marine team using run-of-the-mill tactics. I find that 2 or 3 marines running a patrol between central access and double res creates a bottle-neck that allows the other marines to cap the East side of the map, and take control of Fusion.

23 October 2005, 23:50

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Blank weezer

the key is shotguns

24 October 2005, 09:57

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Blank Nirgal

so the doors are the RTs.

24 October 2005, 15:21

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Blank ben

Fana has it right. Go watch last season week 1 skulks and lerks with meds and a good shotgunner.

K sure it sucks if you can't skulk, have a terrible lerk who can't hold ground, no teamwork and no fade. But if you're a good alien team and your opponents marine game is anything short of perfect then waste is brilliant.

24 October 2005, 16:27

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Blank sherpa | cisequaltothree

Wasn't last year NS3.0.0 where marines couldn't win for love-nor-money?

24 October 2005, 19:48

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Blank Fana | Archaea

Uh no, not during ENSL. We had the same version we have now by then. The best way to find out why waste is a good hive is to comm against a good alien team that gets waste. The amount of bitching I've heard from comms playing against waste aliens could fill a lifetime full of pain, honestly...

"the key is shotguns" is a good comment and all, but it applies to all marine rounds against any hive aliens and has no special impact agaisnt waste aliens. Go back to the cal forums tmk. :(

Having marines patrol central area is just plain stupid, sorry sherpa. If you have 2-3 marines hold up in that area, you'll only have 2-3 marines on offence. But what you're saying is that you want them to cap res. How does that work out? Not to mention the fact that the vents are easy to navigate and get you just as fast to fusion as the central way anyway.

"I didn't know him as a player back then; in the way that I remember the ariadne lads." - That's quite sad considering they weren't really good at all. I mean, LOVE mashed them 4-0 within a week after forming. :\

b1 Faded for Team Sweden, he also Faded in knife for a while when I was the only active Fadernator we had left (around the time we recruited frG and raju).

24 October 2005, 20:54

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Blank mu

team boobs on lockdown

24 October 2005, 22:26

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Blank Fana | Archaea

team moobs you mean!?

24 October 2005, 22:37

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Blank weezer

HUSH YOU! cal forums suck more than this comment system, by the way

25 October 2005, 14:31

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Blank sherpa | cisequaltothree

2 guys @ central access soak up the pressure from skulks trying to reach the central/eastern parts of the map, allowing the remaining marines to power-build and/or LMG/SG the satcoms' & fusion's RTs, then join the central access marines to kill the round off quickly?

(ok, you could counter the argument by saying that a well co-ordinated rush will remove the central access threat, but you could just as well say that those 2 marines might get lucky and be able to run straight in the hive and spawn camp to victory, ala storm/bte on caged. For all of the tactics in NS, most small-scale victories come down to some random factors, and no team can ever control them all at once- player locations, good medding, opposition locations, ping, player "form", etc...)

Yes, a great lerk can win the round for the aliens with the waste hive, by defending the RTs.... but you can say that about any hive on any map.

25 October 2005, 19:27

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Blank Fana | Archaea

The Lerk is more so of an importance with waste, because defending RTs without one is extremely difficult, while it's almost as easy as with the other two hives if you have one. The advantage of ease of access to marine RTs and control of waste/west RTs more than makes up for that small disadvantage. I've seen numerous teams try to camp people outside hives, knife/tn included, and I've never seen it consistently work. Sure you can get lucky and get a spawn camp going, but that's the exception and not the norm.

If you don't get it by now I WILL EAT YOU ALIVE

25 October 2005, 20:13

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Blank sherpa | cisequaltothree

Even a prem team would struggle to hold w.access agaisnt a low-league team. The long corridor ahead, and behind the RT make it easy for marines to keep skulks at bay.

If I were in charge of an alien team with Waste, and had to build 2 RTs, I'd go for fusion and acidic. But that's 3 locations (hive included) that are a fair distance apart. Too far apart, imo.

I BET I TASTE GOOD.

YOU TASTE LIKE A STRAWBERRY-FLAVOURED POP'TARD!

(

25 October 2005, 21:03

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Blank frost

I can only say one thing sherpa, nice 56k broadband you have mate D:

25 October 2005, 21:56

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Blank mu

there's a fucking vent system in maps for a reason and central access is fucking smaller than you think

fucking

25 October 2005, 23:15

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Blank Fana | Archaea

I never said you should build WAC, I said you have control of it. Marines won't build it yeah!?

I'M BUYING A TICKET RIGHT NOW, GET SOME SALT READY

AND MAYBE SOME KETCHUP

25 October 2005, 23:57

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Blank ben

Why the FUCK would you camp central when there's a god damn vent STRAIGHT to fusion you boondoggle. Don't give up the day job, sherpa.

And you don't cap west access, you cap cargo and acidic and you use the lerk to hold them up in cargo. Place a MC in fusion vent to give him adrenaline and then let celerity and the huge room do it's job. YOU FRICKING RETARD.

26 October 2005, 08:30

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Blank Mike

"ns is a game"

26 October 2005, 09:57

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Blank FreeZe

lol.

26 October 2005, 12:19

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Blank Fana | Archaea

lol ben is actually getting agitated over a ns strategy discussion. :(

26 October 2005, 20:42

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