Week 4 Predictions

Yet another week without any forfeits! Yay!

Massive thanks to TrC once again.

Group A

Tuxedo Men  vs Team Pron

by Trc

Close game here too making it worth to predict but with the Almaty joining Team Pron balance is a bit in Pron's favor. Any round is winnable by both teams but I trust in alien draw.

Tuxedo Men have managed to keep activity together and training their new recruits into valuable assets but their game is not smooth enough just yet. With Jiriki commanding on both alien and marine keeping the game from dropping SD or TTS like chaos but whether it will be enough or not that will be up to invidual skill and warming up.

Team Pron gained priceless reinforcement Almaty from U GO?. Almaty will be leading the team and hopefully bringing some unseen potential Pron may or may not carry as a team. Pron needs desperately more activity and precise tactics for all rounds if they plan to win div2.

That I said I believe in draw both winning alien rounds.

I Predict 2-2

Notable players:

Tuxedo Men - Jiriki (game leader,lerk) psyc0mus (Fade)

Team Pron  - Almaty (game leader, all around)

9L  vs 250 de ping

by TrC

Another high ping game, both clans have showed strong play especially in alien play. 9L has the favor here but the Argentina warriors wont be giving rounds easy, alien rounds are going to be 9L's pain in the ass.

9L skill level is a bit unstable atm, their first 2 matches ended 4-0 victory but rounds were by all means no overrun. Game against take over was horrible, both teams played bad but take over's pressure was too much for 9L to handle. This time such a pressure wont be a problem but instead they will face mass rts and cara aliens on high ping server. 9L's activity has been down as well lately and whether if they get it up or not it may be cost em a point or two.

250 de ping chances of getting to div1 are almost gone but in order to strenghten their position as a div2 challenger they hunger for points even more than 9L. Marine play is probably cast away and they should take their chances in alien rounds.

9L has the upperhand but the state I'm in makes me believe in 250 de ping taking 1 alien round thus

I predict 3-1 for 9L

Notable players:

9L - wltrs (marine) Sublime (lerk)

250 de ping - Snail (marine) Hitman (marine)

Take Over - Keen Edge

by Bacillus

Take Over proved themselves as the top team in group A by beating the top contender Ninelegends 3-1. As expected, both Franky and s4druid did great job on marine rounds and Beefi's decision of SG pushing cargo without getting a near PG on veil won them the round. The rest of the team did solid perfomance too.

Keen Edge disappointed me last week. They lost to Tuxedo Men in almost a sweep. kE's game looked disorganised and none of the players displayed any exceptional skills on individual level. You have to give credit to Tuxedo Men though, they've improved a lot. kE on the other hand seems to have their direction downwards if anything.

Based on last week's results, it's a rather simple prediction: Take Over will overrun kE. The two major things I'd like to see in this match:

-Someone from Take Over rising to the level of play the swedish dynamic duo is doing. Right now they are peaking the scores on almost every marine round.

-kE regaining some discipline in their teamwork. They looked rather sloppy skillwise early on already, but their last week's perfomance lost the teamwork they used to have.

No matter how things go, I can't see kE taking a round here. 4-0 tO.

Group B

Stray Dogs vs Demonic Soul

by TrC

I'm personally looking forward to this match. This match will pretty much decide who gets a chance for div2 finals. Both teams are also equally skilled and it is going to be close fight but I believe in DS.kor has slightly better chance of winning.
The game is going to be high ping game, last time I predicted more lmg rushes but SG's were used quite a lot and I dont see why they wouldnt continue using.

Stray Dogs havent been very active lately and no real gameplay improvements happened in last 2 games but they did beat TTS (although not at their best) so there is always the surprising factor. In order to win marine rounds their gameplay have to either change into a more aggressive or more creative. In alien rounds they have the advantage as long as Kuo doesnt Fade.

Demonic Soul's activity is unknown to me but for clan with a morning practice they must be training at least on invidual level. DS.kor's weak points lie on marine play as it is often very passive and submissive, also big skill difference in team can
cause unpredictable problems. I cant imagine DS.kor losing alien round, only against SG rush.

Although 2-2 is the most probable result I want to bet on the little chance that DS.kor gets 1 marine round thus

I predict 3-1 for DS.kor

Notable players:

Stray Dogs - Doctor(game leader) Vince (marine) Dogo (all around)

Demonic Soul - Nec0 (Fade, marine) Effy (Fade, marine)

Newstyled - Saunamen

by Bacillus

Newstyled is a weird team. They've got both top notch experienced carryplayers and new names that haven't breached from the mid level yet. So far they have been able to dispatch the less skilled teams, but the lineup just falls short when matched with higher tier teams.

Saunamen keeps going steadily. Peach's comming is still brilliant most of the time and the rest of the team isn't showing much weakness either.

I'd like to see Newstyled put up a fight, but I feel Sauna will be quite comfortable with most rounds. On marines Newstyled simply runs out of fragging marines either on push or on capping and on aliens they have to face Peach's dreaded comming. All in all, I can't see Sauna slipping a round without some baserush incident.

4-0 for Sauna. I'm still hoping newstyled could put up a fight and take a round though.

U GO - Two Team Squad

by Bacillus

Just like Saunamen, U GO ?! are heading steadily towards the league semifinals. Despite some momentarily slips in marine play, they are looking good and well rounded.

As always, TTS is difficult to analyze. Their off the wall tactics often give them some edge which often either gets amplified by more off the wall or is lost due to some poorly executed play later on. This season their surprises haven't been that effective though.

On pure raw skill U GO should walk over TTS any day. TTS really needs to find some of their old randomness and cunning to take even a single round. U GO better check their baserush counter protocols before heading into this one.

The prediction is clearly 4-0 for U GO, but I'm hoping TTS to do something unpredictable to steal a round, making the group B 2nd place contest more interesting.

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That's all for this weeks preds. Keep up the good work. Also big thanks to Nec0 for doing the match highlight videos for youtube, they are a great help for predicting too!

-Bacillus