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Match was played. Pressure. Deck16][. Weapon stay off. 2vs2. 22 minute rounds. No redeemer. Force respawn. All other normal rules. (BoD)nepenthe (that's me) and (BoD)duo (that's my brother) vs Skold{KS} and Been_Caught{KS}.

Wow. What intense fun. Today reminded me just how much I love this game and why I devote so much time to the UT community. There is nothing like the adrenaline rush you get during the tournament mode 10 second countdown!!!

Let's start with the server. We used The Killing Fields, of course. The server was absolutely transparent. Pings were well below 100 for the whole shebang. Not one packet was lost. It was essentially indistinguishable from playing offline. One of the best servers I've ever played on.

The first map was Pressure. duo and I had practiced quite a bit and come up with some real strategies. I decided that controlling the pressure chamber itself was going to be key. So our paths and choices revolved around meeting up in there. Respawn, grab only the nearest weapon, and unite in the pressure room. Control the contents of the pressure chamber (rocket launcher, damage amplifier, and shield belt). Go hunting when the damage amp is acquired. Use lift-boosted jumping and control the medpacks. Stick together. Share weapons. Watch the pressure doors for each other. Use a "right-angle" attack strategy when it's the two of us on one of them--meaning one attacks from the front, the other from the side. Run when Been_Caught has a shock rifle. There was more, but I'll leave it at that.

It worked. {KS} jumped to an early lead, but it only lasted a minute or two. By five minutes into the game, we were taking control and shutting them down. Our domination of the pressure chamber was amazing! I grabbed the belt 7 times and the amp 4, duo grabbed the belt 6 times and the amp 3 times, while BC had the belt only 1 time, neither had the amp, and Skold had nothing. In addition to the belt and amp, I also grabbed the keg of health several times. This was one of the reasons we were able to wipe the floor with {KS} on Pressure. This graph from ngStats shows the progression of frags and time. As you can see, we out-played them down the stretch.

Final Scores
(BoD)--46
{KS}--20

(BoD)nepenthe--19
(BoD)duo--27
Been_Caught{KS}--12
Skold{KS}--8

I was very proud of my brother duo, he stuck to our game plan and it brought us a strong victory. There was also quite a bit of teamwork displayed by us. The "right angle" thing worked great tactically, and when one of us got into trouble, often the other was there to take over. It was beautiful. Our control of the pressure chamber and its contents meant we were shield-belted and damage-amped a lot of the time, which gave us a real advantage that we were able to capitalize on time and time again. I saw a lack of thought on {KS}'s part. They failed to display teamwork, couldn't control the pressure chamber, and didn't seem to have a coherent strategy. Great sportsmanship all around; the egos were left at the door.

The next map was our pick, of course, Deck16][. This has to be the most famous Unreal/UT map there is. I've literally played hundreds of games there over the last couple of years. It's a truly awesome map, one of the best designs ever, and a great time no matter the circumstances.

You might remember I said last week I was confident that duo would play a great game on Deck. He didn't dissappoint. Our strategy on Deck was more loose. Again, it involved control of the belt and amp, and the orders were to pursue unless the enemy had a shock rifle. But I decided against coming up with strict paths to follow or territories to set up. I like playing Deck balls-out!

We absolutely dominated. After 4 minutes it was 12-0. At 10 minutes it was 28-9. I used the jump boots and flak cannon to excellent effect. duo was absolutely unstoppable the last 9 minutes. He played an astounding game, anticipating moves and being quicker than the others. He had 5 Killing Sprees and 1 Rampage as well as 2 Double Kills, while I had 3 Killing Sprees myself. This graph shows the results on Deck. Notice {KS}'s first five minutes. Notice the lazy slope of their plotted line.

This graph shows our individual scores on Deck. Notice duo's meteoric rise at 12.5 minutes.

Final Scores
(BoD)--80
{KS}--19

(BoD)nepenthe--32
(BoD)duo--48
Been_Caught{KS}--7
Skold{KS}--12

You might remember I mentioned that a few months ago Been_Caught seemed to know the shock rifle well, but was a little lacking in the use of other weapons up close. Right again. He relied on the ASMD too much and it cost him. We took advantage of the fact that he had to stop in place in order to combo and A) retreated, using the architecture and teleporters and boots to get away, B) learned how to avoid and foul his particular brand of shock combos, and C) used teamwork to take him out easily. I think having weapon stay off threw him off as well. We just had {KS} on the run the whole game. Again, they failed to pick up the belt and amp. We were using the entire map while they were sticking to the obvious parts. It was a turkey shoot towards the end. We owned the place. I started using the sniper rifle a little and tried getting a hammer kill. We more than quadrupled their score! duo was a monster.

After Deck, we decided to play Liandri Central Core just for fun. It was the same story. We won 65-27 and this was actually my best game. The score doesn't even reflect our dominance of the central chamber on Liandri. I had a Killing Spree and a Rampage. We outscored them 28-3 the last 8 minutes.

Here is the ProvingGrounds match results page. It just shows that we challenged Die! Just Die! {KS} and beat them in two maps, and the scores.

Here are the ngStats pages for Pressure, Deck16, and Liandri. They show all kinds of info. You can click on the graph to see a detailed plot of each player's performance. You can click on a player's name to see his individual stats. You can click on "View High and Low Scores" at the bottom to see the high and low points for each game.

My screenshots of the final scores didn't turn out (looked like infrared vision), but duo will be sending me his.

Well, that about sums it up. This is the thrill of victory. Great, great day for (BoD), phenomenally fun games, amazing server, excellent sportsmanship, a nice victory. I talked to Skold and we set plans to have some scrimmages next week, which should be fun. I really hope they get the urge to rematch officially and come back stronger next time. I'll be looking forward to it!!! Gawd, I love this game.