Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Netherlands momuuu
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Autumn: Semi-finals preview

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Post by momuuu »

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The creative, wicked mind of Aizamk the eliftent, the ingenuity of Somppu’s blockhouse contain, surely financed by none other than Vladimir Putin, the squared Goon and his majestic scheduling, not even our one and only God, our Garja himself, managed to advance. They all fell, fell like the last leaves from a tree fall slowly whirling down on top of a pile of those that fell before them. We are left with four players that somehow surpassed these fallen heroes. Irishfaithful, he who plays France like no other, our own Lord of the euro civs, LordRaphael, mongo10, he who never not has mamelukes in his saloon, and the giant that is our dictator, our own H2O.

It has been two months since we started the autumn tournament and now we’re finally approaching its conclusion. This weekend the semi-finals will be played and the finalists will be determined.

H2O vs Mongo10
Sunday, November 13th, 17 GMT. Casted by Interjection and Umeu

The big question this tournament is who is going to beat H2O. H2O, aka Paparyx, has looked very dominant so far, as he usually does. While players like LordRaphael and Irishfaithful have struggled throughout, the waterboy seems to haven’t really been up against the ropes yet. His last series against Garja was one of the quickest best of sevens I have seen in a while. He seemed to have a relatively easy time against Wickedcossack too, and jSimons didn’t really seem to be a match for him either. One of the players that might give him a hard time is Mongo10. Mongo10 was a player who mostly relied on China and randomly getting mamelukes in the saloon every single time, but has improved a lot over the past year. His performances in tournaments have gotten better and better and now he’s going the furthest he’s ever gone. His civ pool has expanded way beyond China, although China might still be his best civ. Mongo has had a good run this tournament, beating Kaiserklein and arguably the surprise of this tournament, Somppukunkku, quite handily.

Unfortunately mongo has to face one of the best players to have ever played this game. H2O’s level of play is sometimes beyond mortal, his ability to stack tiny advantage upon tiny advantage is absolutely amazing. So far nobody has managed to actually make him look mortal. It’s up to mongo to show what he has good, but I fear it might not be enough. Prediction: 4-2 for H2O.

LordRaphael vs IrishFaithful
Sunday, November 13th, 20 GMT. Casted by _H2O and Chrisie10101

LordRaphael and IrishFaithful, two of the players considered to be candidates to make it to the finals. LordRaphael, the runner up of the winter tournament, has had a rocky ride so far. He almost lost against Breezebrothers, struggled a bit versus Save_your_skill and almost went out to Goongoon. The amount of struggles he seemed to have with his opponents has been pretty unexpected so far, but I think that’s saying more about his opponents, which all performed much better than expected, than it is saying as LordRaphael. His bracket hasn’t been easy at all and he’s facing one hell of a player. Irishfaithful hasn’t played in other ESOC tournaments so far, but was already tipped by quite a few players to be a candidate for the finals. His road has, similar to LordRaphael’s, been a hard one. Against Soldier, he was seemingly down and out after soldier went up 2-0. Against Knuschelbär, he faced a counterpick when the score was 2-2, and the games against Aizamk were all very scrappy throughout the series.

Despite the struggles, both players very much so deserve their spot in the semi-finals and have both shown amazing play. Interestingly enough, both players have a rather limited civ pool. LordRaphael has always been slightly handicapped by the fact that he prefers to play euro civ and the civ pool of Irishfaithful seems to primarily consist out of ports and of course his France. This gives both players the opportunity to fully abuse the civ picking system and prepare strong counter civs to take advantage of the limited civ pools. Both players have shown that their civ pool is definitely not too limiting for them to perform; they usually manage to play so well that the civs they have at their proposal is plenty to win.

Calling this one is hard. Both players have pretty similar styles, they both play relatively straight up and tend to rely on solid build orders combined with good mechanics to overpower their opponents. If I would have to make a call, it’d be 4-3 for LordRaphael.
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Netherlands Mr_Bramboy
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

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Post by Mr_Bramboy »

FYI This is Jerom's 10000th post.

Nice writeup as always. I'm hyped as fuck :D
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by MCJim »

What a good way to make your 10.000th post! That's 20.000 posts in total (with agecommunity).

Looking forward to these series! I don't think we've ever seen that many close games past rounds. The amount of one-sided series is really low this tournament.
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by pecelot »

Mr_Bramboy wrote:I'm hyped as fuck :D

stop this sc2 propaganda

writing that the write-up is perfect is unnecessary, it's selbstverständlich!
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

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Post by lordraphael »

MCJim wrote:What a good way to make your 10.000th post! That's 20.000 posts in total (with agecommunity).

Looking forward to these series! I don't think we've ever seen that many close games past rounds. The amount of one-sided series is really low this tournament.

youre right apart from H2o the aoe community seems to be pretty close in skill. Unfortunately no one really comes close to his level atm.
Ive been thinking about this and i think its partly ( ofc H2o is just a natural talent in this game but hes not unreachable ) because none of the good players has really good practice partners. H2o has mitoe, who is probably the best practice partner you can get atm, not saying that h2o really needs a good practice partner considering hes quite far away from all others right now, but it certainly helps.

Also think about BS_OP he had Veni who is probably the best sparring partner ever. He understands the game at a level very few do, he plays lots of civs, he is extremely good at the game. This all allows for specific training which can put you to the next level.
breeze wrote: they cant even guess how much f***ing piece of stupid retarded they look they are trying to give lesson to people who are over pr35 and know the best mu. im pretty sure that we need a page that only pr30+ post and then we could have a nice discussins.
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by Mr_Bramboy »

It might also be because you're too busy playing europa universalis instead of practicing :D
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by lordraphael »

Mr_Bramboy wrote:It might also be because you're too busy playing europa universalis instead of practicing :D

its a great game you should try it
breeze wrote: they cant even guess how much f***ing piece of stupid retarded they look they are trying to give lesson to people who are over pr35 and know the best mu. im pretty sure that we need a page that only pr30+ post and then we could have a nice discussins.
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by _H2O »

I do agree with that rapha. I am happy to be friends with mitoe. We can play together and really discuss things out because it's not about who is better when we play. He comes up with good builds and knows the community. Not to mention he's just great at the game. The discussions are just as valuable as the play time which is usually only the day before the tournament match at this point.
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

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Post by dicktator_ »

Yeah that's why I was better at supremacy back when kingownage was playing.
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

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Post by Veni_Vidi_Vici_W »

Nice writing again Jerom!
Despite me being busier I have seen quite a lot of the tournament and I have to say these close series were entertaining, including some weird/new ways of playing the MUs. Looking forward to the semis.

And ye Raphael, I agree that a good training partner matters a lot, the practice and perhaps even more so the sparring. I feel that more of the 1/1 players should get together to practice more seriously, including the discussions and thinking of new BOs rather than "just" practicing. Although it seems that this is easier said than done these days, due to various reasons.
And even though the game is old, we have seen new things being mixed in and with success. Such as H2O's Brit mirror BO variation, Blackstars' Jap semi into FI, Mitoe, Aiz and some others. So it seems there are still options left... And it would (or should?) get more interesting if those BO's start to rotate more based on the map and scouting what your opponent does. I still feel that in many cases there is probably one "best" BO, or at least best "starting" point. However, it sometimes gets to something like: If he does X, which is a good all-round start, then I do Y, but if he STARTS with X and scouts me doing Y, he can switch to Z and I have to adjust Y as well. This is what makes strategy games most interesting to me. And while this sure isnt easy, thinking this through before the game helps a lot, and coming up with new stuff is what should happen way more probably. People in general play too much standard, im guilty of that myself as well sometimes ^^

Regarding Blackstars run in that tournament. I have played with him a lot before that also, and I think that because of our discussions and games together, combined with the way I approached and analysed things, he has also gotten a better understanding of the game in a relative short period of time. We have practiced (though he played with Prince and Erik as well as a lot of other 1/1s) and discussed several MU's such as the Sioux vs India and India vs Brit, as we had a different opinion about that compared to most of the community back then. Also other small things, for example scouting is so underused, players often just run in and get surprised or lose because of the wrong unit combo. The more active raiding that 'we teamplayers' do, and Blackstar used in his games, does automatically give a lot of scouting info as well. Or just using the hero and his LOS in front of the army to get some idea of whats going on and the enemy's position to better anticipate possible flanks. I remember Spadel even sometimes buying his dead hero back early game, just so he knows what is happening, so he can properly react.
That said, Blackstar in the end had a very good understanding of the game and how to adapt, combined with the ability to execute it properly. He has improved a lot as a player and got to this top level because of playing smart, practicing a lot of 1/1 and spending time on thinking things through. He himself came up with several new ways of dealing with certain situations and invented some new BO's like the specific Jap Semi based on his experience of what was possible in the meta.

Anyway, Raphael, stop the europe universalis for a bit, and gogo ;)
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by JakeyBoyTH »

This probably isn't the place, but i'm just wondering why Jerom isn't an Admin?
Perhaps a new role of Super-Moderator should be made for him.

I reckon he contributes quite a lot, perhaps just as much as some of the admins (although I don't know what goes on behind the scenes of course - I do see Jerom quite a bit more however).

I'm not saying that other people of the community aren't doing as much for it as Jerom, but 10000 posts is pretty substantial.
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by deleted_user »

I find it hard to find appeal in an admin role. I would imagine others might feel the same.
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

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Post by lemmings121 »

practice partners help a lot indeed.


btw, any 30+ wanna adopt me? lol
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

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Post by jesus3 »

lemmings121 wrote:practice partners help a lot indeed.


btw, any 30+ wanna adopt me? lol


I can really recommend lemmings121. he is a tame lemming of calm nature, he knows where the toilet is and behaves well around people. but dont be fooled! sometimes, since hes a lemming, wants to randomly commit suicide - whoever adopts this lemming will have to take care of that.

blessings be with you, little lemmings121
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

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Post by watching »

I feel like if anyone wants to take games from H2O they need to play different civs than what we've seen this tornament. If they are gonna mirror or stick with only euro civs they will loose since H2O is just better in overall execution. But if like Blackstar at the time they play civs and MU's H2O isn't accustomed to they have the biggest chance. If you may compare this to chess a little and minmaxing, whereby often times you abandon your desirable move to make a move that forces the opponent to make a less favorable move himself. This also creates a situation where it's more likely your opponent will make more mistakes, which is very much needed vs H2O since his play has very few errors. So yeh maybe mirroring port might be your most desirable move, but try to play a totally different MU in which you also feel comfortable and maybe your opponent has less practice against.
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by deuxballesman »

I'd agree with the fact that you need to get H2O outside his confort zone (but it is quite large unfortunately for its opponents^^). But please refrain from chess comparisons if you don't play the game yourself ;)
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by watching »

deuxballesman wrote:I'd agree with the fact that you need to get H2O outside his confort zone (but it is quite large unfortunately for its opponents^^). But please refrain from chess comparisons if you don't play the game yourself ;)


Never heard of Chess engines Min-Max algorithms?
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by _H2O »

deuxballesman wrote:I'd agree with the fact that you need to get H2O outside his confort zone (but it is quite large unfortunately for its opponents^^). But please refrain from chess comparisons if you don't play the game yourself ;)


I would like to think the same applies to other people too!
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by deuxballesman »

watching wrote:
deuxballesman wrote:I'd agree with the fact that you need to get H2O outside his confort zone (but it is quite large unfortunately for its opponents^^). But please refrain from chess comparisons if you don't play the game yourself ;)


Never heard of Chess engines Min-Max algorithms?

Ofc... But that is not the way a chess players thinks during a game. Should you create an AI trying to beat H2O why not
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by deuxballesman »

_H2O wrote:
deuxballesman wrote:I'd agree with the fact that you need to get H2O outside his confort zone (but it is quite large unfortunately for its opponents^^). But please refrain from chess comparisons if you don't play the game yourself ;)


I would like to think the same applies to other people too!

Sure ;) You should have seen Magnus Carlsen answers to the "who do you think is the best chess player in the world" asked to him yesterday ^^
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

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Post by Zutazuta »

Rumor has it h20- gained all his old skill from training with a very special player. That player? Victor_swe.
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by Gendarme »

Both Zuta and iwillspankyou type arbitrary dashes in their posts. :hmm:
Pay more attention to detail.
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by Challenger_Marco »

Zutazuta wrote:Rumor has it h20- gained all his old skill from training with a very special player. That player? Victor_swe.

My god wtf is with Victor_Swe u quote his name whenever is possible.whats so special about him ?? I dong get it.
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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

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Post by Zutazuta »

Challenger_Marco wrote:
Zutazuta wrote:Rumor has it h20- gained all his old skill from training with a very special player. That player? Victor_swe.

My god wtf is with Victor_Swe u quote his name whenever is possible.whats so special about him ?? I dong get it.

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Re: Autumn: Semi-finals preview

Post by Gendarme »

Challenger_Marco wrote:
Zutazuta wrote:Rumor has it h20- gained all his old skill from training with a very special player. That player? Victor_swe.

My god wtf is with Victor_Swe u quote his name whenever is possible.whats so special about him ?? I dong get it.

I see you are new. Welcome to ESOC. Rule number one: no blasphemy. I cannot take the Lord Victor's name in vain. The other rules you'll figure as you move along.
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