BeT came in fourth place last season, and hasn’t really altered their roster since then. However, having two of their best players away at PGL during the first match created some problems for them as they nearly lost to srs. In their second game they pummeled MYM however, so there is no underestimating the skills of their players.

aTTaX on the other hand go into this match with something of a mixed record. They won their first game against mTw, but lost 5-0 to SK. The overall match score lies a bit about what that match looked like though. There were many 2-1 games and even those that went 2-0 to SK were no easy takings. In BeT they have another difficult adversary, but can they change those 1-2s to 2-1s or even better? Let’s find out.

	[1:2]
Bet.Fov		aTTaX.XlorD

In the past playday FoV won a hard match against MYM’s resident lightbringer. In pd3 he is once again stuck in a mirror match against one of the great mirror players, Xlord. Xlord proved his capabilities not only in past playdays but in the finals of last season too where he defeated Susiria on LAN. Because of the possibilities of lag games between europe and asia are hard to call. However, Xlord is my bet for this match based on what I saw in his previous games and on FoV’s. FoV doesn’t play like Reign, he plays a classic mirror style, and as such Xlord isn’t in for any surprises.

During his match against Reign it was only his micro that kept him in the game, but that was some impressive micro. Moreso infact than FoV during his match against Lucifer.

AMS is a terrible nightmare for Undead. Imagine not being able to nuke something!

Game 1 (TR): Close spawn on Turtle Rock promises a lot of action. It depends on the strategy chosen of course, but the short distance does present some options to any kind of player. FoV builds his Altar and Crypt simultaneously at the lower front of his base before he starts a zigg. He does this to be able to scout Xlord before he picks his hero. If he is going ghouls he’d pick lich, otherwise DK.
Xlord, faithful to his fiends, does a typical fiend build starting out with a simultaneous crypt and graveyard.

FoV seems to have practiced well against fiends considering what he does next. After creeping his green camp he goes off and creeps the low-hp turtles on Xlord’s natural expansion. This gets him lvl 2. With aura in hand he then proceeds to hunt down Xlord’s spiders. After getting several killed and only getting one ghoul out of it Xlord leaves. But, when FoV tries to creep the remaining turtle Xlord shows he has a few tricks of his own. He runs right next to the turtle as FoV is whacking on it and uses hide (he got a cloak of shadows from his green camp). With Xlord practically guaranteed a creepsteal and an itemsteal too FoV is forced to leave the creep.

After some more nice moves (that I won’t mention because they’d make this section too long) and some additional creeping, FoV attacks Xlord’s base. After some great micro from both Xlord manages to drive FoV off. Losses on both sides are heavy but acceptable. FoV, realizing this battle will be fought with spells and not so much with units puts down a Temple and starts producing adept banshees while Xlord unwittingly continues his destroyer production. FoV switches from ghouls to fiends to get more use for AMS.

When Xlord find himself face to face with this AMS-empowered army he turns and runs for his base where what in all practicality is the final battle begins. Xlord’s DK is severely taxed, but at least sleep doesn’t seem to trouble him much as the destroyers can just eat it. Once the first Frostie comes out Xlord starts fighting back. The heavy magic damage quickly strips FoV’s units of AMS. As we all know AMS protects only against damage, not the effect of spells, and Xlord’s lvl 3 Crypt Lord causes problems with his lvl 2 impale, taking down FoV’s DK and drives him off. He buys it back from the Tavern, but with Xlord holding both the level, supply and tech-advantage he can do little to stop the carnage. G1 to Xlord.

Game 2 (EI): Game 2 starts out similarly to game 1 as FoV goes for ghouls while Xlord fiends (yeah, a noun: fiend, the act of training fiends). FoV decides for a lich first this game however as the quick lvl 2 trick isn’t avaliable. FoV creeps his lich to lvl 3 and goes of to hunt. He gets chased off by Xlord’s DK, but he manages to turn even that to his advantage. Meanwhile the DK chases the lich towards the merchant FoV runs a few ghouls over to Xlord’s base. Once at the shop he buys a staff and teleports over to his ghoul and haves at the fiends. After taking one down he’s run out.

Xlord presents a good trick for fiend-users: If you can throw a few shots on the enemy DK while he’s lvl 1, do it. Soon it’ll be more of a liability than a help. Being in a somewhat uncompromisable position, FoV puts down an expansion and then heads out to cover his tracks by attacking. Just as they go into clinch an observer drops however, something that pisses the position-sensitive fiend user off. He still manages to barely win the battle.

Having scouted the enemy expansion, Xlord goes in for the kill. FoV hasn’t massed towers, something he pays for now as Xlord actually manages to beat FoV’s army once, but before he has time to destroy it he is driven off by a new assault. The final battle doesn’t give a decisive victory to either before Xlord is half a second too slow with his death coil. With his lich dead the game is over.

Game 3 (SV): As the final map Xlord picks Secret Valley, the same map he won his first game against Susiria on in the wc3l-finals. It’s the same ghouls vs fiend-business as before, except this time FoV decides on some aco-harassing with his lich. Xlord tries to counter harass, but doesn’t manage to do much harm. Xlord messes up a bit while chasing FoV’s ghouls down. First his lich gets rally-jacked and then one of his fiends moves too far away when he teleports out. He is reinvigorated later though, as he gets the xp tome and brilliance aura at the red creep camp, while FoV gets the worst possible item: cloak of flames.

Soon thereafter the whole map is crept and Xlord sits back in his base, waiting for his Frostie to pop. He runs his DK over to both merchants and buys the Invul-pots (possibly the best item in UD-mirror). FoV attacks before the wyrm emerges and Xlord commits a cardinal error: he burrows his fiends when he knows FoV is using Shades. Before he realizes this most of them are already destroyed. The Frostie turns the battle around however, and FoV is forced to flee.

The expansion he set up before the battle is found and quickly dispatched. As his second wyrm arrives Xlord begins the final push on FoV’s base. The most important target is the battle-changing item shop. Xlord doesn’t have enough fiends to web all of FoV’s gargs, but with Frost Armor cast on them the effectiveness of gargs is greatly reduced. The game ends when FoV accidently traps his own DK with his acos, but it was already decided due to Xlord’s superior hero levels and ability to render the DL nearly useless with a destroyer.

	[2:0]
Bet.WinNers		aTTaX.yAwS

Winners and Sweet played 2s against dArk and yAws before starting their solos, and in those games they were soundly beaten so I was a bit sceptical as to Winners’ abilities going into this game. Apparently I shouldn’t have been.

Game 1 (TM): The game starts out as standard as can be. Basic builds, DH vs AM. yAws heads of to militia-creep the laboratory while Winners AoW-creeps the yellow gnoll camp. Winners arrives to late to do any harm to yAws’ peasants, but he brings along a shadow priest to dispel WEs. yAws, perhaps slightly self-concious of the fact that a drawn-out game would not be in his favor decides to tower just as Winners’ tier 2 finishes.

He makes the unwise decision to chase Winners’ units too far however, while Winners keeps his intent on killing the AM with his DH. To take care of the towers he brings in a Pit Lord. With his AM driven off and his peasants and footmen incinerated by the Pit Lord he is forced to abandon the attempt. While chasing down yAws’ fleeing units the DH evens out the level-disadvantage while simultaneously power-creeping his PL. yAws tries to tr once again, but even though his unit hunt is more successful this time the defenses of Winners’ are too strong.

A Pit Lord-using wave is sweeping Korea, and a wave of fire is sweeping yAws' peasants.

Game 2 (TS): Game 2 mimics game 1 in more ways than one. Not only is the build orders the same, the fast creeping to lvl 3 on yAws’ part and his strategy of a quick tower rush is also the same. As is Winners’ counter-option. Once again the PL hulks out of his tavern lodging, and once again he burns yAws’ army to cinders. Even the final levels on the heroes are the same! I might just go so far as to say there is no practical difference between game 1 and 2 whatsoever.

I return to the subject of experience, as yAws should’ve taken with him his experiences from game one when planning out his attack in game 2. Spreading out his towers and peasants; perhaps bring in more as he saw the PL coming would have been a good choice seeing as how Winners’ would’ve been in bad shape had the two towers in the lower left gone up. Or maybe he shouldn't have tried to tower at all!

Perhaps it was a matter of disliking the matchup, or perhaps even fearing the opposing player. Regardless, yAws still has some way to go before he can contend at the highest level.

	[2:0]
Bet.Check		aTTaX.DeMusliM

DeMuslim put up a somewhat ambivalent defense against Soju in the match against SK, playing two good games where he won one and lost one only to be dominated in the deciding one. Has he learned his lesson since then I wonder.

Game 1 (SV): Similarly to the previous match, Check AoW-creeps a gnoll camp while DeMuslim militia-creeps the corresponding one for starters. When DeMuslim tries to fast-expand Check’s DH arrives to harass. He uses the same strategy he used when defeating Sky in their wc3l-match last season, with immolation. This doesn’t work overly well this time around however as DeMuslim gets 2 arcane towers up to suck dry his mana pool. Instead he right-clicks the AM with his DH while bringing archers and a naga in to harass the expo.

In what first looks like a brilliant manouver DeMuslim has the DH chase his AM into a tight spot between the trees and his towers, and the close the gap with militia and footmen. The DH manages to escape his coils however and continues the harassment. By now Check is pooling all his resources into taking the expo down, building only an AoWi on tier 2 for a few dotts. DeMuslim manages to chase his forces off for a moment with militia, but they come straight back again. DeMuslim manages to trade his AM for the enemy DH, buying it straight back out again for the gold he has accumulated from his expo, but by now the expo is doomed, and with no meaningful unit production he is forced to conceed.

I’ll have it noted that one of the biggest mistakes DeMuslim did was to not get boots of speed for his AM, making it an easy target for Check’s DH. If he had been able to outrun the DH at key moments he might’ve been able to turn the tide.

Game 2 (TS): DeMuslim starts out militia-creeping the merc camp while Check does some light creeping with his Warden. DeMuslim then proceeds to make a exo-expo close to Check’s natural (that way you can keep tabs on quick expansion attempts by the elf while still keeping your own relatively safe). Check finds out however and dices his advesary’s peasants with Fan of Knives. Check wasn’t exactly unprepared for DeMuslim’s tier 1 building bonanza, quickly getting a sturdy mix of archers and hunts. Note that this would’ve neatly stopped an attempt to tower rush as well. As is expected the hunts completely steamroll DeMuslim’s meager forces, making it 2-0 for Check.

Scout before doing anything hasty is the lesson for today.

	[2:1]
Bet.Myth		aTTaX.dArk

dArk has done rather well in recent history, albeit perhaps stumbled on the finish line. Myth has had one easy and one hard opponent, winning and losing accordingly. Which group dArk belongs to remains to be seen (by me).

Game 1 (LT): LT is an Orc map! In the choice between Myth and Who (or even Jini) the choice should’ve been clear. However, I do not know the circumstances so I won’t speculate as to why this decision was made. Roll it.

With a far-spawn there is very little an Orc can do to stop a human expansion, so dArk doesn’t even try. Instead he creeps hard and sets up his own. When Myth tries to set up a second one however dArk forces a tp on the am and kills of the remaining peasants and their towers. In obs chat dArk’s team mates talk about how he’s nervous for this match. This seems to hold some truth as he loses a grunt to enemy towers fire. Just as in earlier match Myth doesn’t seem to care very much whether his footmen live or die, gladly feeding the BM with xp.

Now tier 3, Myth begins gryphon production. dArk is aware of this however and begins his bat production. 2 expos for each player, 3 buildings constantly producing air units. dArk has a large supply advantage, however, it is mainly in grunts and raiders. To seal the deal dArk sets up a lodge with a mind to get master shamans; LT being one of the few maps where tier 3 orc casters are viable.

A drawn-out struggle at dArk’s lower expansion ends up with a downed expo, but a downed AM as well (and quite a few knights). As well as he tries, a few hawks and an army of knights cannot defeat bloodlusted wyvern en masse. In the end dArk has a monster of a BM and kills all of the human heroes dead.

Game 2 (EI): The second game is a quick affair. Myth creeps his AM to level 2, then goes off to tower. dArk is chanceless against the horde of footmen and militia and is forced to surrender.

Game 3 (SV): Curiously, after being towered on EI dArk picks SV, another tower-push friendly map. Myth says thank you for the free win and does the exact same thing he did last game.

dArk tries to delay the tower-rush by harassing heavily, but he doesn’t do nearly enough damage to warrant any real discomfort for Myth. It doesn’t really help either that he places both burrows on the same side of his main, making it easier in two ways for Myth. First of all he doesn’t have to worry about getting shot at by the burrows on that side, but he can also tower against the trees, making it close to impossible for dArk to get at his peasants as they repair the towers.

So he decided to tower on SV too? What a surprise!

	[0:2]
Bet.WinNers Bet.Sweet		aTTaX.yAws aTTaX.dArk

As I’ve previously said, 2s are interesting because they take a whole other set of skills than solo, something that becomes abundantly obvious in this series.

Game 1 (LT): Take heed all ye massers: your time is over! As I write this MYM has lost their 2s match against PGS’ Paladin and (ugh) Eric because they insist on playing the same outdated crap as before. Let those games and this one be the death certificate of the hunts/spiders mass nuking strategy.

I’ve already stated BeT’s strategy, so let’s leave them be and focus on aTTaX for a spell. The human/orc combo is traditionally seen as one of middle-level strenght; powerful once it gains momentum. Since orc standards changed from FS/TC to BM/SH however the role of the orc has changed from damage dealer to meatwall and hero-hunter. In this game, however, the combination isn’t really optimal. Instead of mortars yAws focuses on getting a caster army. It might be noted that there’s some logic to this on such an open and large map as LT. Casters aren’t as easy targets as mortars after all.

Something that has become standard when facing orc teams with the hunt/spider strategy is to pick Scout as first skill on the Potm. It pays of early on as BeT manages to kill of dArk’s BM. After reaching critical unit mass BeT attacks yAws’ base. As luck would have it yAws has just got a book of the dead to reinforce their army while dArk has picked Serpent Wards as first skill on his SH. The battle is more of a slaughter than anything else.

Just adding to the pain of BeT, dArk gets endurance aura at the lower red creep camp. Winners manages to cancel dArk’s expo, but pays for it with several hunts. yAws tricks Sweet, who is off to harass dArk’s burrows, to tp using a staff of teleportation. Finally aTTaX goes in for the kill on Sweet’s base. Even with an expo the superior forces and tactics of aTTaX is too much for BeT to handle. Sweet’s base is slowly ground into a fine powder. There is a futile attempt of base-exchange from BeT, but the standing armies of aTTaX remain superior.

Game 2 (GW): For game 2 Sweet tries to mix things up, switching to orc. Unfortunately for them Winners gets close spawn to yAws. Not only that, Winners makes the somewhat unwise decision to creep with his AoW, leaving his base open for assault. Soon the militia are running across the green for some field operations. aTTaX’ efforts are somewhat unfocused however, leaving their towerers exposed to Sweet’s army of grunts.

The rush fails, but yAws keeps a cool head and starts teching. There is more than one window for towers after all. Winners, on the other hand, is left with too many AoWs and a severely slowed tech. dArk shakes of the first humiliation and creep-jacks BeT, killing the DH. In turn, dArk underestimates the power difference between a lvl 1 and lvl 2 BM and gets his killed. Afterwards an entertaining hex n ensnare-fight ensues where aTTaX comes out on top. Just as Winners finishes his AoLs aTTaX strikes with raiders and mortars, wearing down his base, killing every unit and hero as they go. An impressive 2v2-display.

Conclusion: As of right now I’d like to without a doubt declare the strategy-part of this real-time strategy game to be awoken. After seeing the first game between dArk and Myth it’s hard to understand the final results, but it was in all likelyhood dArk who managed to doom himself by picking a small open map for the deciding game. It was almost as if he wanted retribution rather than safely winning the game. The heavy-duty super-early tower rush of Myth is such a simple yet so effective strategy, just by adding Defend.

aTTaX has a really talented team that can go as far as they are willing to train for, but they need to throw of the shackles of intimidation. yAws display vs Winners was a weak one, not being prepared to fight Winners in a longer battle, repeating the doomed tower-rush. In DeMuslim’s second game he tries to fight of a specially prepared horde of tier 1-units with militia, something that was doomed to fail, rather than canceling the expo and trying to salvage the win some other way. yAws made a sound decision to tech after the first failed tower rush in game 2 of the 2s.

Had he attempted a second tower rush the would’ve most likely lost the game. Not being intimidated by the outlook of a long, drawn-out game against a dangerous player and the ability to adapt your strategy or abandon it for something less desirable but safer are some things a player has to learn to reach the highest levels. Winners and Check clearly displayed these abilities, here and in previous games. If they can achieve the same level of understanding the future looks bright for aTTaX.

All BeT needs to take with them from this game is that you need both teamwork and leverage at all times to win in 2s. Both in the first and the second game Sweet and Winners displayed confusion and an inability to adapt in the same way the aTTaX players did in their solos. Also, if they had Who or Jini avaliable they should've placed him on LT. It's a matter of winning in the wc3l. That is all.

I want to mention as well that this season of wc3l is amazing. Teams come out of nowhere and make strong results against the giants of last season. Power is spread more evenly between the competing teams, and I think we’ll see at least a few surprise wins this season!

myMYM's WC3L Coverage