Hey guys,
in line with my BoA2 recap I wanted to go on with the series and give you some basis for a post discussion and thoughts on what we saw the last three weekends!
Winners:
Liereyy - Believe it or not, Age of Empires' most famous kid has finally done the unthinkable in 2020 and its the cause for a lot of celebrations. Although you might not have imagined this day would ever come, but Liereyy finally turned eighteen! ~Oh, and by the way, he just won a major tournament in a convincing fashion. This part should definitiely not surprise you though, as we have been expecting him to break out for the last four years already. Whether it be the increased playing activity, the preparation with Hera, or him maybe forgetting his League of Legends password - the madman finally did it! Even with only one archer civ in his lineup he dominated Viper in the semis and took it home convincingly with an eye-pleasing aggressive playstyle against Hera in the finals.
Capoch - The year is 2001. The cinemas show the first installments of Harry Potter and The Lord Of The Rings, a small website named Wikipedia makes its first appearance online, Microsoft releases Windows XP and a young Argentinian kid starts playing AoE2 competitively. A mere nineteen years later, Capoch returns to play some of the most fun Age of Empires I have seen in a long time. To be fair, he would have had his place in this section after his incredible qualifiers against Vivi alone, but actually pulling off the upset against MbL and giving us the best game of the year along the way caps off his incredible RBW2. I am always very happy to see legends coming back, but to see them coming back this strong is just amazing. iVamos Capoch!, and lets see where his massive amount of training leads him!
Red Bull and Tourney Diversity - The pre-tourney criticism didn't rage as high as during the first installment, but the forums again were filling up with discussions about the viability of Empire Wars, another time limit, and fixed invitations. In hindsight, Empire Wars will definitely still not take over from RM as AoE's main game mode due to massive narrowing down of strategies and civ choices, but it does provide a refreshing and fast-paced change that we love to see once or twice a year. The time limit simply did not come into play at all, and pre-invited players again won the first round convincingly enough (75%) to justify this move. In the end, the AoE2 community and the game as an eSport has never been in a better spot than 2020, with high stakes tournaments hitting left and right, and Red Bull Wololo has twice played a big part in that!
The little things: Hera plays two impressive rounds and pulls off an amazing comeback against Yo, just to fall short in reach of the trophy. Dave does a great job as co-caster, playing off well with his two counterparts. Foreign language streams once again help reach a wide audience and make for a great addition to the tourney. CaptureAge just makes everything look so much better.
Losers:
Vikings - My first pick for "Losers of RBW2" are the Vikings, but sadly they were immediately banned.
TheViper - The fact that you can finish top four in a S-Tier tournament and still make this list is a testament to the grip Viper has had on the competitive AoE2 scene for years on end. Even though the Empire Wars game mode doesn't fully suit his playstyle and he seems to have untypically lacked preparation, the way Liereyy and at times even Nicov and miguel challenged him was uncanny to see. He would be the first one to tell you this is actually very good for the game and its eSports-status, however you just can't shake the feeling KotD3 on bread-and-butter RM Arabia will see him back in all-dominating shape toying with his competition.
Nicov's Nerves - As a huge fan of the Argentinian, and after his unlucky draws in recent tournaments, I was very excited to see the perfect revenge story arc set up in the brackets: Starting out against the arguably shakiest of the seeded players in round one as atonement, and then still getting to square off against his nemesis in round two to prove his mettle. And boy, did Nicov come out with a vengeance twice, starting both matches with dominant wins and looking incredibly strong further on - that is, until his nerves sadly got the best of him. Against DauT his pure strength could still make up for the fact he had 750 gold stuck in his barracks for half the game, against Viper though his eco control finally broke his neck. I am sure though Nicov will still be happy with his showings, and am excited to see more of him going forward!
The Cumans Two TC Boom - Picking Cumans for a double boom on a seemingly defensive map in Empire Wars is a lot like going skiing while drunk: It seems like a good idea right up to until it isn't and stuff goes down a lot faster than you'd want it to. Pro-Tip: Do not try this at home. After Viper in the RBW1 finals, Laaan, Liereyy and TaToH followed suit in RBW2 to give this strat a solid 25% winrate (hats off to Villese!).
The little things: After hyping up the new guard during BoA2, it turns out the only new face to visit RBW was a player who spend more time away from the game than our younglings have been walking independently. We hope to see more new qualifiers for KotD 3, which luckily was announced a lot earlier to give everyone time to prepare and clear schedules. We also hope that the game stability will improve until then, so casters don't need to excuse crashes this frequently. And guess what, we might even see a Men-at-Arms in feudal age or a unique unit in the castle age!
in line with my BoA2 recap I wanted to go on with the series and give you some basis for a post discussion and thoughts on what we saw the last three weekends!
Winners:
Liereyy - Believe it or not, Age of Empires' most famous kid has finally done the unthinkable in 2020 and its the cause for a lot of celebrations. Although you might not have imagined this day would ever come, but Liereyy finally turned eighteen! ~Oh, and by the way, he just won a major tournament in a convincing fashion. This part should definitiely not surprise you though, as we have been expecting him to break out for the last four years already. Whether it be the increased playing activity, the preparation with Hera, or him maybe forgetting his League of Legends password - the madman finally did it! Even with only one archer civ in his lineup he dominated Viper in the semis and took it home convincingly with an eye-pleasing aggressive playstyle against Hera in the finals.
Capoch - The year is 2001. The cinemas show the first installments of Harry Potter and The Lord Of The Rings, a small website named Wikipedia makes its first appearance online, Microsoft releases Windows XP and a young Argentinian kid starts playing AoE2 competitively. A mere nineteen years later, Capoch returns to play some of the most fun Age of Empires I have seen in a long time. To be fair, he would have had his place in this section after his incredible qualifiers against Vivi alone, but actually pulling off the upset against MbL and giving us the best game of the year along the way caps off his incredible RBW2. I am always very happy to see legends coming back, but to see them coming back this strong is just amazing. iVamos Capoch!, and lets see where his massive amount of training leads him!
Red Bull and Tourney Diversity - The pre-tourney criticism didn't rage as high as during the first installment, but the forums again were filling up with discussions about the viability of Empire Wars, another time limit, and fixed invitations. In hindsight, Empire Wars will definitely still not take over from RM as AoE's main game mode due to massive narrowing down of strategies and civ choices, but it does provide a refreshing and fast-paced change that we love to see once or twice a year. The time limit simply did not come into play at all, and pre-invited players again won the first round convincingly enough (75%) to justify this move. In the end, the AoE2 community and the game as an eSport has never been in a better spot than 2020, with high stakes tournaments hitting left and right, and Red Bull Wololo has twice played a big part in that!
The little things: Hera plays two impressive rounds and pulls off an amazing comeback against Yo, just to fall short in reach of the trophy. Dave does a great job as co-caster, playing off well with his two counterparts. Foreign language streams once again help reach a wide audience and make for a great addition to the tourney. CaptureAge just makes everything look so much better.
Losers:
Vikings - My first pick for "Losers of RBW2" are the Vikings, but sadly they were immediately banned.
TheViper - The fact that you can finish top four in a S-Tier tournament and still make this list is a testament to the grip Viper has had on the competitive AoE2 scene for years on end. Even though the Empire Wars game mode doesn't fully suit his playstyle and he seems to have untypically lacked preparation, the way Liereyy and at times even Nicov and miguel challenged him was uncanny to see. He would be the first one to tell you this is actually very good for the game and its eSports-status, however you just can't shake the feeling KotD3 on bread-and-butter RM Arabia will see him back in all-dominating shape toying with his competition.
Nicov's Nerves - As a huge fan of the Argentinian, and after his unlucky draws in recent tournaments, I was very excited to see the perfect revenge story arc set up in the brackets: Starting out against the arguably shakiest of the seeded players in round one as atonement, and then still getting to square off against his nemesis in round two to prove his mettle. And boy, did Nicov come out with a vengeance twice, starting both matches with dominant wins and looking incredibly strong further on - that is, until his nerves sadly got the best of him. Against DauT his pure strength could still make up for the fact he had 750 gold stuck in his barracks for half the game, against Viper though his eco control finally broke his neck. I am sure though Nicov will still be happy with his showings, and am excited to see more of him going forward!
The Cumans Two TC Boom - Picking Cumans for a double boom on a seemingly defensive map in Empire Wars is a lot like going skiing while drunk: It seems like a good idea right up to until it isn't and stuff goes down a lot faster than you'd want it to. Pro-Tip: Do not try this at home. After Viper in the RBW1 finals, Laaan, Liereyy and TaToH followed suit in RBW2 to give this strat a solid 25% winrate (hats off to Villese!).
The little things: After hyping up the new guard during BoA2, it turns out the only new face to visit RBW was a player who spend more time away from the game than our younglings have been walking independently. We hope to see more new qualifiers for KotD 3, which luckily was announced a lot earlier to give everyone time to prepare and clear schedules. We also hope that the game stability will improve until then, so casters don't need to excuse crashes this frequently. And guess what, we might even see a Men-at-Arms in feudal age or a unique unit in the castle age!