UTStats: http://www.ownedwell.com/utstats/?p=match&mid=10536
Tempest was the first map selected and it was Monk's pick. This is a map that has been constantly evolving since it was introduced years back. It is unique in the sense that a boost is not required to control the amp and that jump boots are essential for maintaining control and optimizing navigability of the map. The high point used to be a solo point which could get out of hand quickly if a player picked up an amp, however the new meta is to double top by playing in between the points: Armor and High Perch. Amp is still a deadly powerup but the days of a High Perch player dying less than five times appear to be gone.
The High Perch contest was a battle between snky and Pete. Monk and bug respectively played the help position and RAVONIX duked it out with KNOCKOUTDAD at the Armor point. With most of the action on one side of the map, this left a 1v1 at the Low point between ulo and Sauron.
Pete is a tough matchup for anyone in the league so snky had his work cut out for him. Despite a fragging edge for Pete, snky was able to assert control through powerups. The thigh pads were controlled at over a 3:1 ratio for snky and the boots were controlled at roughly a 2:1 ratio. This lead to 6 amps for snky and only 2 for Pete.
The powerup control was heavily in blue's favor. Blue dominated every powerup and if I was to see this graph in advance and bet on one of the teams, I would have bet it all on The Dentists. Fortunately, we don't bet on OwnedWell games so I won't be sitting under a bridge barbequing my shoes with a skewer alongside whitechoc over a garbage fire.
The overwhelming blue in the picture above looks great but if we take a deeper look, there is a very concerning stat present: Impotent Amps. In over 6 minutes of amp runs (roughly 33% of the map), The Dentists were only able to amass +12 points. This works out to roughly +2 per minute with an amp which is a fairly ugly stat.. especially on a map like Tempest.
High Perch was virtually a draw, Armor went in favor of RAVONIX but the decider of map one came down to the matchup between ulo and Sauron.
Sauron laid down an absolute drubbing on ulo and was the difference maker in this close first map. Sauron won by 27 points and they were essential. Blue needed their amp runs to offset this margin however a measly +12 was not nearly enough. For most of this past week and the preseason, Wangus was making a fuss about being overrated however if he keeps playing like this.. I foresee an ever larger salary bump next season. Monk will need ulo to step up his game and I'm sure that this encounter with Sauron will light a fire.
UTStats: http://www.ownedwell.com/utstats/?p=match&mid=10540
Typhoon was the Ampbition map pick and it turned out to be a winner. Much like the first map, it was extremely close and it came right down to the wire. Typhoon is a map that also has an evolving meta with some interesting points. The amp can be difficult to stack but also very rewarding on successful runs. Timing the belt and being aware of one's surroundings can make all of the difference between being a champ or a chump.
The Hideout point can be extremely frustrating and it is usually reserved for a team's top 1v1 player that does not specialize with the amp. In this case, it was snky scrapping with bug. This was a nearly perfect matchup as bug edged out a win by only 1 point. The armor control was also extremely close as snky won that battle 17-16. In the grand scheme, this point was a wash and both players should feel satisfied at holding their own against top level competition.
A lot of the action occurs on Ledge and this is one of the most important two man points in all of sDOM. This point will control the belt and the amps, while disrupting players on their way to other points throughout the map. A strong presence up top can easily win a game and in this game, the matchup was between Monk/RAVONIX and Pete/Sauron. On paper and by $ value, the advantage should go to The Dentists however the game played out differently than most would have expected. Neither team was able to put together an impactful amp run. The longest and most successful amp run was by Pete who was able to go +4 for his team while he controlled the amp for roughly a minute. Monk and RAVONIX ultimately won the point 100-96 but the margin was not enough to will the team to victory.
The low point was once again the bane of The Dentists. Unlike the drubbing ulo took on Tempest, he did a much better job vs KNOCKOUTDAD. Monk might have been counting on a win since this is one of ulo's better points however KNOCKOUTDAD has been working off the rust and has been adamant to prove why he was a former first round selection by ph34r. The matchup was close for most of the game however in the last 5 minutes, KNOCKOUTDAD really started to create some separation.
The surge in the dying minutes of the game down low can be seen in the overall score graph as it gave Ampbition a much needed boost to close out the game. An 11 point difference means that 6 points in the other direction for The Dentists would have been enough to squeak out a win. Unlike map one, I'm going to lay the blame for this loss up top on Monk and RAVONIX. Winning top by a small margin was not good enough and these two franchise players will need to reflect on how they can work together to make more of an impact on the game.
UTStats: http://www.ownedwell.com/utstats/?p=match&mid=10537
The opening map between the Cows and the Alchys was none other than Peak and it was selected by the Manitoba Super Cows. Peak is a staple map in the sDOM scene which has produced some specialty players. The Low point is unlike many others and it is possible to win it solely off of quick feet and clever positioning. Mid is usually a dog fight where players will contest belts in a dangerous placement all while trying to control traffic throughout the map. Effective mid players can relay valuable comms and information to players up top and offer boosts to teammates and unwanted boosts to the opposition. The Top point is typically doubled and it can be nightmarish to take back, especially if the amp opts to sit up top. There are many amp strategies that we have seen over the years, ranging from conservative amps sitting up high and daring amps roaming the map and locking down spawns in the mid/lower sections of the map.
The middle point in this matchup was a contest between Cromaniac and csn. On paper, Cro easily looked like the favorite. Paper might look nice but it loses all value when the countdown starts to tick. The battle for the belt was fairly even as csn won it 8-7 and the battle for Mid was just as close. Surprisingly, csn held the lead his point for most of the game and it wasn't evened up until the final 90 seconds of the game where Cro ate his spinach and eeked out a minor victory.
The battle for Top was an extremely difficult matchup for the Manitoba Super Cows. JYB and rev had the unfortunate task of trying to keep up with rain and paleface. The fragpower advantage definitely sided with The Alchys but the Super Cows were able to use their extra stomachs and sDOM knowledge to try to keep the game as even as possible. The Top was ultimately won by The Alchys but a potent amp run from JYB in final 5 minutes of the game really swung things in favor for his team.
The final amp run from JYB netted his team +20 points and his amp presence was able to assist Cro and cut a 26 point deficit up top to a more respectable 13 point deficit. The fifth man for the Super Cows was rev and he filled in wonderfully as a wingman for JYB as they took on two of the hottest fraggers in the league.
The Low point had PACO tango with Xeno however if it was truly a tango.. then Xeno had two left feet. The match was close up top however fast feet vs clumsy feet were enough to win Low by a 41 point margin. The Super Cows were expecting amp runs to dictate the game but like a phoenix, PACO rose from the ashes of his poor man's PC and grabbed his team by the udders on put them on his back. It was a marvelous spectacle and one that historians will marvel upon when this match is re-discovered thousands of years from now.
They say that a picture is worth 1000 words but PACO believes that this one is worth 41 points.
UTStats: http://www.ownedwell.com/utstats/?p=match&mid=10541
The Alchy selection was Olden and they were looking to get re-hydrated at the Aquifer. Olden is a classic map with a history that extends to the beginning of time (aka 1999). It was played in Weapons DOM, Insta DOM and has survived and evolved in Shock DOM. Olden is a very unique map in the sense that it is very team oriented and that there is direct cooperation needed between the Mid and the Lower point. There is a button that the Mid player can control that opens a gate with a belt behind it. The Lower player will typically call for the button to be shot but due to the gate not opening immediately, players can sometimes stealthily steal the belt.
The powerful combo of rain/paleface played up top again and it was no surprise that they were able to win that point. The Super Cow strategy was a touch less conventional as PACO played a roaming role and left Risus up top alone for portions of the map to fend for himself. Risus swapped in for rev and did a respectable job stopping the bleeding. Upper was won by a 30 point margin however with so much attention focused up top, PACO was able to help swing the other points in a favorable direction.
Rumors swirled after the match about whether PACO played the roaming role to help his team or whether he just wanted to see his name on every point. Unfortunately.. PACO was busy doing a recap and unavailable to make a statement.
The Middle point was a dog fight between Cro and Xeno however Cro walked away with most of the kibble. Both players had bounce back maps as Cro won his point and Xeno kept his composure after fighting Cro and unwanted visits from PACO. Mid was won by the MSC by 27 points and that alone was nearly enough to offset the presence of rain and paleface up top.
The low point started as a battle between csn/PACO as JYB was trying to get an amp presence up top but within the first 6-7mins a switch was made and JYB started playing mostly dedicated low. The switch proved to be successful as JYB widened the margin over victory of csn and did a superb job of controlling armor and belt (assist to Cro).
The MSC won the second map by 17 points however there were some real nail biting moments throughout the map.
rain caught fire and and exploded for +15 points on one of his amp runs. In a game as tight as this, the effects of the amp run were magnified and you can see that around the 9min mark, The Alchys made an impressive run and evened up the score. A major focus was put on ensuring that rain could not go on another run like that and the Cows were udderly ruthless as they made a concerted effort to nullify his amp presence.
Team JYB walked away with an early regular season victory but if sDOM parallels iCTF in any way.. The Cows will be eliminated from playoffs in a tiebreaker with Scream and rain will go on to win the season.
UTStats: http://www.ownedwell.com/utstats/?p=match&mid=10544
Gharden was the first map played in this showdown between The Hearts and Magic Mike. It was picked by team Rick and I have no doubts that Morpheus meticulously looked over the maplist and analyzed which maps he thought they would have the best chance on. Gharden is a map where a helping hand can be a necessity and where one point getting out of hand could easily lose a team the game. A player can typically float between the mid/low points and swing up to the Penthouse when an amp is up.
The Basement matchup was extremely favorable for Less Than Three. El Fraggarino aka Morpheus was matched up with Shoeless "whitechoc" Joe. A smart player can use their wits to compensate for their fragging and that is what white did to an extent. The belt was taken by white 10 times and taking this powerup off of the map helped him keep up with Morph and stop the other team from stacking up. Morpheus outfragged white in the head to head matchup 48-43 and he also won Basement by 20 points. This is a victory for Morph but as the second highest rated player on his him.. one might expect a bigger point differential when he is matched up with a bench player.
The middle point Observatory turned into a mostly 2v2 slugfest between bleh/Miracle and FALLACY/LaG|RickJames. The bleh pairing looked stronger on paper and on they took that potential to the stat sheet. Observatory was won by 19 however a stat that might easily slip under the radar is that RickJames left middle and made himself an annoyance for n0b. He only killed n0b twice but n0b was forced to kill him 17 times all while fighting Viperz..
The Penthouse point was a duel between Viperz and n0b. Viperz has a lot of practice up top and we all watched him duke it out with ramdrop in the All Star game. n0b on the other hand had only played top a few times and was more experienced on other parts of the map. The final score ended up at 106-91 in favor of Viperz however the matchup could have easily swung in the other direction if it wasn't for one devastating amp run...
Over the course of 2 minutes, Viperz was able to swing a +27 differential in his teams favor. This was huge and it was the run that won them the game. Magic Mike had to send more players to mitigate the damage that Viperz was inflicting and the lack of help and coordination is what lead to a 13 point map loss.
UTStats: http://www.ownedwell.com/utstats/?p=match&mid=10547
The second map was SlimeTime and it was a crafty pick from Mike FTW. SlimeTime is one of the newer sDOM maps in circulation and it was created by Windigo. It is a multilevel map with interesting angles, unique gameplay and of course.. slime walls. This is a map that might catch some players off guard in the first week due to inactivity or not playing in the past sDOM season. That was surely what Miracle had in mind when he was gameplanning against Morpheus and FALLACY..
The first interesting matchup of this map was between whitechoc and FALLACY. Once again, he was battling it out in the basement against a stronger fragging opponent but he popped some pop tarts and put on his game face. The first man off the bench put his team on his back and lead in DOM points while crushing FALLACY down low. This was David vs Golitah except for the fact that David had no shoes and he screenshotted a pic of a toppled Goliath to stick to his fridge.
A lot of people have been questioning whether white lost a step or if he could ever perform on a high level again but he proved his haters wrong and toyed with the LOLLACY. Since this is a feel good moment for white, we'll include a snippet from when he made Serenity rage quit a game in the first 30 seconds of grudge..
white had done his job but it was up to Miracle to try and hold his own against Viperz at Tears, while bleh and n0b had the responsibility of controlling amps and trying to dominate the Gallery point. Viperz against Miracle is always going to be a tough matchup and based off of Viperz play in map one.. he was on fire. Tears ended up being a 29 point advantage for Less Than Three which undid lots of the good work that white was doing down low. Since Viperz was having such an easy time with Miracle, this allowed him to take pot shots at Gallery and offer a fair amount of assistance to his teammates.
The fate of the game was to be decided at Gallery between bleh/n0b and RickJames/Morpheus. The fragging power heavily favored Mike FTW and it seemed likely that they would dominate the powerups around the point, including the amp. Mike FTW controlled EVERY amp this map. bleh took an unheard of 10 amps however what is more impressive than this ridiculous stat is that bleh was unable to make a difference with all of these amps and that Mike FTW actually ended up losing the Gallery point by a small margin.
10 amps leading to a +9 point swing is a stunning display of amp impotence. I will personally be prescribing some Viampra next week for this team in the hopes that they are able to play long and hard.. and avoid flaccid spurts when it is time for that special moment. There is no doubting that bleh is one of the best players to wield an amp but if it isn't his day.. his team needs to have the confidence to give a player like n0b a shot at blowing the game open.
This was a good win from Less Than Three in the sense that it shows teams that a newer map like SlimeTime will not be an easy win. On the other hand, Mike FTW would have definitely benefited from lockpick's presence on the first map but I don't think the lockpick would have done much more than white on the SlimeTime.
UTStats: http://www.ownedwell.com/utstats/?p=match&mid=10543
Olden was picked by ScReaM and there is no doubting why.. When a captain picks a map, they need to look at the strengths of their team and the weaknesses of the opposition. In some cases, all they need to do is look at their strengths and that is what ScReaM did with ramdrop.
The Mid matchup was originally between HuMPtY and ramdrop but it was so ugly that HuMPtY doesn't even show up on the stat sheet. It is like he was never there...
[cue D'Angelo Barksdale voice: Where HUMPTY at String? WHERE THE **** HUMPTY AT?]
Rummy ended up switching to Mid and while he was able to stop the bleeding, he was unable to turn the tide. ramdrop finished with a convincing 52 point buffer at his position.
Both Upper and Lower were in favor of team HULKSMASH but it was not enough to overcome the 52 point hole at Mid. An interesting statistic to note is that TBH controlled 70% of the amps but they were unable to convert them into DOM points. ScReaM did a good job of boosting Sens but Sens looked confused whenever he had the amp.. blackout also did a great job of hunting down amps and taking them off of the table.
Amp impotence is a real disorder. How can we help British men last longer?
Throw Em mounted a surge and nearly tied the game up in the dying minutes but they used all of their energy to catchup and did not have enough left in the tank to push for a win. Despite not being able to win Olden, staving off a blowout was a morale win for a team that faced its first bout with adversity.
UTStats: http://www.ownedwell.com/utstats/?p=match&mid=10546
The second map in this epic showdown was Seraphim and it was picked by the HULKSMASH. This struck me as a risky pick because Mid on Seraphim seems like the perfect position for ramdrop and Sens is no slouch down low. Seraphim is a beautifully constructed multilevel map with some very interesting dynamics. There are lifts high, powerups littered throughout the map and multiple ways to attack every point.
The matchup low was between HuMPtY and Sens. Both are great players but Sens was shining brighter on Sunday as he outpointed HuMPtY 117-74. The pup control was fairly even but Sens was making his shots count and was more efficient at holding and getting back to his position.
Low was a big win by Sens and Throw em Down The Owned Well now had to deal with ramdrop at the Mid. The only player who had a chance of matching up with ram was rum however even his speed and fragging prowess were unable to leverage him a victory. The point was a 108-93 win for TBH and while rummy did well, it was not enough. Between two points, TBH had a +58 point margin.. surely they would emerge victorious and win this series in two games.. right?
The high point was a complete train wreck for ScReaM and flowX. This wasn't a one wagon train either.. sitting in the caboose were ramdrop and Sens and they had no idea that they were headed for a high speed derailment.. blackout and kud displayed complete dominance. They CHOO CHOO'd over the point and the players and won by an incredible 104 point margin. I have never seen anything like this since the days of ph34r picking a team of sorn/Serenity/Dewsick to matchup with PACO/PanterA/nark/XPOHb in a pug.
If this was a boxing match.. a ref would have called for time to make sure that ScReaM and flowX still actually had a pulse.. blackout dropped a whopping 130 frags while controlling 12 belts and being boosted for 9 amps. kud also played his support role splendidly and the duo combined for one of the most impressive shellackings in sDOM history.
UTStats: http://www.ownedwell.com/utstats/?p=match&mid=10549
The final map played was Rankin. This map is a 2k4 port and it flows surprisingly well in sDOM. flowX converted the map with some suggestions from ulo and it was selected to be the week one tiebreaker map.
There are three points on Rankin: High, Corner and Middle. Typically the top is doubled with 1v1 points at Corner and Middle however the meta is not set in stone and teams used several strategies (some more successful than others) in the development match. High can control an amp and an armor, while Corner has an armor and pads to contest. There is a keg near Middle that Corner can take on occasion and the belt is a touch out of the way for everyone.
The Corner position saw blackout take on ramdrop. In the earlier two maps, ramdrop had beaten HuMPtY and Rummy and it was time to give him a different look. Unlike previous maps, ramdrop was getting outplayed by blackout for most of the map and he was unable to win his team buffer points. blackout had slightly better powerup control and he used it to hold off ramdrop until the dying minutes of the game. Corner was a wash.
The Middle point saw Rummy face off against Sens. Rummy has the salary advantage but Sens is no slouch and his pug activity during the week paid off. One might have expected a narrow Rummy win but instead Sens finished +18. Keg control was actually in favor of Rummy but he wasn't able to turn his extra HP into DOM points. This match should serve as a wake up call for the Rumster but perhaps he will contentedly revert back to [CeReAL_KiLLeRz]rum.
High once again decided another map however unlike Seraphim, it was not an outrageous blowout.. just a convincing win. HuMPtY and kud were able to get a decisive +39 point win vs flowX and Supreme and this was enough to make up for the loss at Middle. flowX did a great job with controlling pups and taking amps however it was not enough. Supreme did an excellent job fragging but despite so many stats playing in THB's favor, they lost the most important one.
This concludes the Week 1 Recap. I would have liked to do development matches as well however if I want to keep a full head of steam throughout the season, I need to pace myself. If anyone would like to volunteer for the task, that would be great. There will be at least two more sDOM related threads (a touch less ambitious than this one) before the next set of matches.
It was a great opening week and I'm looking forward to more awesome sDOM.
PACO
