TheOkayHens vs. Angry Balls Redux

Score

	G1H1	G1H2	G1	G2H1	G2H2	G2
OKH	3	3	6	2	4	6
ABR	2	2	4	2	5	7

Recap

TheOkayHens and Angry Balls Redux played two fantastically close games in Week 2. These teams showed that they are evenly matched by taking a game a piece.

Iron

The themes of the game on Iron were power-up control and communication. Although Angry Balls won power-ups 15–12 in half one, The Okay Hens seemed to get more tagpros and used them more effectively. To illustrate this, tagpro leads aided OKH’s first 2 caps of the half. That’s unfortunate for ABR, but they were able to keep things pretty close and didn’t seem to panic. In fact, this half was dead-even until the last 30 seconds, when P K Subball made an ill-advised grab at the same time that the Okay Hens broke out ahead of 3. Even if your offense doesn’t communicate that the FC is about to get out past three, there’s no sense playing hero ball and trying to solo grab against two defenders on Iron. Eggo got his last minutes of the season before he takes a leave of absence, and he played as a defender full-time. There was a strange moment where he appeared to have a cap and chose to try and use the bomb instead of going straight at the flag. Not sure what that was about.

Despite playing well in the first half, The Okay Hens decided to change up their lineup for Half 2. They brought Ball God in to replace fxu on offense, and replaced Abe Lincoln with Bal McCarty on defense. This seemed like an odd decision to me. Abe Lincoln and Snack put up almost 4 minutes of hold together in that first half. Unless there were lag issues going on, it seems weird to change up your defensive pairing on Iron in the middle of the half. When you and your defensive partner play a solid half, you want to keep those good vibes going.

Angry Balls perhaps capitalized on this lineup change, jumping out to a 2 cap lead in the second half. On the first cap, a looming tagpro forced Ball God to make a risky and unsuccessful grab. Poor communication on the part of Angry Balls opened the door for the Okay Hens’ first cap of the half. Fowlball flaccid grabbed right as Snack was using tagpro to help MeaL get out of base on the other side. Fowlball leveraged a tagpro lead to make the grab, but didn’t realize that the tagpro was going to expire almost as soon as he grabbed. There was a lot going on and this was a challenging situation to communicate. ABR needed be aware that the tagpro was going to expire soon, and they also should have known that Snack was on the other side of the map using a tagpro to help his team get out of base. Instant communication is key.

After that chaotic first cap it was a story of power-up advantages. OKH won power-ups in the second half 16–11, and it seemed like they got plenty of tagpros again. Their last two caps were aided by double tagpro. It’s pretty tough to defend against that. The best defense is to never let them get the tagpro in the first place.

Emerald

Different players from both teams rotated in to play Emerald. Blue Dream started on offense for the Okay Hens with Ball God, and Bal McCartny stayed in to play defense with donuts42. Angry Balls Redux countered by starting an entirely different lineup from Game 1. It consisted of Ball-E and bluemonday on offense, with Ballzilla and UnoriginalSN playing defense.

The teams kept the first half under control. As happens so often in Tagpro, power-ups factored into nearly every cap in the half. Ball God used a tagpro to set up cap #1, and bluemonday sealed it with a flaccid grab. The second cap was similar, as Ball God provided a tagpro assist that allowed Blue Dream to score. When OKH jumped out to an early 2-cap lead things were looking pretty bad for Angry Balls Redux, but they kept their cool again and managed to stay grounded. Bluemonday provided the tagpro lead that gave ABR their first cap of the half. ABR scored again when they were able to capitalize on an ill-advised bomb by Bal McCartny. He tried to get the return, but all he did was give ABR plenty of space to cap.

I came out of this half impressed by Ballzilla and UnoriginalSN’s ability to keep the flag in base. They kept it in for about 4 minutes, which is quite an achievement on Emerald. There were moments of bad contain from Ballzilla, and a play where he could have capped but chose to wait for pups instead, but on the whole he’s proving to be more valuable than a lot of captains thought.

Half 2 was a barnburner, and it was thrilling to watch. ABR kept the same lineup, and OKH finally brought Abe Lincoln back in to play defense with Bal McCartny. fxu also came back in on offense with Ball God. ABR got out to an early 2 cap lead in the half. The caps came when they were able to capitalize on careless plays by the Okay Hens. In one situation, Bal McCartny tried to use a base bomb to get a return at the same time that Ball God forced fxu to flaccid at the other end. It was a case of dumb aggressive defense happening at the same time as dumb aggressive offense. Then, Ball-E took a free grab and instead of staying in O-D position, almost the entire Okay Hens teams left to fight for pups, leaving fxu in base to stop the cap all by himself. He didn’t.

After that, Angry Balls Redux started to fall apart. They gave up 4 unanswered caps in an unstoppable regrab train sequence characterized by double flaccids and mental mistakes. It seemed like they were folding under the stress.

At this point there were only 4 minutes left in the half and ABR were down 2–4. They were able to lock the base down and use a tagpro to get their first comeback cap, but it took them too long to do it. They were looking at a grim situation—they needed 2 caps to secure a win and only had 30 seconds to do it.

Here the Okay Hens started to make a series of mental miscues that would led to their destruction. Ball-E picked up a tagpro and used it to clear out the OKH re-grab. At the same time, Ball God mysteriously brought the flag back into base and hit the bomb, sending himself into a spike. That was one easy cap for ABR.

Then there were 20 seconds left and the game was all tied up. Ball-E stormed into base and got a nice bump grab, putting him ahead of both defenders. At this point there were still 2 players in O-D for the Okay Hens, but fxu made a flaccid grab that was so insanely illogical that I have to assume it was a horrible accident. Ball-E capped with just a couple seconds left on the clock to secure the win for Angry Balls Redux.

Both teams made bad decisions on Emerald, but give a ton of credit to Angry BAlls Redux for weathering the storm in this matchup, over and over again. They never let mistakes go to their heads.

Fair or not, I attribute a lot of OKH’s mental mistakes and communication issues to their rotational strategy. They seemed to be using ad-hoc pairs that changed every half. Angry Balls Redux rotated the same amount of players but kept the pairings together, allowing the chemistry to develop. All in all, it was still a wonderful game to watch.

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Holdin’ Gate Warriors vs. EAZY-eee’s

Score

	G1H1	G1H2	G1	G2H1	G2H2	G2
HGW	0	3	3	3	1	4
EZE	3	0	3	3	7	10

Recap

The Holdin’ Gate Warriors came into this week’s match against the EAZY-eee’s with guns a’ blazing. In Week 1 HGW put on a dominant enough performance to get the hype train chugging along at a nice clip. You never want to put too much stock into Week 1 performances, but EAZY-eee’s faced the unenviable task of slowing down a team coming off a win that definitely got the league’s attention, and maybe that of the entire world. After losing their first 2 games in Week 1, members of the EAZY-eee’s may have privately questioned whether their team would be up to the task.

Iron

EAZY-eee’s started off with a different lineup on Iron this time around. eee is a mainstay on offense, and this time he played with Kimba, who did not receive any minutes in Week 1. We know eee has Majors-level talent, but Kimba is a capable partner who earned time based on his communication skills and ability to cap. After a lackluster performance on Iron in Week 1, it made sense that EAZY-eee’s would try and switch it up. To that end, BALLstar paired saundy and superdiglett on defense instead of quibble. This may have been a reaction to what we saw last week, where the chemistry between quibble and diglett seemed forced at times. Superdiglett’s style is aggressive, though it sometimes comes at the expense of solid decision-making.

This Iron lineup didn’t disappoint BALLstar in Half 1, as EAZY-eee’s cruised to a 3–0 victory. Superdiglett posted a massive K:D and eee scored all 3 caps. Although Kimba did not cap, he put in a lot of quality work by getting out of base, securing power-ups and holding. His ability to support eee getting out of base was uncanny. In Half 1, Holdin’ Gate were unable to get out of base with any regularity. When they did get out of base, EAZY-eee’s defenders were not far behind. It’s unfortunate for HGW that Mr Bucket lagged out at the start of the first half. They got forced into a somewhat awkward defensive pairing when lolugrumpy had to step in which APthatsME.

The second half was a different story, as HGW were able to reverse the script and score 3 unanswered caps to force a tie. Mr Bucket was able to come back and play the full 10 minutes, which got the defense back on the right track. This game may have turned out differently if they had been able to play the first half together. Iron_Ball chose not to alter the offensive attack, leaving Minors captain Iron_Ball in to play alongside MEGATRON.

Emerald

The first half on Emerald was total chaos. Quibble went to immediately de-fuse the base bomb and appeared to merged with it and disappear into the nether. By the time EAZY-eee’s came to, MEGATRON had the flag back in base and capped it. HGW continued to take the initiative early as EAZY-eee’s struggled with lag and tried to get on the same page with their chemistry. Quibble and saundy got it together towards the end of the half as the lag died down, and eee punched in 3 caps, including a nice boost split. Maurice the Ass Cannon played well in a supporting offense role, making few mistakes. As seems typical in competitive play on Iron, it was challenging to keep the flag in-base. Despite the amount of slop going on, Iron_Ball was able to cap twice and the half ended in a 3–3 tie. Despite the tie, you could feel the momentum shifting towards EZ-eee’s at the end of the half.

In the second half the storm on Sphere settled down and so did EAZY-eee’s. Quibble and saundy nearly tripled their prevent time from the first half and every single member of the lineup capped, contributing to a game score of 7–1. HGW was plagued by mistakes in the form of flaccid grabs, accidental deaths, and bad offensive D. abcd died 19 times on defense while only tagging 7 people. A tags-to-popped ratio of .36 is not what you want to see on defense, even on a chaotic map like Emerald. MEGATRON showed some poor decision-making this time around, and it seemed as if the strategic concepts were not so immediately in his grasp like they were last week. If HGW want to win on Emerald next week they will need to play a lot smarter and under control. It’s a map that punishes players who don’t keep their presence of mind.

Overall I question HGW’s defensive rotations in this game. It was hard to determine the effectiveness of any pairing in the first Emerald half because the lag made the game sloppy and it resulted in a tie, but you could sort of tell that EAZY-eee’s were building momentum and the second half might not go as well. If this were later in the season in a more meaningful game, Iron_Ball may have played the more skilled defensive duo. In Week 2 he must have thought it was still valuable to get every player their minutes and experience to try and build chemistry and depth.

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Texas Hold ‘Em vs. Little Merballs

Score

	G1H1	G1H2	G1	G2H1	G2H2	G2
THE	2	2	4	7	1	8
LM	1	0	1	1	5	6

Recap

The poor Merballs seem to be in a free-fall after suffering their second consecutive sweep in Week 2. In Week 1 their biggest issue seemed to be chemistry, and I noted that things could go from bad to worse if they don’t take steps to sort that out. With KPow in Europe and unable to turn his watchful eye to the Minors team, their chemistry has continued to suffer. Meanwhile, Texas Hold ‘Em are looking like one of the stronger teams in the West, rotating different players in with little drop in performance.

Iron

The first half on Iron was close—Texas Hold ‘Em took it 2–1. Team and Legion were effective as an offensive duo. Legion seemed to play more of the support role, grabbing only 8 times to team’s 15. That aligns with Legion’s tendency to make smart grabs. As a duo they managed to keep Kitten Panda and Snowball’s prevent times low. Dodge and Ralph Wiggum played great together in the first game. Dodge managed to improve upon a stout Week 1 by securing the 10 GASP-D and processing more returns than Best Buy does for Beats headphones on a daily basis. He rarely found himself out of position the entire night, only carrying the flag 4 times in the whole 40 minutes that he played. On offense, the Merbs were bolstered by the return of danisk, who played well in his 40 minutes despite the outcome.

In Half 2, both teams kept the flag in base for a longer time. Hold times went down as prevent times increased. The Merbs stayed with the same lineup because that worked in the first half, but Texas Hold ‘Em subbed in Chalsky to play offense alongside team. The Merbs hoped they would gain the advantage here, but they got shut out 0–2, which isn’t a close score at all on Iron. While the stats for both teams were similar, Texas Hold ‘Em just did more with what they had. Team and Chalksy were able to get a cap a piece. It’s odd that oh_snap! popped 20 times while only making 11 grabs. Hold ‘Em’s numbers don’t show that a crazy amount of gatings or tagpro work went on here so it’s unclear how to account for that sloppiness. When you have a lot of accidental deaths that limits the amount of time that you have to work with your partner to make grabs. This disparity clearly appears in the statistics—team and Chalksy grabbed 30 times compared to 21 for oh_snap! and danisk. More quality grabs translate to more opportunities to get out of base, as well as more opportunities to cap.

Emerald

The first half on Emerald was a 7–1 blowout in favor of Texas Hold ‘Em. The Merbs turned over 75% of their lineup, rotating in MANIAC!!!!!! to play offense alongside danisk, and bringing Fuzz Ball and gubbles in on defense. This is a lineup did not work. Fuzz Ball and gubbles played swiss cheese O-D that was easy to punish. It seemed like they were always out of position and an explosive duo like team and MATOI RYUKO will always be able to take advantage of that. Bad O-D is also a symptom of bad team communication. On a fast map like Emerald you need to communicate when the flag gets out of base instantly so the defense has time to set up good O-D. When the offense isn’t getting call-outs, they need to ask for the FC’s location. MANIAC is a player who has good technical skill but is somewhat quiet and lacking in communication. He and danisk probably didn’t practice together much this week and thus didn’t get comfortable playing O-D. Dodge was great again, and Chalksy showed his flexibility by transitioning to defense for Game 2.

Half 2 was promising for the Merbs, and raises some questions about their lineup choices. Hindsight is 20–20, but it seemed clear last week that Fuzz Ball and Snowball were the Merbs’ best defensive pairing. In this half they kept the flag in-base and each got 3 and a half minutes of prevent. Keeping the flag in-base on Emerald is everything because it allows your offense to set up a re-grab train and keep the pressure on. The Merbs brought dat cap in to work with danisk on O, and that went better for them too. The O-D was way more solid in the second half when the flag did get out. Danisk got 4 caps in this half alone. If the Merbs had gotten this lineup out there sooner the Emerald game might have gone differently.

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Tears vs. Roll Models

Score

	G1H1	G1H2	G1	G2H1	G2H2	G2
OZB	2	2	4	5	5	10
RM	3	3	6	3	5	8

Recap

The shit really hit the fan with the Roll Models’ roster in Week 2. First they got word that Ignitius, their rock on defense, will be unable to continue with the team for the remainder of the season. Then Asa Akira and Pnaoxt were both unexpectedly not able to make the game as well. If this happened last week, Sundown may have been able to convince Koala to start, but she had just been dropped a few days prior. Sundown had to cobble together a lineup by calling up Gramps, Spherecules and Tantrew to fill out the Minors crew. Campus security forced Tantrew out of the building he was playing in (no doubt using the phrase “rolling bomb” inside a publicly-owned building did not endear him to the authorities). He should have tried his Mom’s bathroom instead.

The noteworthy lineup change for Orzaballs this week is that coys was in mid-flight, possibly hung over, and unable to play with Frozty on defense. This means that Jet2 saw his first significant minutes of the season.

Iron

Gramps was a standout offender in NLTP last season, so it was a little surprising to see him called up to play defense. Sundown favored the offensive pairing of MKo and El Sacko due to their experience playing together last season as well as scrimming together more recently. El Sacko stepped up when his team needed him the most, capping 3 times in the first half and 1 time in the second half. MKo didn’t cap at all in Game 1 but played a supporting role admirably. They leaned on chemistry to help them get out of base.

The statistics tell an odd story because in almost every category except caps, Orzaballs appeared to have the advantage. They had more returns and less pops than their opponent, yet gave up more caps. This generally indicates that there is a lot of individual talent, but chemistry just isn’t clicking yet. One thing that Roll Models did seem to do is grab a lot more, which contributes to the fact that Orzas had more returns, but also means that Roll Models had more capping opportunities.

This was an impressive win for a Roll Models team that could have gone off the deep end with a second consecutive sweep. Instead they find themselves in great position to take on the rest of the season. Hopefully they can pick up some good free agents and solidify that rotation. Give credit to Sundown for grabbing players that had the skill and confidence to lean into the challenge, but give more credit to Gramps, Spherecules and El Sacko for stepping up when needed in Game 1.

Emerald

Orzaballs won Game 2 on Emerald convincingly, although the score doesn’t suggest that. Their skill and experience playing together on Emerald finally won out. Mahatma and fucking owen were grabbing and holding successfully, and the defense got in on the capping game as well. Power-ups were a group effort, and the Orzaballs worked together to secure the advantage.

Again, it’s a credit to Roll Models that this game wasn’t a complete blowout. This week Emerald proved to be a fast map that punishes teams that make mistakes. Accidental gatings or poor grabs lead to re-grab trains that produce blowouts, and this game was not a blowout. The Orzas performance was better on Emerald than it was on Iron, but the close score is a testament to the fact that the chemistry still isn’t quite there. They need to communicate not just clearly, but quickly as well. Otherwise they’ll continue to get burned by poorly-timed grabs and out-of-position O-D.