Okay Hens vs. Orzaballs

Score

	G1H1	G1H2	G1	G2H1	G2H2	G2
OKH	5	8	13	3	1	4
OZB	5	2	7	2	2	4

Recap

I have an urgent, serious news story to report: the Orzaballs have rotated. That is not a misprint. The fact is, Tears had to make some tough decisions with the Minors lineup this week. Coys mysteriously had to step into full-time defensive duty for Majors. This leaves poor Frozty to try and find a new defensive partner he can trust. The Orzaballs definitely lost something on defense without coys last week, so there’s reason to be concerned about the defense going forward. A non-rotational philosophy tends to work well from a results perspective, but it suffers if something happens that requires you to change the lineup. Suddenly you have to play people who might not have the experience or chemistry to give you quality minutes.

Orzaballs had to play the Okay Hens, who are looking like one of the best Minors teams. In some ways they are the polar opposite of Orzaballs. They’ve been rotating players effectively at both positions for the whole season. Their most exciting player (Abe Lincoln) is on defense, whereas OZB has the most breakout potential on offense (fucking owen).

This promised to be an interested match, but if I learned earlier that coys wouldn’t be playing I would have called an Okay Hens sweep instead of a split. So let’s get on with the recap!

Emerald

The Orza’s started alchemist on defense with Frozty. I could try to justify this pairing in terms of ability, but frankly it’s easier just to note that Orzaballs were running out of defensive options this week. Jet2 was unable to play and the only remaining player, PotatoChip, is stronger on offense. That’s not a knock on alchemist either—this guy scored four caps in the first half while playing defense. It was probably the strangest thing to happen in Minors this season. Unfortunately, for every cap he got he may have given up a cap on the other end. He played with a lot of energy but that showed in the form of poor contain and strange decision-making on defense. Frozty was able to make up for that by cleaning up all the missed returns.

Abe Lincoln and Bal McCartny kept the flag in-base more than Frozty and alch, but the more important thing is that they spent less time playing out-of-position. Four caps is a big number for a defender, but it’s not good to see a defender in a circumstance where they’re grabbing ten times in a half. In an ideal scenario on Emerald you see the offenders rotating grabs and the defenders focusing on securing power-ups and chasing.

The first half didn’t feel like it should be a tie at all. Orzaballs were making bad grabs the whole time and playing bad O-D. It just had the feeling of chaos for them.

In the second half, the Okay Hens brought Ball God in the play offense with MeaL. It’s nice to see a former pub player like MeaL anchoring the offense here. He capped three times in the first half and deserved to be out there.

The Okay Hens stepped on OZB’s throats in the second half. With all the mistakes that OZB made in the first half it was a miracle that they came out of it with a tie. The mistakes just kept piling up and finally became insurmountable. OKH capped four times in the first two and a half minutes. There’s not a lot to say about this half other than the Okay Hens played a great game and applied so much pressure that a weakened Orzaballs lineup wilted. Alchemist got nubbed. Nuff said.

Velocity

The Velocity game promised to be a little more competitive than the Emerald game. The Okay Hens still have the better roster this week, but Velocity is a map that Tears teams play well on. The notable change to the Orzaballs lineup is that JBaayBaay got his first minutes of the season on offense.

Orzaballs got off to a shaky start as their lineup tried to find its chemistry. The slow start didn’t burn them too much in terms of caps, but you could tell that JBaayBaay in particular was a little bit nervous and indecisive. That lack of confidence showed itself when he grabbed the flag and was slow getting out of base, which set him up to get returned. Meanwhile, alchemist was sitting right on the flag tile, so when the flag re-appeared OKH returned him easily. Frozty was boosting into base, so if alch hadn’t been sitting on the flag tile there’s a good chance they would have stopped that cap.

JBaay also had a hand in giving up cap number two. He got stuck in a situation where he didn’t know if he should slow the flag carrier down or get ahead. When you’re the only one in the open field on Velocity, slowing down the flag carrier is almost impossible. He needed to get ahead to give his team the best chance to stop the cap. There was another alchemist flaccid in the mix due to sitting right on the flag tile. When you’re right on the flag tile you give up the ability to grab on your terms. That hurts when there are defenders near the base.

From here, Orzaballs starting playing with a little more confidence and the Hens made some mistakes. Mahatma made a clean grab and got out of base ahead of both defenders. Almost immediately after that, Ball God made an aggressive bomb grab and got returned right away, leaving fxu by himself on O-D and giving mahatma an easy cap. Bit of an aggressive move by Ball God here but the two events happened fast and this cap is more on the defense.

The second cap was more on Ball God’s shoulders. Instead of taking the flag out of base, he went back into the box and picked up a rolling bomb. By the time he got out of the box, both Orzaballs defenders were back in base, which complicated the situation greatly. fxu tried to block for Ball God and get him out of base, but in doing so he left re-grab and gave JBaayBaay his first cap of the season. Ball God called the “mb”, but you can also attribute this cap to fxu for not staying close to re-grab, and Snack for boosting backwards and failing to cover the other side of the box when JBaayBaay was in there grabbing a pup on the other side.

Abe Lincoln took the initiative on the final go-ahead cap of the half. He snagged a tagpro and bombed into base, killing two defenders and escaping with the flag. Since mahatma flaccid-grabbed at the same time, Abe was ahead of three Orzas. JBaay had tagpro, but he faced the tough situation of being the only one ahead to stop the cap. He was unable to stay close to the flag tile and Abe capped when JBaay got double-poosted out of the way. It was a tough situation to be sure, but when you’re playing O-D with the tagpro you need to expect those poosts and anchor yourself in the flag carrier’s path. You have to be smart about who you choose to tag and when.

The OkayHens won this half, but Orzaballs held longer. In fact, the Orzaballs would have won this half if not for the rough start. Both teams made mistakes, but the Orzaballs got their mistakes out of the way right at the beginning of the half. Abe Lincoln was the standout player for the Hens, getting 16 returns and capping once. He played a mistake-free game out there.

Orzaballs kept the same lineup for half two, but OKH switched MeaL for fxu on offense, and Bal McCartny for Abe Lincoln on defense. You can tell OKH is still favoring an even minutes distribution here. It would have made strategic sense to leave Abe in for the second half, as he was the only one who played well in the first.

What’s interesting about half two is that Okay Hens played a little bit better but still lost the half, and therefore any chance of a victory. Ball God had massive hold at 3:47 and MeaL held for over two minutes as well.

Even though the power-up disparity at the end of the half was deadlocked at 18–18, OKH lost the first round and paid for it. The Orzaballs came out of it with two tagpros, which both went on offense. MeaL spiked at the other end, which put mahatma ahead of three and gave him an easy cap.

After a solid first half, JBaay didn’t play as well. His flag carrying mistake led to OKH’s first cap. He used the bottom bomb to boost upwards, which even in the best of circumstances launches you into a blind spot which may or may not contain an opposing player. It doesn’t matter anyway because he spiked himself trying to hit the boost. He exploded close to Frozty, which caused him to panic and spike as well. This left Ball God in a long return-for-cap situation that paid off for him.

So now we’re at two mishaps per team, and the question is whether or not someone will make a third. OKH faced a situation where alchemist had a tagpro around the base, and they had to force a grab and get out. Bal McCartny made that grab and it looked like he was going to get out cleanly, but Snack recklessly bombed into base and hit him. Bal didn’t get out, and Snack got killed by the tagpro. This gave Orzas the go-ahead cap and meant this game would end in a tie.

The half played evenly, but it was less about making plays and more about who made less mistakes. In the Velocity game, these teams both made mistakes at various points and the result was an even tie. I don’t know if Orzaballs were proud to walk out of this one with a tie, but they should be. They had to play an experienced lineup this week with new partnerships on defense. It’s not all their fault, but they got burned at least a little bit by not getting some of these inexperienced players minutes earlier in the season.

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Texas Hold’em vs. Holdin’ Gate Warriors

Score

	G1H1	G1H2	G1	G2H1	G2H2	G2
THE	2	4	6	3	3	6
HGW	4	2	6	2	0	2

Recap

At last Holdin’ Gate Warriors are free from the weight of Dodsfall’s suspension. While bigbird did an admirable job in Majors, his absence hurt the Minors team in some ways. They’ve played well so far, with their rotation of four defensive players, but BigBird is a difference-maker and HGW minors should be better as a whole now.

On the other side, Texas Hold ‘Em have been steadily improving each week. Dodge is a defensive specialist, and they have a steady rotation of offensive talent that play based on what the match-up requires.

Emerald

After watching and playing a lot of Emerald over the last few weeks, it seems like what matters most is who dies less. When you look at the statistics for losing teams, one of the main characteristics is a lot of non-carrying deaths from the offenders. The first half of this match-up was close in most respects.

HGW got out to an early lead due to an O-D failure on Hold ‘Em’s part. Ralph Wiggum made a bad flaccid grab in pursuit of the tag, and then strong blocks overpowered everyone else. Texas equalized right away off of double tagpro. Holdin’ Gate stole the advantage once more when Iron_Ball got a tagpro uncontested and abcd escaped with an intact rolling bomb. Then Texas equalized in an exciting sequence that start with Ralph Wiggum getting an uncontested tagpro. Dodge then got two solo returns on opposite sides of the map, setting up an easy cap. After the first four caps, the advantage broke in HGW’s favor, as BigBird and lolugrumpy worked together to get returns and lay amazing blocks. The half ended with HGW up 4–2. You have to say that abcd’s debut on offense here was successful. He scored two caps alongside Iron_Ball. Texas Hold ‘Em had more unforced deaths in this one, and that contributed a lot to the loss. For example, Legion’s K:D was only around .6. This map is so quick to traverse that dying once can be devastating.

In the second half, Texas Hold ‘Em kept the exact same lineup while Holdin’ Gate had 75% turnover, bringing in MEGATRON on offense and replacing their defensive duo with APthatsME and Mr Bucket. This kind of rotational strategy has me skeptical, especially since the original lineup was so strong in the first half. What I do know is that AP and Mr Bucket have been developing good chemistry and playing them isn’t a bad idea. You just have to understand that they won’t be coming into the half with any momentum.

Holdin’ Gate got out to a hot start again in the second half. Iron_Ball left base with a rolling bomb and Ralph Wiggum missed a backwards snipe, putting both defenders behind. Legion equalized after MEGATRON took a bad route out of base, dying almost immediately before re-grab arrived.

It seems like things started to go South for HGW when they gave up the third cap of the game. It was one of the worst team moments out of the West all week. APthatsME, MEGATRON and Iron_Ball were all in base on O-D. AP had tagpro, but for some reason wasn’t using it to facilitate a grab, even though there was only one defender. When you have 3 vs. 1 and tagpro, you should be able to get out of base nine times out of ten. AP didn’t try to kill anyone and paid the price when he got bombed out of the play. MEGATRON flaccid grabbed immediately after, leaving Iron_Ball watching helplessly as Hold ‘Em capped.

At this point, Texas Hold ‘Em were down by two caps with only two minutes to play. They knew they had to make something happen to at least scrape a tie. Ralph Wiggum made the play of the game so far when he blew the base bomb and cleaned out HGW’s O-D, leading to a cap. Generally this is a risky move, but it was a time for risk-taking and Ralph hit the bomb perfectly and with intent.

Team made the final grab of the game and showed great awareness (soon to become a theme of the match). He knew he had time, and he also knew that one more round of power-ups was coming. He snagged a rolling bomb up top and then leveraged great blocks to finally tie the game.

It was not an outstanding game from APthatsME and Mr Bucket. AP in particular made a couple mistakes that cost his team caps. MEGATRON also repeated some of the mental mistakes he made last week. Emerald is a map that exposes mental mistakes, and Texas Hold ‘Em simply made less mistakes over the course of the game.

Velocity

Both teams kept the same lineups heading into Velocity. The idea behind Holdin’ Gate’s lineup is good here, but smart play and solid flag carrying by Texas Hold ‘Em won out eventually. Team showed outstanding flag carrying in particular, methodically moving around the entire map and showing patience in-base while his teammates set up blocks. For the first cap, Team got into base ahead of two but things got crowded fast. He took a smart wall boost above the flag, and from there Dodge and Ralph Wiggum cleaned up a flaccid grab and blocked the remaining two players out.

HGW had another bad usage moment here, where they had three players on O-D, one of whom had a tagpro. MEGATRON didn’t show great awareness of the fact that they should be using the tagpro to escape base. But, since he wasn’t even trying, his teammates most likely weren’t telling him either. By the time they realized they should be grabbing it was too late, and MEGATRON grabbed with flag-pro.

Holdin’ Gate got their first cap when they won a massive round of power-ups, yielding three tagpros. Not capping in this situation would be inexcusable, but this team has had tagpro issues. They managed to cap despite some initial problems getting the leads in place. Immediately after that, Ralph Wiggum made a bad flaccid grab while his teammates were still re-spawning in base. Iron_Ball got an easy secape and took the flag in without any resistance. This tied the game. For the last cap, Team grabbed while everyone else was going for power-ups. That got him back into base for free, and then Iron_Ball and Mr Bucket were unable to get the flag out of base 2v1.

A few things stand out about this half. The most obvious thing is the crazy prevent disparity. Texas Hold ‘Em had six minutes of prevent to Holdin’ Gate’s two. The Hold ’Em flag carriers were deliberate moving around the map and kept a re-grab train going for most of the half. Team played well and capped three times.

The second half was like watching paint dry. Texas Hold ‘Em took the initiative from the start and never let it go. They started off by winning a massive power-up round that put one tagpro on D, one tagpro leading, and gave the flag carrier a rolling bomb. Easy cap.

The half continued along, with Team and Legion holding well and Holdin’ Gate unable to secure resets. With three minutes left in the game, HGW still hadn’t been able to get anything going. The game ended unspectacularly in a 6–2 win for Texas Hold ‘Em. The formula for victory was the same as the first half—Dodge and Ralph Wiggum kept the flag in-base, and Legion and Team played smart and hold for days.

Summary

I’ve said this before, but matches like this make me think about rotational strategy. Holdin’ Gate set up their rotation in an “AB:BA” format. This gives you an even minutes distribution, but by the time lineup A comes back in they’ve been sitting for 20 minutes and are facing a team that just played a half on Velocity. An “AA:BB” rotation seems like it would put the lineups in a better situation to be successful.

In any case, Texas Hold ‘Em played the same four players for forty minutes a piece tonight, and they were locked in for the entire match. Velocity is clearly a strong map for them. The most impressive thing is how they controlled the tempo of the game with smart holds.

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Little Merballs vs. EAZY-eee’s

Score

	G1H1	G1H2	G1	G2H1	G2H2	G2
LMB	4	1	5	3	3	6
EZE	2	4	6	3	2	5

Recap

This was such a close matchup. Even though the Little Merballs lost their first 4 games, you could feel them start to turn it around last week. It wasn’t hard to imagine that they would bring confidence into this week’s game. That’s exactly what happened.

Emerald

The Little Merbs came out firing on all cylinders in Half 1. Danisk and oh_snap! preyed on EAZY-eee’s tendency to fall behind at the beginning of games. Danisk got the flag out of base immediately and capped. He and snap combined to hold the flag for five and a half minutes, making it tough for quibble and saundy to get resets. Eventually EAZY-eee’s were able to fight through their troubles to get two caps of their own, and that made the score 4–2 in favor of the Merbs at the end of the half. Danisk was the obvious MVP here, scoring three of the Merbs’ four captures. eee continued to score at a high rate for EZE, picking up two caps of his own.

Two caps on Emerald is not a deficit at all, and EAZY-eee’s knew that if they kept the flag in-base more and minimized mistakes they would be able to get back in this one. Quibble and saundy got about three minutes of prevent a piece, and EZE capped four times in the second half while holding the Merbs to just one. Saundy played an aggressive defensive game and snagged 19 returns. Quibble had a more well-rounded effort, picking up 11 returns of her own and capping once to boot. ASS CANNON and eee held for over two minutes a piece, which gave their defense a chance to roll off and fight for power-ups with regularity. All in all, EZE played a much smarter half and it paid off. The Merbs’ defense was not as good this time around. They only got 17 combined returns and felt the effects of constant offensive pressure from eee and ASS CANNON. On offense, oh_snap! and danisk only got two power-ups between them, which means they didn’t have tools to help them get out of base.

Unyielding pressure can test a team’s chemistry and decision-making, and that’s what happened to the Merbs in Half 2. Their confidence is like a scab that’s just starting to heal. It’s still possible to punish them in stressful situations. It remains surprising Fuzz Ball and Snowball didn’t play together after what they did on Emerald last week. I wonder if the outcome might have been different if they favored the lineup with better chemistry. That’s not to say Kitten Panda has been bad at all. His play has been solid, but it feels like the two balls have something special. There is no doubt that danisk and oh_snap! should be the offensive duo going forward for the Merbs.

Velocity

The game on Velocity was definitely not as wild as Emerald, but it was just as close and riveting in its own way. Saundy played a nice two-way game. His highlight of the match happened when he grabbed, carried for a minute and eighteen seconds, and then finished by capping. Quibble had almost identical numbers on defense, not including the cap. The PUP disparity ended up being close to even, but it didn’t feel that way during the match. Danisk got 10 PUPs all by himself in the first half. Something else to note is that the Merbs kept the flag in-base for over a minute longer than the EAZY-eee’s. Speaking from personal experience, we felt lucky to scrape a tie at the end of the half. It didn’t feel like it a tie.

Both teams played well in the second half, but power-ups ended up being the difference-maker. The Merbs got 22 power-ups to EZE’s 14, and it felt like most of the extras were tagpros. EAZY-eee’s will be seeing green in their nightmares this week. Fuzz Ball and Snowball were outstanding together. They proved that they deserve more opportunities to play in big situations. Quibble and saundy continued to play well too, racking up similar amounts of prevent despite the tagpro onslaught. Don’t let eee’s position on the leaderboard fool you—he was holding like a boss. The capping chances just didn’t materialize.

This loss was crushing for the EAZY-eee’s because they got out to an early two cap lead in the second half. It looked like the Merbs might have to swallow another tough loss. The great thing from the Merbs’ perspective is that they did not panic when that happened. It would have been easy to think “here we go again” and resign themselves to yet another loss, but they kept at it and got the win. It’s going to be important for them going forward because now they know they have the ability to come from behind and win.

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Roll Models vs. Angry Balls Redux

Score

	G1H1	G1H2	G1	G2H1	G2H2	G2
ABR	3	5	8	4	4	8
RM	3	3	6	0	4	4

Recap

This was a matchup that played more evenly on Emerald than Velocity. Roll Models have had crazy, unpredictable lineups every week so far, and this week was no exception. Players like B.I.G.Money got their first Minors minutes of the season, and even HayBunny, joining the team on NLTP loan, had to play 10 minutes when MKo lagged out in the second game.

Meanwhile, Angry Balls Redux have been steadily improving as a team. Alvin came down and played significant Minors minutes for the first time this season, which improved their offensive consistency immensely. They played Fowlball and UnoriginalSN on defense together for the entire 40 minutes as well, which really allowed the lineup to get locked in. It’s a shame that Ballzilla didn’t get to play, as I thought he had something of a breakout performance in Week 2. There’s a good chance this was a lag issue and hopefully we get to see him play in subsequent weeks.

Emerald

The first half on Emerald had highlights and lowlights for both teams, as they played each other to a 3–3 tie. Roll Models took the initiative early when UnoriginalSN made a poorly-timed flaccid grab and Fowlball rushed back to base too hard. Roll Models got their second cap in a row when the played a smart anti-re and El Sacko confidently threaded the needle with a boost. On the Roll Models’ third cap, Fowlball was supposed to be sitting on re but instead was messing around with the gate and the bomb. He got nubbed here and gave RM their third cap, which put them up 3–1 with only 20 seconds to go in the half.

Then, for whatever reason, the Roll Models lost their heads. Asa Akira got gated and B.I.G.Money was unable to get out of base, which allowed ABR to cap. They immediately followed that with a flaccid grab, and then El Sacko got too eager, rushed the flag back across the map and was tagged. If he had laid back and waited for re-grab like you would do at any other time, the equalizer cap wouldn’t have happened. There was no reason to be that aggressive here with another half to play.

Roll Models got off to a fast start again in the second half. They got the re-grab train chugging early and capped twice right at the start. After that things got sloppy. Everyone on Angry Balls Redux capped, including UnoriginalSN and Fowlball. Speaking of those two, they played great contain in a stretch where Roll Models just wouldn’t stop grabbing. The grabs themselves were clean, but due to the flawless contain that ABR was putting on they just couldn’t get out of base. Eventually Roll Models paid for those bad grabs and ABR tied up the half. A signature of this half for ABR was increased prevent—they kept the flag in-base for almost the entire back-end of the half. They laid all the right blocks and Ball-E and bluemonday used power-ups to get out of base and cap.

Power-up disparity was not a huge factor in the Emerald matchup. The outcome hinged on who was able to keep the flag in-base more, and who made less mistakes. This time, it was Angry Balls Redux.

Velocity

At the start of the Velocity game, the lineups for both teams didn’t change very much. The only noteworthy difference is that Angry Balls Redux played alvin and Ball-E together for the first time on offense.

Unfortunately, the first half didn’t go the Roll Models’ way at all. Angry Balls seemed to play smarter and execute better in almost every facet of the game. Cap number two was picture-perfect. UnoriginalSN got the reset by playing timely anti-re, and then he and Fowlball blocked both Roll Models defenders, creating a chasm so wide that… well, it was really wide. The third cap happened on the very next grab, as the blocks continued to hold and Ball-E got around the edge and took the vertical bomb in. There aren’t many good things to say about how the Roll Models played the first half, but one thing to note is that MKo seemed to be struggling with lag. There was a weird sub situation where he lagged out, HayBunny came in, MKo came back in, HayBunny Left, MKo left, and then HayBunny came back in. It was kind of funny to watch, but that should show all teams that it’s worth defining a system for how subs are going to happen.

In Half 2 Angry Balls let sun chips off the leash, and he made them question why they didn’t play him sooner. He used power-ups really effectively, capping three times, each with the aid of a rolling bomb. He looked really confident out there.

Roll Models did look a lot better in this half, but it was too little, too late. Asa Akira was oddly the most impressive offender. He had some highlight plays on the way to collecting two caps.