N0X vs VME: AC Round 6 – N0X’s Journey to Ultimate Conquest ends today

As soon as I log in, I’m greeted by a lovely message from Melisandre. She’s waiting for N0X in Ultimate Conquest. We shouldn’t keep her waiting for long!

From what I’m told, this will be the first time N0X gets to UC. While they’ve come close before, they never quite managed to qualify. It’s surprising given their strong organization, great game knowledge and the solid strategies we’ve used in recent matches.

Tomorrow, we register for the final match. This one’s for all the marbles. The winner goes to UC, and the loser goes home.

As I claim the last buffs, I can only hope our opponents weren’t as active as me and missed a few. We’ll need every bit of help we can get. At this stage, though, everyone who made it this far is hoping for UC. There are probably no slackers this high up in the rankings.

Our final opponent is revealed: VME. I’ve never heard of them, which is probably a good thing?! I only fear a handful of alliances and this is not one of them. Could this be an easy match we can win? Is it finally happening? Is N0X in UC? Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, I need to calm down a bit and not jinx it.

I check Discord to see if my alliance members share the joy. No one’s celebrating yet, but the hype is already building.

My colleagues are so eager to see who we're facing. Some alliance members jump to scout accounts in the enemy kingdom to check out their roster. VME has a few accounts that could be problematic, but overall, it looks like a winnable game.

The stakes are high, and it’s time to come up with a strategy to best counter our final opponents. They are the only obstacle before UC.

As the game is about to start we have a slight member numbers advantage, but they have more initial points. Overall it feels balanced. Leadership is already dishing out instructions: “Don’t stop healing”, “Never cap buildings, keep max 24 so we can send reinforcements” and so on. Their words fade as I scout the enemy hive, checking for some targets.

When the game begins, the numbers are uncomfortably close: 85 vs 85. Even the points are nearly identical. I'm starting to get worried.

Off the bat, we claim 3 out of 4 buildings. The Lannister Outpost is just out of reach for solos, so we decide to ignore it for the time

We execute a perfect Warrior Swap. I'm actually impressed how smooth it went as we still need to work on our reinforcement speeds.

Immediately after we perform another perfect swap, this time on Mother. Our Outpost (Lannister) proves a bit hard to take so we fall back to coordinated rallies as the safe option and mange to take it.

After retaking the Outpost, Ports open, and we secure both. However, we lose Mother to VME’s well timed rallies, exploiting our reinforcement weaknesses. We still have good control of the map, controlling 5 buildings out of 6. Our sights now turn back to Mother, we want it back!

A few minutes later, not only do we not manage to retake Mother, but we also manage to lose their Port and our Outpost. What's going on? We had the upper hand, but they fought back to level the battlefield. With the map now split evenly, I can feel UC slipping through our fingers. We were so close, yet now it feels like it's drifting further out of reach.

Heading into the mid game, as Casterly Rock opens, we take it, reclaiming our advantage. Even with this edge, winning doesn’t guarantee a spot in UC. We need points and VME is not making this easy of us.

It seems N0X leadership shares my thoughts. We do need all the points we can get out of this game and after a few scout solos and well timed rallies we bring all the objectives under our banner. I love the N0X baby blue color when we're playing Lannister side. I rejoice when we take control of the map, UC is once again getting closer. I can almost feel it, slightly beyond my reach.

The reaction from VME comes swiftly. They are contesting everything, trying to find get an advantage. And they find it, Our port is our weakest link so they try to take it. Close Port is always difficult to defend as we can't randomly send lines and speed in when the enemy hits. Since it's close, a few seconds after we send, the troops are already there and if they bounce it's bad.

Successfully defending 9 buildings at once isn't easy, especially when most of them need Spears, and by now, you guessed it, we're running low on Spears to reinforce. We have to pull armies from less contested buildings and send them to the ones under heavy attack. Even with control of the entire map, the game is chaotic. We're constantly recalling troops and speeding them across the battlefield to defend the latest VME targets.

Casterly Rock remains a fierce battleground during the entire game, with constant rallies and solo attacks coming in waves. Quick reinforcements are critical for us to keep control.

For me, it’s even more challenging as I need to juggle troops on two accounts. My alt often arrives late, missing the initial waves of VME’s attacks. But in hindsight, this turns out to be an unexpected advantage. My main account, with its larger army, holds the line. After the waves of attacks ends my alt lands in the building boosting the number of people the enemy sees defending. This makes our buildings appear harder to breach, discouraging further attacks. It wasn't intentional, but it works brilliantly.

Then disaster strikes. We lose Casterly Rock. It’s a blow to morale as CR should have been our most defended point.

It’s clear they’re determined to hold on to Casterly. Anticipating our rally timing, they use their bubble to maintain control.

It’s a smart move on their part, especially since our personal bubbles are about to drop, adding a lot more tension to the map. Chaos erupts as armies from both sides race across the battlefield, zooming by Casterly and swarming toward the opposing hives in an all out war.

As attacks are flying left and right, troops are on high demand, especially spears. With the personal points gone, they closed the gap a bit. They are not giving up, making us work for every point. We swap a few building holders to have a more balanced troop layout and make it harder for VME to contest anything. I’m relieved to finally put my Cavs to good use. Instead of running them across the map to reinforce buildings that don’t even want Cavs in their lineup, I can now use them where they're actually needed, like Hotep's port.

As the mines are about to open we consolidate our position and prepare racers and holders. While the game is clearly ours we still need the points from both mines to be sure we get in UC.

As the mines open, disaster strikes again! Their racer claims the mine closest to us. Frustrating, to say the least. We attempt to snipe the swap, but they secure it with a powerful account. With no other buildings under their control, it’s easy for them to focus everything on that mine. They park their strongest player there, supported by 25 “main” dragons loaded with their best skills, making it incredibly challenging for us to contest it.

It’s a double edged sword. With control over everything else, our focus also shifts entirely to their mine. We set up rallies, filling them with our limited troops and leftover dragons, hoping for the best. No dice. Every single attack bounces, and we can’t even send a single player from their mine home.

Pulling strong rally leads from other buildings feels too risky at this point, so we’re forced to let them keep it. The points from that mine could make the difference between qualifying for UC or failing. We look at their mine, the single red dot on the map, it feels like a thorn in our side, but there's nothing we can do about it.

The final moments are intense. With the map mostly under our control, we calculate the points. It’s going to be close.

As we watch the points in the mine deplete, points that should have been ours to secure our UC placement, we do the math with what we’ve got left. It’s razor thin. We’re on track to hit 100k points, but will it be enough to land N0X in the top 16?

As the mines empty, "GG"s start floating on the screen, and the tension is more intense than I’ve ever felt this season.

I take a quick look into their hive, trying to spot any points we might have missed, and then I can’t help but laugh when I see they’ve even brought their HoFs into the game. What could this tiny account possibly do? Nothing! Just cheap intimidation tactics, showing off a strong roster at the start of the game to play with our nerves and break our morale. Dirty tricks!

The game is about to end. Will we have enough points? I predicted we'd finish with over 110k points, but there’s growing concern that it won’t be enough. Leadership even mentions that the difference between the last alliances to make the UC cut and the ones that don’t might be in the single digits. Is this real? Could we miss the cut by as little as 10 points? You can cut the tension with a knife.

As we wrap up the game, we hit the vanity score of 110k points, just as I predicted and confidently shared in chat. hehe

At least we’ve got that, but the real question on everyone's lips remains: is it enough?

The suspense is killing us. As the leaderboard starts to update after everyone finishes their games, we're all praying we make the cut.

Then the results come in: Rank 16! We did it! N0X is going to UC for the first time in history! It's an incredible achievement. Absolutely amazing! Discord and in game chat erupt with excitement.

I can't help but check the points myself, just to see if leadership's concerns were justified. They warned that the difference between the top alliances in the rankings would likely be in the single digits. And sure enough, shock and awe, the difference between ranks 15, 16, and 17 is only 10 points each. Wow, they were right to be worried!

I’m super proud to be part of this incredible community. Not only did we qualify for UC, but we also won some extra rewards with our 4th win of the season. Melisandre brings good news, just like the "invitation" to UC yesterday morning.

N0X’s journey to UC goes beyond just this victory; it’s a testament to teamwork, strategy, and determination. UC isn't the target anymore, we’re finally here! Now, we’re playing with the big boys. Our pilots were incredible, especially those racing accounts being piloted, and the healing never stopped, just like we were asked. Reinforcing also keeps getting better and better. We’ve managed to bring this roster all the way to UC, and everyone deserves to celebrate our achievement.

Soon, we’ll be right back at it, starting all over again, this time in the big leagues. Let’s enjoy our accomplishment before the games get really healing expensive.