Siege of Winterfell have started! Match one: 4TR vs PZE!

Another Siege of Winterfell season has officially begun! I have to be honest and say that I didn't like this event at all in the first few seasons, with each new season I like it more and more. Maybe it was that I wasn't in the right alliance, or I wasn't surrounded by good teammates? I really don't know, but now it has become, along with Alliance Conquest and Kingdom vs Kingdom, my favorite event.

Our alliance has recently achieved very good results - for the first time we entered the Ultimate Challenge, which promoted us to a higher league, so for the second season in a row, SOW is playing in the Super League, the highest possible level of the competition! Of course, we are not up to this rank, there are many, many stronger alliances than us, but the fact that we secured a place in this league with our results and the fact that we are growing and progressing as an alliance day by day makes us proud! Of course we will do our best in every match we play!

Before we found out who our first opponent would be, we agreed that, since we were playing in the Super League, we wouldn't have high expectations for this season. Our goal is to win three out of six matches to get additional rewards, and anything above that can be considered a big bonus. I was confident that we would easily reach that goal - although we are too weak for most alliances competing in this league, there are always plenty of alliances that are similar in size and strength to us that we can look for victories against. In the last few seasons of the biggest events that we have played together, and especially after we got new players - I'm thinking of Paul first of all, we have improved a lot as an alliance, we play as a team and we always give our best in every match, which is what brought us a place in this competition rank. However, all of that needs to be proven in the matches that follow! And the first match is against the PZE alliance! Honestly, when I saw the name of the opposing alliance, I thought I knew them from before. However, I was wrong... This is not the alliance I was thinking of, which is a good thing for us since the alliance I had in mind, the alliance in which there are only players from the Czech Republic, is much stronger than us and against them we wouldn't have much chance... However, when I looked at who our opponent really is - I realized that this alliance is also stronger than us! But, even though they are stronger than us in terms of power and have many more strong players than us - I am convinced that we can match them! We just have to play smart and have a chance against this kind of opponent!

The plan was usual and clear - if enough of our players enter the match, we will split into two groups, as usual. I will lead one group of players and we will fight for Hot Springs, while Paul will lead another group of players and they will head towards the Armory. Furthermore, after the initial battles for those two Castles are over, we head to Winterfell and will try to fight for the Treasure that could be of crucial importance in this match. Once again, I have to emphasize how big a difference it is to play matches in small alliances like ours, and in the largest alliances in the game. In our matches, although we have much more opportunities to secure points since we mostly play matches against alliances that have approximately the same number of players in the match as us, often every smallest mistake we make is fatal, so from the beginning to the end of the match we have to be completely focused on the match, and since Treasure brings a large number of points to whoever secures it, the battles for Treasure may even be decisive! We divided who of us would go to which Castle and we just had to wait to see how many players we would enter the match with...

Only 24 players... I can't be happy with that number. Recently, some more players joined our alliance, bringing the number of members to over 75! And now, instead of having even more players in matches - we have fewer players than we had in the recently concluded Alliance Conquest season... But this is already a common problem that has been with us for several seasons. Obviously, some big changes will need to be introduced to convince players that they have to join the matches we play...

But there is no time for negative thoughts, the match is about to start! Luckily for us, being PZE did not come with a larger number of players, they only have 28 players, so at least in this field we are equal. I got an additional reason for optimism when I realized that some of their strongest players did not enter the match, including nominally their strongest player - a certain GUCCI VERSIC! But, despite some players not showing up, they still had many more strong players than us, so I knew that we were in for an extremely difficult match...

The match has begun! Our players have divided themselves into two groups, as agreed, and the first battles have quickly begun!

For some reason, PZE didn't come with many players to fight for Hot Springs... They obviously relied on the strength of their players who would fight for Hot Springs and believed that it would be enough for them to win this first battle. After seeing the strength of their players who appeared near Hot Springs - I must admit that I understood their plan... They were extremely strong! However, during my SOW trips in previous seasons, and I learned this by playing in the strongest alliances - I knew that if we all attack their strongest players at the same time, we have a great chance of killing their troops! Therefore, I ordered my teammates to focus their attacks exclusively on their strongest player who is near Hot Springs - Experimental!

Although we won the initial battle and were the first to occupy both the Armory and Hot Springs, as time went on they took more and more control of Hot Springs... Experimental was simply too strong for my teammates, they were losing troops quickly which resulted in them often being out of the battle, while they slowly started to gather other players who soon came to help in the fight for Hot Springs, so we slowly started to lose that fight...

But I was stubborn for two reasons: first, I didn't want to just give them this fight without any resistance, my ego wouldn't let me give up, and the second reason, much more important - if PZE sends their strongest players to fight for Hot Springs, and Experimental is their strongest player - that will leave room for Paul and the rest of my teammates to take care of the Winterfell Treasure! Although we may not have as many strong players as PZE - Gola, Potus King, and especially Paul - these are all our strong and good players who can take care of the Treasure! Therefore, I decided to continue my fight for Hot Springs, which, as it turned out, lasted more than half the match...

After the first quarter of the match, the situation was quite good for us! We had a slight points advantage, their strongest player was busy fighting for Hot Springs, which made it easier for us to deal with Treasure, but the situation slowly started to get out of control... My plan went in the wrong direction - although I consciously sacrificed myself and a few of our smaller players to keep their strongest player busy - I was not aware that they had several other very good players who were, unfortunately, stronger than ours, and we started to lose the battle for Treasure as well, the battle that we had marked as the key one in this match! At this point, I didn't want to react yet, I believed that Paul, Potus and the rest of my teammates would find the strength and manage to secure Treasure and take it home! So I continued the futile fight for Hot Springs...

And what I never expected happened... PZE managed to win the battle for Treasure and took it home... In such a close match, this could be the decisive moment, even though it was only the first Treasure... However, more than half of the match had passed and we were still far behind in points, which meant that we urgently had to change our plan and try to get back into the match. Obviously, my teammates unfortunately can't handle PZE, so we have to completely reverse the planned plan and I have to join the fight for Treasure! I knew that this decision would have certain consequences, since their strongest players would then also join the fight, but the tactics we had so far were clearly not bringing us the results we had hoped for. And that's exactly what happened - when I finally, after more than half of the match, moved away from Hot Springs - Experimental and his teammates who were in charge of Hot Springs started following me!

I had no choice! My alliance needed me in the fight for the Treasure!

Fortunately for us - just when the biggest battles for Treasure started, that new Castle appeared, which is new this season, and which I didn't mention until now because we agreed at the beginning of the match that we would completely ignore those new Castles and we would fully devote ourselves to winning the match, so we didn't pay too much attention to the appearance of those Castles - statues, which can't be said for our opponents who slowly left the fight for Treasure and went to buy the gifts that the statues bring! Because of this, they failed to secure the Treasure and take it home, but my teammates succeeded in not allowing them to go far with it. This gave me just enough time to heal my troops and get them back into the fight for the Treasure!

There was still plenty of time to completely turn the match around in our favor! If we manage to take home this Treasure I'm carrying, we'll be very close in points and have just enough time for another Treasure! But now another problem has arisen - in order to fight for the Treasure we were forced to leave the Castles, which the PZE took full advantage of and started occupying all the Castles!

And now comes the final showdown! Although the difference was not big, there was very little time left until the end of the match. I was afraid that even the last Treasure would not be enough for us to win, since the opponents completely gave up on the fight for the Treasure and only focused on occupying the Castles, which is actually a great idea for them! They realized that they had enough of an advantage that they could afford to completely ignore the Treasure, and during the match they also realized that their players were stronger than ours, which means that in case of an open fight for one of the Castles, they would have a big advantage. However, will that bring them enough points to beat us? We had no choice but to take care of the last Treasure, if they attack me, I only need a couple of my teammates to protect me, so it's hard for them to take the Treasure, so I will definitely take it home, while all our remaining teammates are obliged to fight for the Castles! And the race against time has begun!

Just as I expected - although they tried to attack Treasure, we easily repelled their attacks and I calmly took Treasure home. However, I could only sadly watch the events on the rest of the map, which did not go in our favor at all - we simply were not strong enough to confront them in open combat and we lost almost all the Castles. Unfortunately, even that last Treasure we secured was not enough to win and we recorded a narrow, but still deserved defeat...

The first match of the season and immediately the first loss... We haven't started the season like this for a long time, most of the time we entered the season with a win. But we have nothing to complain about - we played the best we could, PZE was stronger and they should be congratulated on their well-deserved victory. This match is proof that even though I've been through a lot and learned a lot about the game itself and about this event - I still have a lot to learn! My plan was to exclude myself from the fight for the Treasure, thinking that I was helping our alliance by doing so, since I would remove the opponent's strongest player from that battle. However, it turned out to be a completely wrong decision, because of which we came to a point deficit that we could not reach until the end. At the end of the match, the opponents wisely judged that they can leave the Treasure to us and focus exclusively on the Castles, which is the consequence of creating a big point advantage when they secured that first Treasure. However, there were positive things in this match! First of all, I should praise my teammates who listened to me carefully and followed my instructions again, even though they were wrong this time... They showed that we are not afraid of anyone and that I did not make any wrong decisions - who knows, maybe we would have won this match? In any case, this was another instructive match! First of all, I would like to thank my opponents for a great match and I wish them all the best for the rest of the season! I would also like to thank my teammates for a well-played match, even though we were underdogs, we fought bravely against a stronger opponent and we almost turned the match in our favor! I hope that in the next matches we will have better luck and that I will not make the same decisions as I did in this match...