Ruin Rivals: Can 7/8 Purified Ruins Be Called a Victory?

Earlier today I had a great time doing Ruin Rivals on my LittleCav alt in the alt alliance. But now it’s time for the main event: the last Ruin Rivals of this season with my main alliance, N0X!

I’d say N0X got a bit unlucky with the matchmaking, but honestly, at this level of gameplay, there’s not much room for luck. We’ve landed in the Combined Army... what’s the opposite of Yeey! ? And FFS is our opponent in the Barren Army. Again, what’s the opposite of Yeey! ?

On the bright side, since UC is over, all the super accounts have returned to N0X for this event.

On the flip side of the bright side... probably all the other super accounts are back in their home alliances too, including FFS.

Well, let’s get this show on the road. I see people are eager to jump in. The battlefield hasn’t even been open for a full minute and folks are already requesting LC and jumping in.

I decide to take my time and kill some RL so I don't waste the motivation when swapping gear. And by the time I deploy, the map’s already full, so I just deploy back with the alts and the little accounts. Exactly where I belong, lol.

And we're off to a... not so good start? I remember just a few hours ago, playing as the Barren Army, the entire map was ours right from the beginning. How the tables have turned now.😅Very few buildings are up for grabs by the Combined Army at the start.

I find something nobody seems to be going for, but before I can set up an attack and speed in... Rock already sniped it. I find it hilarious how all the lines are now going back home, in shame, for not running as fast as Rock did. There must be 20 people who "raced" for it that are now heading back with their tails between their legs like the slowpokes they are. Myself included, lol.

I wait for another building to open up and try to make a run for it, but I’m late again. Scy is already inside by the time I get there, and I bounce off the bubble. Oh well, I shouldn’t be disappointed. It’s a team effort and we are getting buildings.

Now I remember how on my alt I didn’t have enough marches researched to do as much as I wanted. On my main I’ve got 8 marches buuut, since the Combined Army only starts with 2 million troops... with my main army size, I only need two marches to fully deploy all my troops. And the points are coming in a loooot slower, so I can’t unlock those tank buster T5s nearly as fast as I could when I was playing in the Barren team. Shame.🙄I knew the Combined Army side was a scam!😒

Nevertheless, we manage to make some early progress. Rock and Yagami snipe two buildings as soon as they open and purify them.

We manage to get 3 ruins purified in the first 15 minutes of the game. Grom took the 3rd from Wood a few minutes later.

So I’d say we’re handling this rather well. Early snowball denial for the Barren Army is crucial if the Combined Army wants to win, and this time I really like seeing “Purified” on every ruin I come across, unlike earlier today.

But here’s the downside: now the Barren Army has fewer vital objectives to defend, which means they can assign their biggest accounts to hold them. That makes our job as the Combined Army a lot harder when it comes to contesting.

On a side note, not having T5s means cheaper heals. I can’t do much with my main, compared to the rage storm I caused with my alt, but at least I don’t have to spend hundreds of days healing either. Still, I would’ve expected more action from the main event. We’re now getting close to halftime, and I’ve just been a reinforce drone, with 0 impact, 0 smart plays, and ultimately 0 fun. Unlike my alt, on which I was having a blast by now.

As I heal I catch a nice little cameo banner with Rock taking another building. He’s all over the place. Good to see someone’s having fun.😊

With a bit of effort, we manage to take, hold, and purify the 4th ruin. But I can already feel things getting harder. While the first 3 were more or less randomly sniped by our strong accounts running solos, these next ones actually require rally leads.

The 5th ruin we’re targeting is being held by Josehf, and it’s already becoming a pain. Rallies alone aren’t enough anymore. Now we need multiple synced rallies to even stand a chance. Eventually, we manage to break Josehf, but it takes real coordination and split tactics between this ruin and another one held by QUEENY. We got close to taking both at once, but not quite there. What finally tipped the scales was throwing in distractions to mislead their reinforcements, and that gave us just the edge we needed to kick Josehf out.

Next target: QUEENY in the 6th ruin on our list. And this one’s proving impossibly hard. But we don’t want to admit defeat, especially not before we’ve even hit the 30-minute mark. We’re spamming rallies, trying everything, but it’s barely scratching the surface.

Taking the ruins one by one is crucial. It doesn’t just give us more buffs, it progressively weakens the Barren Army. More power for us, less for them... eventually, we should be able to overpower them.

But at the same time, by the midpoint of the game, the Barren Army has probably already gathered all the Breath they need to fully upgrade their stats. Can’t really say the same for us. And let’s not even talk about the number of kills they’ve stacking from all our failed attacks.

The situation is bleak. They’re able to reinforce faster than we can kick them out.

All this still leaves the Barren Army at a significant advantage, and we’re left throwing volleys and volleys of failed rallies.

Even after full successful hits from us and another alliance in the Combined Army, we can’t get QUEENY under 20 people.

So we switch tactics. More rally leads are called in, because we want our ultra accounts to run solo bleed attacks. They speed in a hit, rush back home, heal, and go in again while the rallies slowly march. It’s desperate, but maybe it’ll give us the edge?

Still, our morale is slipping. Healing my troops is starting to cost me half a month worth of days for every failed rally. And we barely kill anything in return.

But maybe... it’s not all for nothing. They’re probably capped on powerups by now, while we’re still getting Breath for upgrades. Every troop we kill gives us upgrades they can’t get anymore. Maybe, just maybe, we’re still climbing, and we can come in harder and harder while they’re stuck at this level.

We get a few really tight rally volleys in and nearly kick QUEENY out. SO CLOSE!. Then, out of nowhere, like a miracle… a wild Yagami appears and delivers the killing blow. We finally get QUEENY out, and won our 5th Ruin!

The crowd goes wild! I had to cut the audio from the video to keep it low in size so I can upload it, but believe me, the crowd did go WILD on Discord!

And just a few moments later, we safely Purify it!

It’s funny. After all the effort we poured into taking it, they don’t even try to contest and take it back? No counter rally, no solo spam, no nothing. They could have stopped us from Purifying, but chose not to. Are they letting us win? Or... do they know something we don’t?

I find it a bit strange. And I’m starting to get worried. Let's proceed with caution, I say to myself, like I'm a rally lead or shot caller and it actually matters what I think in these situations.😂

In all the chaos, we somehow managed to snipe another Ruin. I didn’t even see who was holding it before, but now it's ours, and it was Purified shortly after. It seems all the pressure we put on QUEENY and Josehf actually paid off. The distraction worked so well, even we didn’t realize what was really going on right in front of our eyes.

And barely 2 minutes later, another Ruin falls prey to our unstoppable forces. MAKIMA makes their presence known on the map by taking the 7th Ruin.

So, 40 minutes in with 20 more to go… and we’ve purified 7 Ruins? That’s a lot better than I expected. Honestly, we’ve done really well. There’s only one more Ruin left, and then we can start the CSS spam on the Center Castle.

I can’t say the other alliances in the Combined Army were much help with the Ruins themselves, but at least they’re holding the line at the smaller buildings. Not an easy job, especially with QUEENY going berserk after we kicked them out of the Ruin. They’re constantly sweeping through and kicking everyone out of the small objectives.

That’s not great for us. Without those small buildings, we can’t stack buffs for the final push.

BUT... if we manage to take the last Ruin, I have a feeling the entire Combined Army will throw everything they’ve got at the Castle.

And if that happens? We might actually stand a chance at winning this thing.

Three quarters into the game, we find ourselves face to face with Vitoo in the final Ruin.

After Josehf and QUEENY, I honestly don’t know how we’re going to crack this last Ruin, but time is still on our side.

We launch volley after volley, solos in between, everything but the kitchen sink, but nothing sticks. We’re getting smushed like flies against an unbreakable wall. And yet, our buzzing hive of flies is still full of energy, defiant in the face of mounting odds.

This is way harder than it was with QUEENY. By now, all our rally leads and top accounts have their full buffs. The only upgrades left are from the scattered smaller buildings on the map, and since the entire Barren Army has no other objectives anymore, they’ve dedicated themselves to full map control. Tracking and blocking our every move. Denying us even the smallest edge.

So it seems we've hit a deadlock.

We spend over 20 minutes doing the same pattern: rally, solo, rally, solo. Meanwhile, we fight to take minor buildings for that sliver of extra strength and hope. But just as fast, they’re taking them back. Every tiny inch we move forward gets erased.

And things are not looking good for our heroes. Time is running out, and we’ve made zero progress in the past 20 minutes or so. Not even a crack in their defense. Vitoo is their testament. The final defender before the great city, standing their ground no matter what we throw at them. They don’t bend. They don’t break. And we’re starting to wonder... can we still win this?

Unlike the previous Guardians of the Ruins Galaxy, here we barely made any impact. No matter who tried, solo or rally, in the end, it was all for nothing. So, after all our efforts, months of speed-ups spent healing, and high hopes built during this match, it looks like we’re going home empty handed.

Well, not completely empty handed. We ended with 7 Ruins purified out of 8, before the final Castle. Considering our opponent was the one and only FFS… and how N0X carried the entire game, with our allies playing a solid secondary role while we were the main characters, it was quite a ride. Unlike modern TV shows, it seems the villains won this time. Just kidding, everyone’s the hero in their own story.😘

On a personal level, I didn’t come in with high hopes, but after such a strong start, I got caught up in the hype. By the midpoint, I actually believed we could win, fully aware that the Combined Army faces a big disadvantage in this event. My alliance friends seem happy enough with 7 out of 8 Ruins. That also means we’re getting better rewards compared to FFS, who ended with just 1 Ruin and the Castle. They did win, yes, but with significantly fewer spoils of war.

Anyway, before we get a chance to pat each other on the back, Wildlings Siege is starting. We’re all in War Gear now, and after an intense hour of gameplay, I’m more than ready to go AFK for a bit and stretch my legs.😀

That said, it was a wonderful game.... I had earlier today with my alt…😂😅

Having said all that, I wish you all a great evening, and see you again on the fields of Westeros!