N0X SoW S16 – Match 3: Flawless Victory vs TQL – A Perfect Statue & Package Run

Once more onto the battlefield, N0X steps into its 3rd SoW match of Season 16, this time against TQL.

With one nice victory behind us and one crushing defeat still fresh in memory, I’m curious to see which way this one will go. I check my assignment… Hot Springs again. So far... two alliances, three matches, and this marks my sixth trips to Hot Springs. It’s basically turning into muscle memory at this point. Next time I'm going to HS by default😅

Just before the match starts, I even get a little freebie in alliance chat. Someone probably ran out of Attack Commands and couldn’t quite finish off that last 2%. A nice morale boost for me going into the match.

But before I can get in, some unexpected chatter breaks out in alliance chat. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say we’re reminded to be extra careful when taking lords for buffs. After a certain… accident, we’re told to jump to random spots for HoFs. Unfortunate, but lesson learned for some of us😭

With that behind us, it’s time to swarm the map. Ten minutes before the game we already have a slight edge in points and, more importantly, a clear advantage in participation. Two things I love to see at the start of any AC or SoW match.

Like I said, I’m on Hot Springs duty again, this time alongside Yagami. With him in our squad, we should be able to secure it quickly and hold it without any issues for the rest of the match. As both teams arrive, the first real clash of the match breaks out... at Hot Springs.

We’re the first to arrive at Hot Springs, but TQL doesn’t take long to show up.

Almost immediately we stack under the objective and begin focusing their armies one by one. I’m confident in our force here, and the numbers quickly prove me right. Within minutes we’re outnumbering them two to one, and as their lines collapse without doing much damage to ours, the ratio only tilts further in our favor.

The fight is over in less than five minutes. Compared to other matches where Hot Springs or Armory could drag on for ten or fifteen minutes before the balance tipped, this feels fast, efficient, decisive.

A few of their players try to bypass the fight and sneak around to our Stronghold, but after securing Hot Springs we simply go back a bit, wipe them out, and restore order in this sector😀

With our side of the right wing fully cleared, the team regroups. Some port home to heal and refresh marches, others march forward. And once we reform into a proper snowball, it’s time to push past the halfway line and march straight into their side of the map.

All of this unfolds in the opening ten minutes. Just moments ago we were defending our own Stronghold, now we’re already marching on theirs.

It really hits me how different this is from other matches. In those, we’d be locked in a tug-of-war at Hot Springs for ten minutes or even fifteen. Here, under ten minutes and the entire right side of the map is ours. By the time we secure their Outpost, there are still fifty minutes left on the clock, and their surviving troops are already pulling back toward base. What a rush! Not in the sense of if we’d win, but how fast we’d win.

With the map firmly under our control, the question becomes: what do we do with the remaining three quarters of the match? Base camping is off the table, management’s clear on that and they seemed to be very firm about it, so we leave TQL room to regroup and push out if they want to.

That leaves us with two main objectives: run the package deliveries like one of those high speed trains, and secure every statue that spawns. For me, that second one is perfect, finally a chance to test exactly how these statues work. The in game description felt vague, so why not experiment while we’ve got the freedom?

It’s almost funny how many accounts we can “spare” for statue duty. With the rest of the map secured, we’ve got plenty of troops just standing by to camp statues.

It gets even funnier when a brave Senelle march wanders right up to “our” statue. The real punchline? It didn’t instantly vanish. That poor march actually lasted a few seconds, while being shredded by over twenty accounts at once. Not bad Senelle, not bad at all!

With the danger long gone, we’re free to relax a little, laughing and joking on Discord until the next statue wave spawns, at which point we claim both without trouble.

Of course, we’re quickly reminded not to stray too far from our assignments. No chasing kills, no camping their base, and no running off for statues unless instructed. Fair enough. I settle back at my post, chilling while trying to make sense of the new mechanics.

And as the match drifts on, only the package runners and statue hunters staying busy, I finally piece it all together. I had always thought the statues only gave a five minute buff, and the coins they dropped were like past events, maybe for some future shop that hadn’t launched yet. Turns out I was way off😅

In truth, those coins aren’t individual at all, they’re shared across the whole alliance. They not only fill the alliance "gift" at the end of the match, but also stack permanent buffs for the rest of the game. And those stacking buffs... they’re quite good!

But enough theorycrafting about buffs and special rewards, looks like I’ve got company. Finally, some action. I’m ready to defend my spot… only to realize it’s just one poor soul sending single marches, one at a time. Lambs to the slaughter.

Still, a few more of them decide to choose violence, and as we enter the second half of the game, where most of their team is clearly AFK, there are pockets of resistance. It feels like watching a fish flopping on the dock, gasping its last breath before the inevitable end.

We give them a swift mercy kill and claim the statue that spawns nearby. And with that, we’re getting close to maxing the alliance rewards. That’s when something catches my eye: a red shield sitting at the very top of the prize list? Now that’s interesting! Could we unlock even more? Maybe even T5 Commander chests if we cap everything? With no real opposition left on the field, we’re about to find out!😱

As the last statue spawns beside Winterfell, my curiosity is through the roof. What will the final rewards unlock? Another red shield? Maybe even a T5 chest? The suspense is eating me alive!😳

We’re already camped on the spot when it appears, and the coins start pouring in. I’m watching the rewards tick upward… and while the max tier is...not bad😅, it feels a little underwhelming compared to the previous level. One red shield, a Spearwife, some SoW books, marching and general speedups, not bad at all, especially for free, but not quite the treasure trove I’d hoped for. Still, the real prize here is the insane stacking stat buffs, which make the whole match snowball harder in our favor.

With that part settled, only two packages remain.

And with no real enemies left on the map, we deliver them safely, sealing the game. A flawless run on both statues and packages, something you don’t see often, even in the top 30. Yet tonight, N0X made it happen, cruising to another clean victory in Season 16.

Now, bear in mind, we had a crushing defeat in our 2nd match, but this was the perfect comeback. We’re sitting at 2/3 wins for the season, though the next match will almost certainly be a tough one.

We won this one almost as decisively as we lost against FFS, but the key difference is, we did it without base camping 😉

All that’s left is to wait for the dust to settle and for the final matches to play out before rankings are updated. A bit later, we find ourselves sitting in the high 20s. Not bad, not great either, but good enough for now.

For now the playoffs dream is still alive and kicking. Two more wins could be all it takes to make it a reality! Let's go N0X!