AAO SoW S16 – Match 5: Against All Odds, Defeat with Defiance

Going into our 5th match we’re standing tall on a strong record. Only one loss so far, and that was against KAC, no surprises there.

This time we’re up against ADm, and on paper things don’t look great. They hold a pretty clear power advantage over us, and to make matters worse, AAO recently lost some of its heaviest hitters. Those big accounts were only parked here temporarily and have since moved on to alliances more fitting for their power levels. Add to that a few of our regulars are caught up with work, and our roster today feels thinner than usual. I can’t even complain, though, I’m literally at work too, just hoping I won’t get “activated” for something mid match. As long as the phone or Teams doesn’t ring, I’m safe and I can play.

A few minutes before the game begins, I recall my gathering troops, switch into battle gear/talents/etc... and jump in. My resources have dried up completely thanks to being in a stiff LoL competition, so I’ll take whatever RSS scraps I can find. Without farms to keep me afloat, gathering is the next best thing. And with phase 6 of LoL coming in just two days, I have no idea how many troops I’ll even have left to hunt with.

Still, right now, it’s SoW time! I'm still a shot caller and in the event council team and my assignment for this match is the "rapid response" team. I need to find an official name for my crew.😀

So as the game starts I rush toward the Armory with my little band of brave companions, part of the “where needed” regiment.

At least the opening assignment is simple: support the Armory side. Honestly, it’s a welcome change of pace for me. I’ve been glued to Hot Springs so often this season that I’m starting to get building shaped PTSD, especially since I’ve been grinding through two SoW games every day, first with my alt and then again with my main.

Surprisingly, there isn’t much resistance at Armory and we capture it almost immediately. Honestly, it throws me a bit off😳. I was prepared for a swift death from the very start, but instead we stroll right in and take it? Even more surprising, the score is in our favor!

How does that even happen when they walked into this match with more players and more starting points? The whole thing feels… strange.🙃

Eventually, some reinforcements find their way down to the Armory, but we still outnumber them two to one. And judging by the way the fights go, our accounts are on par with theirs. We hold our ground, keep Armory safe, and the scoreboard keeps ticking up on our side.

With Armory secured, I "zoom out" to see what’s happening on the map. I feel this can’t be right. This was supposed to be the match where we get crushed in ten minutes and camped outside our base. Instead, we’re holding strong and looking good? Did we just walk into a parallel universe? Is this an alternate version of ourselves?

And then I find the missing piece. Hot Springs!😅I’m now relieved I’m not assigned there this time, because it looks like ADm threw 99% of their army into that fight. And it’s ugly. They’re hammering away, drowning us in numbers, and our side has no chance of holding.

I throw a quick remark on Discord, saying "we’ve got Armory under control" and asking if "we still have Hot Springs, because I’d love to recall, heal, and head back out."😂The reply is just as funny as the my question.🙂

Even while being steamrolled at Hot Springs, people are still cracking jokes. It’s good to see that even in the middle of a one sided fight, we haven’t lost our spirit.

On the bright side, this one sided, all-or-nothing snowball strategy they're doing doesn’t exactly look like the best way to win games. I can’t help but doubt their leadership calls. But it’s still too early to judge, so I stick to my part. I finish mopping up the last stragglers at Armory, I recall to refreshing my marches and wait to see where I’ll be needed next.

As the first statue spawns, ADm suddenly decides to get greedy, pushing into our half of the map. I honestly don’t understand why. They don’t even control mid properly, and their movements look disorganized compared to ours. It feels like something we could punish if we play it right. With my marches healed and patched up, I shift forward to secure Outpost 1 and then move on toward the statue. If we’re still alive in this match that was supposed to be hopeless, we might as well keep pushing momentum and grab whatever buffs we can.

But progress is slower than I’d like. At Outpost, I run straight into one of their better marches, and of course, on top, it’s my counter. Fighting into that with my shaky cavalry is not a fun time. And when I say shaky, I mean it. This account doesn’t even have a single 4☆ commander yet. Forget a fancy synergy setup. Hell, I don’t even have Robb at 4☆. So you can imagine what going against a well built Jaime march feels like. Spoiler: it’s not cute.

By the time we reach the first quarter of the match, the tide has already shifted. ADm has pulled ahead on points and is starting to control more of the map. What started as a surprisingly hopeful opening is now shaping into the grim reality we expected before the match even began. The question now is whether we can still get back and put up a fight, or if we’re just one step away from that base camp fate we all saw coming.

After a long fight I'm finally able to wrap up and move to the statue.

Moving back out onto the map, I spot what looks like an easy pick, a lonely target wandering dangerously close to our base. Perfect, right? Poor guy, it’s time to die!

Except… plot twist. It isn’t him who dies? It’s me! Turns out I didn’t find someone so much as someone found me. And that someone is none other than BAIZIMING. Let me just say: ouch. My marches evaporate just trying to walk past him. My weakest, the support march, disappears in three hits, or three procs, three seconds? Take your pick. I blink and it was gone.

After a quick detour into the hospitals😅(which are already starting to feel like a second home), I make the decision to shift over to the other side of the map. Not because I’m afraid of BAIZIMING! Though if I ever bump into him again and decide to fight I'll be dead in two blinks, but because our Outpost over there needs attention.

By now, though, the picture is becoming painfully clear. The map is painted ADm red, and the score gap is starting to widen. With Armory and Hot Springs both under their control, they’ve got the buffs, they’ve got the stats, the healing advantage, and free reign to run packages. Around the twenty minute mark, it feels like we’re on a very slippery slope. The only question is whether we can somehow steady ourselves in this delicate balance… or whether we’re about to slide straight down and break our necks.

Before I can even try to clean up the Outpost, reinforcements appear out of nowhere. I have no idea where they came from. I didn’t see them marching, and I know they can’t teleport into our half of the map. Maybe they dropped out of the sky? Maybe they’re ghosts? Whatever the explanation, the result is the same.😅They smash into us, wipe our marches, and claim the Outpost for ADm.

As halftime rolls in, the uneasy truth starts creeping into everyone’s mind. We’re falling further and further behind, and the scoreboard is paining a clear picture. We may not be able to get our way back from this. Still, nobody’s giving up just yet. The next round of statues is about to spawn, and my team is sent out again. If nothing else, we’ll keep trying to find cracks in their map control, speeding around the map to snipe some buildings where we can. This includes Statues as well as their unguarded buildings.

I find myself saying this more often they I'd like to admit, but Some games aren't won by glorious battle, but by clever strategy.

But deep down we all know this is only delaying the inevitable. Still, as another round of Statues opens up, we need to contest them.

At the statue we do manage to pull off a small victory. We get the five minute buff and a handful of bags.

A small victory, sure, and the truth is, it feels like it helps us far less than it hurts them, but in the grand scheme of things, it's worth it.

But the outcome is clearly visible on the score board now. At least, if we’re going down, we’re determined to go down swinging. After getting a couple more statues, we throw our energy into a bigger gamble: taking a package. For that, though, we need Stronghold 2 secured for delivery. So while skirmishes rage across the map and several buildings keep flipping back and forth, I rally with my team and focus everything we have on Stronghold 2. If we can hold this one anchor point, maybe we can at least claim one shining moment before the curtain falls.

But our attempt didn’t go unnoticed. Their forces caught our package carrier and escort team painfully close to the destination, wiping them out and sending the package drifting back to their stronghold. Then they piled on with an even bigger force to smash us at our own stronghold. Really? I don’t know why they bothered carrying the package away.🙄They could’ve just taken our stronghold and delivered right there. But then again, if they had proper coordination, this match would’ve been over twenty minutes ago.😅The fact that we’re still in it this deep into the second half is proof enough: we’re planning way better than they are, and I'm part of that planning😜

It’s around this disappointing play that the mood shifts. We accept that the comeback dream is gone, and talk briefly in the leads’ council. The decision lands on a clean target: push to 20k points, then call it. With thirty minutes left and only 4k more to go, it feels doable.

In the end, we don’t even need the thirty minutes, barely five pass and we’ve crossed the 20k threshold.

On our final breath, we mess around with their carrier for a bit, but at this stage it’s all play, no real purpose and we soon get wiped out.

By the time we lose the last package and the final statue spawns, I’m ready to call it myself. I need to get back to work anyway. The only reason I didn’t push for surrender earlier was because I didn’t want my first shotcalling season to be remembered as the one where the lead gave up the second things started going wrong. So I type “Stop healing” into chat, relieved that I can finally close the book.

But then something strange happens. Nobody recalls!

What the actual hell? We’ve got our 20k. We proved we’re no pushover. We stood our ground well for more than half the game. Why not end it on that high note and move on? There’s no victory to be had here.

Yet the team, and the council, aren’t ready to quit. I’m left staggered, caught in this awkward place. I can’t just walk away, even though I kind of need to. I have to stay and support them, but I honestly don’t know what we’re even aiming for anymore.

Then leadership steps in again. The new target is set: if we’re still standing, we may as well stand taller. New objective: push for 30k!😱

So let’s see how we can plan around that 30k. Packages are out of the question now, we don’t have the map control or the carriers to risk it. That means the only way forward is with building points per minute. We do some quick math, reshuffle our objectives, and start sending teams to contest whatever’s low on ADm defenders.

I head for Outpost 2, but after several minutes of stubborn fighting it becomes clear it’s a lost cause. I make the call: fall back and regroup. No sense bleeding out here. We’ll wait until they relax, then swoop back in when they're far gone.

And just like that, it happens. The moment we fall back, their troops vanish too. Perfect! They think it’s safe.🌚They think we’re gone. Little do they know we’re right around the corner, healing at home base, able to get back in under a minute. We rush back out, flip the outpost cleanly, and take it right from under their noses.

With that foothold secured, we continue to move up. Our little snowball force pushes up to Stronghold, and then we spot the golden opportunity! Hot Springs is almost undefended. A freebie? We don’t even hesitate, marches flood in, and suddenly we’re standing inside one of the most valuable buildings on the map. Cheap heals, bonus points per minute! With everyone healing now we also get better healing ranks on top of it all. A gift we weren’t supposed to get this late in the game.

Discord lights up in cheers as we announce we'll soon have our first healing window of the match.

Everyone knows it’s short, ADm will crash in soon enough, but right now, with Stronghold, Outpost, and Hot Springs under our banners, the scoreboard ticks over the 30k mark. AAO has done it!

With less than five minutes left on the clock, we finally allow ourselves to stand down. The game is over. The final call is made.

And I just sit there for a second, letting it sink in. I can’t believe we hit 30k. Honestly, I can’t believe we even hit 20k. Hell, I can’t believe we weren’t base camped in the first ten minutes like everyone expected. But somehow, through pure stubbornness and persistence, and a few clever plays, we dragged this match into something more than a hopeless stomp.

We didn’t win, yes, but we walked away with something just as valuable. Proof that when we play together, when we refuse to give up, we can turn crushing defeat into a small but undeniable triumph.

And maybe that’s why this alliance carries the name it does. Against All Odds. Quote of the day goes to Verdi: