GoTWiC [KvK] K385vs K302

The new Kingdom Battle season is coming. Just like before the last one started, Stanko was all by himself on K215. This time, it was K385, the last server he attacked. He got an invite from his council teammates to come back to his home server, but he turned them down. He wanted to play solo and hoped for another successful match like the last one where he got 20m merit.

His teammates aren't as active as he is, and he knew he’d face tougher opponents there, but he can't get anything done on his own. The players on K385 weren't really talking much. Even though he sent messages in world chat to come up with a battle strategy, nobody answered. Because of that, Stanko had no idea if they were going to attack him in tomorrow's fight. He had to stay on his toes. "Maybe they're just waiting for tomorrow's match to jump me?" To make sure the enemies couldn't find him right away, he ported far away from any castles and waited there for the match to begin.

When the new day dawned, Stanko rushed to check out the opponents and saw that our server was losing. "Oh, we might have some tough competition," he thought to himself as he checked the rankings. It was K302. A small server, but it was hiding one fearsome player.

"Just my luck," he muttered. It was the RRH player Papa Schultz.

He’s a very strong infantry player and someone who could easily beat Stanko. He had been playing KvK for a while and had a massive points lead. "Let’s just try to have some fun if we can," Stanko decided.

He immediately sent scouts to the castles and saw that Papa was holding two of them. Both were held solo, but the problem was that he had nearly 2m T5 infantry and spearmen inside.

Stanko was in two minds about what to do. If he attacked, he’d have fewer troops, but the opponent didn't have a lord in either castle, and that really got him thinking. He asked his alliance teammates what they thought, and they told him to just go for it and attack.

It’s easy for them to talk when it’s not their troops on the line. Stanko kept scouting and saw something that caught his eye. It was Highgarden, and the army inside was something Stanko could easily take down. "This is my chance!" he thought. He immediately got his spearmen ready and launched an attack. It was a heavy hit, and Stanko lost a lot of troops.

"Ouch, I didn't see that coming." Stanko won the fight, but his losses were high. Even though he was better in every other way, he just had way fewer numbers, and that's why he took such a hit.

Right after that, he hit Sunspear because he knew there were troops inside, but it turned out to be just a few units. It was a small trap, and Stanko fell for it. Then he noticed the opponent he’d just kicked out of Highgarden was sending troops back into the castle. Stanko wanted to beat him one more time, so he quickly ported near the castle and sent his march. But instead of a win, he got exactly what he feared, an attack warning flashed on his screen. He managed to pull his troops out of the castle just in time and sent a scout to see who was coming.

It was Papa with his strongest infantry. Stanko tried to port away immediately, but he was frozen. This was something Stanko didn't expect and hadn't dealt with much, so he had to react fast. He quickly hid his best troops in a camp and the shelter, and started sending the rest out to gather resources. However, he only managed to get one army out before Papa hit Stanko.

Thanks to Stanko’s experience and quick thinking, the rest were saved. Papa attacked a few more times, but Stanko’s castle was empty and already wrecked. For Stanko, this KvK was pretty much over. He knew he couldn't do anything else except gather resources. At that point, Stanko was in 8th place, which was a good spot for him since he’d still get some solid rewards.

A few hours passed and Stanko came back to send his troops out to gather resources again when he noticed he’d dropped to 11th place overall. "Hmm, they couldn't have gotten that many points just from gathering. They must be holding a castle somewhere." But the problem was Papa. He sent out a scout but couldn't find Papa anywhere. It looked like he had pulled all his troops and was offline. On the other side, he found players with troops in KL.

He waited a bit longer to make sure it wasn't a trap before jumping into action. Instead of gathering resources, he went after eliminations. Since he didn't have enough troops, he first had to train a few million just in case, but still kept the number low enough so he could easily hide them if Papa attacked him again. He ported near KL and launched his attack.

He immediately pulled his troops back and bailed. He watched where the enemies were returning to, it was two players right next to KL. But they looked sketchy to him. "I’m not falling for that," he thought. Instead of attacking those two, he went after other castles. All of them had troops inside. They were weak opponents but had plenty of units, exactly what he needed to get his points back and break into the top 10.

After hitting all the bigger castles and racking up a lot of points, he checked the leaderboard and saw he was in second place. Papa had 500k points, and Stanko had 350k. "Uhh, I'm close, but still so far. If only he hadn't attacked me, I'd be right there. I have to find more opponents," Stanko said to himself, but all the castles were empty.

Then it hit him to check the smaller castles too. And he was right, they were packed with troops from that same player again.

"If I could just find his main castle and hit him directly... he must have a ton of troops left in there." While Stanko was busy attacking, an infantry castle kept porting right next to him. But Stanko knew it was a trap and wasn't going to take the bait.

Then, the guy started a rally on him. "Stanko thought, 'Hmm, this is gonna be interesting. Let’s see how many of them actually join in.'" But it was only one player, and the rally kicked off. Stanko ported far away just to be safe, but when he saw there weren't many troops, he took the hit and captured the enemy’s lord. Still, Stanko didn't dare attack the guy's castle directly because it was definitely packed with T1 and T2 infantry.

Now, everything was going Stanko's way. He was having a blast taking on 5 or 6 opponents at once. He really loved KvK, and this was exactly what he needed after a long time. He kept hitting other smaller castles that had troops inside, but then a new warning popped up. Someone else had started a rally on him. It was that same spearman who had tricked Stanko into attacking the castle and falling into Papa's trap.

The other teammates joined in and sent their troops. Stanko ported far away again so he could watch the troops as the rally approached. When it started moving, he saw it was 4m troops, something Stanko could actually beat, but then he had a better idea. Since there was still plenty of time before the troops hit his castle, he quickly got his spearmen ready and attacked the opponent's castle instead.

This turned out to be a brilliant strategy because he wiped out all of the guy’s troops, and Stanko made it back in time to capture his lord when the hit landed. But he didn't stop there, he immediately ported right next to the enemy castles and launched solo attacks while their troops were still heading back.

He managed to rack up a huge number of kills, and when he checked the leaderboard, he saw he had over 900k points and was way ahead in first place. He couldn't believe it. This was a massive moment for him.

At the very end, since he had nothing left to lose, he attacked a cavalry castle that had been sitting next to KL without a bubble the whole time. When the hit landed, he saw the reports and couldn't help but laugh. "What was I even afraid of?" he said, cracking up.

And with that, the battle was over. The opponents backed off, and Stanko was stoked that he managed to get so many points and take the top spot.

As a server we were very close to victory, but Stanko could not play alone. If they had contacted him before the match, they might have managed to win together, but for Stanko, the real victory was his individual one.It wasn't even something he hoped for at the start, especially since he was all alone on the server facing such a tough opponent. Toward the end of the KvK, Papa saw the score, but there was nothing he could do, the gap was way too big to close. From a rocky start and just aiming for the top 10, Stanko ended up right on the winner's podium. The thing he had been dreaming about for years happened when he least expected it. He didn't just quit after getting wrecked; he came back to try again, and this time, it really paid off.

"I guess it's a good thing I didn't listen to my leader and go back to K226," Stanko said with a laugh as he sent his troops out to gather resources.