Roll the Dice

If the first match of the Arena of Honor season came too soon, the 2nd match was quicker still. I am so used to every other week, the back to back nature was discombobulating. It seemed I was not the only one as most of the team was unavailable to play. The team's intent was to play 2 matches later, but I needed a story for this week to entertain you fine folks lol. I clicked the individual registration button under the team. I wasn't really sure if it did what I think but sometimes you just gotta do it and worry about things later on.  During matchmaking, I prayed it wouldn't be horrible, that we wouldn't get a ton of AFK’s. Before I knew it, it was time to enter the map. We would be House Targaryen.

As I glanced around the map, I noticed it was whale free! Tons of strong players but no whales, we have a chance. We had a mishmash of players from different alliances around Westeros. My team seemed pretty chill despite our afk. No ego, so spazzing out we were all here to do the best we could do for this match. I always appreciate chill folks. Of course the Old Gods made me of all people commander, so I made everyone online commander too. I let them know, I have no clue what I am doing, so feel free to step in.  

The team decided to do camps.  Honchika had taken on the main leader role. They were strong and honestly a good leader. I threw my 2nd line into our clan castle so more would be free for all the other things we needed to focus on soon enough. We did not make a move for a clan castle, but neither did any of the other teams. Hmmmm it seemed no one wanted to deal with the clones and chaos of extra clans. To be fair, we still had to deal with them on the rest of the map. Not worrying about the clans, will this be a new meta?

There was still most of the match to go, so I figured we would see the clan castles fall eventually. People were probably just busy focusing on the normal stuff. I made my way to the altars with my main and began to test the competition and all of our clones. My goodness they are annoying. 

We weren't doing horribly, but it was becoming clear the Starks were the team to beat. In my head cannon they were a normal team, no afk similar to my normal squad. They were making good headway on the altar control. I know my team was strong, but really I had no clue was going to hold the City of Glory strong. Could we even take and hold it being short on folks who were missing in action? I decided it would be better to remove any expectation and just focus on doing what I can do. There was so much we couldn't control, it would be borderline insanity to think otherwise. This didn't mean I didn't want first, everyone does, but there is only one first place and 6 teams. We were fighting hard for territory when the City of Glory opened. We were in second, but third place was not too far behind us. The City would either give us a shot at first or solidify our second place. The Starks took the city quickly. We did a couple rallies, but it didn't look good for us stopping them from bubbling… 

It wasn't a horrible place to be, we were closest in score to the Lannisters. THEY were the ones we HAD to keep out of Glory. So when the Starks bubbled the city, I was not too worried. We were doing the work on the altars and dragon pits. The clones were boldly taking them for themselves any chance they got. I glanced at the map, no one has taken an extra clan still? Hmmmm interesting. When the bubble over glory popped, we began to rally again. We did some damage, but not enough to kick out the Starks… Yet the Lannisters managed to boot them. Now we had to get Glory. Even if we couldn't hold it, we couldn't let the Lannisters bubble, they would easily take 1st. Others on the team saw what I did and called it out. The rallies were called again as the realization hit everyone.  

Honchika’s rallies seemed to be doing the best as we managed to take Glory. Taking it was one issue, but the other was reinforcing. Being down some players absolutely hurt us here. We did not manage to bubble and were evicted from the city. Glory started changing hands frequently, Lannisters, us, then Starks… Rinse and repeat. The Starks taking it actually helped us, but the Lannisters could bleed them out… Then we would have to beat them like some insane version of Rock Paper Scissors

I was focusing on joining rallies, refreshing reinforcements and trying to take anything that would earn us some points. We seriously couldn’t let up until it would be impossible to bubble glory. As the final moments ticked away I was lost in battle fighting clones, fighting players, fighting for my got dang life and rank in this event…. When I was thrust into my castle at the end, I saw we had done enough to keep 2nd place. 

While I missed my team, I didn't hate this pick up team I wound up on. All who showed were cool folks I actually kinda enjoyed playing with. It was a good reminder on why I was with my team though. The benefits of 10 active players far outweigh the unknown of afks. The Starks did take an extra clan near the end, but the rest of us ignored them the entire match. It still felt chaotic, but in a good way like before extra clans became meta. I think in matches that are competitive this will be the new meta. The effort to take clans, keep clans, and flipping strongholds are not worth it when there are so many important targets that can cause a team to win.