N0X AC (S24 M5): I Am Inevitable

It seems the matchmaking gods were not pleased after we got lucky in our 2nd match and avoided NBe, so it looks like in Season 24 N0X is destined to play against them eventually. And since our 5th match was bound to be another unwinnable game, why not play against NBe after all?

After the RoD match, we kind of have a taste of how this will work out, but we still need to play the best game we can because in AC every point matters if we want to make it into UC. So, like any match we can't win by sheer account power regardless of how good our planning and strategy are, it comes down to only a few things: winning races so we can generate some points from buildings while their initial capture bubble holds, cleaning out the enemy hive, even if we have to resort to timed rallies, and getting the research points we bring in. That means we need as many people on the map as possible, if not for winning anything, just for the points they bring in.

But as the match starts, we barely have 89 accounts on the map. Now this is a bit low, and despite being a game we can't really "play", it would have been good to get more bodies in here, just to show NBe we're a serious alliance and take every event seriously.

As the gates open and the races start... I don't win my usual close outpost race. I'm shocked, as I always win this race and this season has been no exception... until today. This is a bad omen. I don't believe in such things, but I know bad juju when I see it.

We do win 2 out of 4 buildings, and considering we can't really hold anything and winning races is all we can do... it would have been nice to win a bit more.

At least healing is super cheap this time, lol.😂

In the 2nd phase, as the Ports open, we also win "50%" of the races, and I guess one Port is at least better than no Ports. The bad juju continues and our score is paying the toll, as we barely break over 20k. I can't stop thinking that we could have had this just from the castle points... Things are not looking good for our heroes.

This could have been a similar game to the RoD one, but we've definitely started on the wrong foot here against NBe and we need to pull ourselves together if we want to make it to UC. We need to squeeze as many points as we can out of these difficult matches, and right now, we're not really invested in this game.

At least some of our stronger strategists are trying, and we had a slow marcher on the close Port trying to intercept the swap. But we didn't guess the account NBe wanted to put in there and we missed the timing. I guess things like this are to be expected when any account from NBe can probably win against any account of ours. Oh well, not really. I'm exaggerating, but the real situation is kind of close to that.😅

As Phase 3 starts, we could really use a win in the race on Casterly Rock, because it has the highest points per minute, but we don't manage to do that either. At least we can prepare to intercept the swap and maybe do better guesswork than we did on the close Port?

And this is kind of a mixed feelings situation. On the bright side, we guess the correct account this time. On the not-so-bright side... it's ToK... and arguably this is the strongest account NBe has and quite possibly a max account, so good luck winning hits against that, even if we time it right, lol.

But could there be a silver lining here? Isn't ToK usually Spear? I mean... max accounts can play anything, but they aren't usually "maxed" on all troop types. And I guess NBe knows we're Inf heavy, so ToK came in Cav to counter us. But could we possibly counter his Cav?

And as I'm thinking this... it looks like the same thing is being debated in voice, but with a slight twist. Our Spear leads want to test their accounts against a max Cav account, so they set up their rallies to see how well they fare against the best of the best. And since I'm Spear heavy, I join the fun to give my leads a proper Spear built dragon and some T5 troops.

As the marches go out, I'm expecting things to go badly for us, but at least healing hasn't been expensive so far. So what's 2 full army size healing bills compared to what we've played so far this season, right?

But when our rallies hit... we win. We win? WE WIN!😱

With a much higher rally size, we barely win, but winning is winning. Both rallies I joined won against ToK. Now that's something to celebrate, and we now have the taste of blood.

So we quickly recall our troops and set up the rallies again, and again, and again. And by this point, it's not just bleeding rallies anymore. We could eventually kick NBe out of a building... and even kick their biggest account out of the biggest building?

That's insane. But before we can celebrate our wins, NBe pulls ToK out and swaps in another account where we aren't so fortunate to win.

Alas, our fleeting moment of glory is gone and we have to move on with the shameful game.

But as the Strongholds open, we win both races. Now that's what I wanted to see all night, but I guess late is better than never, right? We're still stuck at 20k points, so a few ticks on the buildings will help.

Funny enough, after the bubbles drop and NBe kicks us out with solos, they plan a hard swap, but we manage to intercept it. Funny, as it seems NBe is using this match against us to practice some plays, but we manage to take advantage, and a new bubble means we can get more points for the next 4 minutes.

When the bubbles drop, it's probably our chance to push some points and take everything we can from the NBe hive.

But they are not slow to hit our hive either.

As soon as I see the attack icon, I send out my troops. I know I won't be able to defend and my personal points are forfeit, but at least I don't need to waste troops.

But the shooting range is open and attacks are flying across the map in both directions. Both teams are eager to clean up the hives as fast as possible. Chill guys, we have another 40 minutes to play and the mines remain. There's plenty of time to kill everything that moves.

And after the hives are clean, we scrape above 40k points, and at this time we're kind of close to the RoD performance. We had a rough start, but we had a decent mid game, and sniping swap intercepts made up for some of the lost races.

So now it all comes down to the mines. If we can get at least one and hold it just for a bit, we can push the score above 50k, and that's as much as we can hope to get out of a match against a top alliance. Between the initial bubble, tanking a few hits, the Stratagem Bubble, and taking another few hits... we could get the 5k points we still need to reach the 50k threshold.

But as the mines open, we win... zero races. Bad juju is back!

But all is not lost. We've intercepted NBe swaps before in this game. Can we pull off another intercept when it matters the most?

And the answer is yes, as we catch the slow marcher for both mines we plan to intercept and manage to snipe one out of the two. But we can't hold it for long, and before we can even get a bigger account in there to reinforce and Stratagem our mine... it's already lost and reinforced to max.

With one mine completely lost to us, we set our eyes on the 2nd one that's not guarded quite as well.

After a few rallies that barely make a difference in the NBe defense, they also bubble it to discourage us even further.

Needless to say, this gives NBe plenty of time to reinforce both mines and leaves us with zero chance of taking either one.

Bad juju from start to finish.

So we end the game with the points we had from the hive phase 40 minutes ago. Not a great way to end the match. Had we had a bit more people coming in with their research points, had we had a little more luck on the races, or a lot more luck in getting to squeeze out a few ticks of points from one of the mines, the 50k threshold could have been totally achievable.

But it was obvious we were more relaxed than in the RoD match, and it shows, starting with the participation numbers and ending with the final score.

We weren't hoping to win this match, but losing over 100 points is not ideal. As we move into the 6th and final match of the season, where we need to win with max points, I can only hope this game will not cause us any problems in our UC target.

Because so far, this has been the weakest we've played this season!😔