N0X UC (S24 M2): The Runaway March

After the hopeless match vs WxD, where we weren't even able to get past 30k points on our own and only scored 60k because of the goodness of their hearts when they disbanded before the game ended, our 2nd match, in the "losers bracket", is vs 1FD.

And if WxD was an impossible match for us to win, this for sure is a game we should win!

My only question now is... how did we have such a hard time qualifying to UC when an alliance with this score is ranked 8?

This makes no sense... at least in terms of power, not in terms of time slots and how the game actually works. Oh well...

Should be an easy win for us, right?

As the game is about to start, we're showing up in force with a max of 70 accounts present on the map. Nice start.😊

The same as always remains valid: If I win my 1st race on the close Outpost, this match is in the bag. Historically, this has been a good indicator of how well our matches go.

And this time it goes extra smooth. We manage to pull off a clean 4/4 race and swap on the 1st stage.

Now with the perfect start, can we keep pushing for a strong Stage 2? And the answer is... kind of?

As usual, each team wins the race for the far Port, so we're tied at 1-1 this stage.

No worries. Before CR opens, we can take our Port just with solos.

This is shaping up similar to the WxD game we played before, where they kicked us out of the mine only with solos, lol.

When Casterly opens, we get another win and continue to keep the map baby blue.

We win it so fast that I don't even need to speed in. By the time I see the speed screen, CR has already been tagged.

So I just let my march run, knowing it won't matter...

Now hold that thought for a second as we fast forward a minute or so...

So my march is strolling across the map, going to a failed CR race as we prepare for the swap.

And we start looking at the marching timers of our slow marchers and compare them with the 1FD marches coming to CR. We align the perfect interval for the disband.

All nice and fine. The holder disbands, the holder speeds and... I take CR.

I wasn't even marching... How does this happen? 😂

As I get reinforced by the entire alliance, I notice my march has no dragons and commanders... And I realize what happened.😅

This was my racing march that I abandoned mid race because we won the race.

Now what are the chances of this happening? Basically close to zero, right? Well... wrong! Because it just happened!😔

Good thing it's in a match where we dominate and this has no impact on the overall result.

Come to think of it... this is actually the perfect time for something like this one-in-a-million to happen.

This is where we can learn from it and make sure it never happens in a proper match. Point taken, lesson learned: If I fail a race, I should recall my march and not let it wander, because a ru*** march can still find a way to interfere with the game.

On the flip side, I do a good job tanking rallies with no commanders, lol. Not really! I literally can't kill anything 1FD throws at me. 😂

Okay, that was fun and a nice blooper to spice things up.

And I'm already being called out in voice, so let's move on because people aren't happy. 😂

Fast forward, Strongholds open and we win both races again, while 1FD still holds CR where we, or should I say "I", botched the swap.

A single red dot on the map to remind me of my mistake. I hope it goes away fast and people forget it ever happened.

But before we can focus on retaking CR, we botch another swap on the bottom Stronghold. So now there are 2 red dots of shame on the map.

We proceed with the biggest building in terms of points per minute and take it back only with solos.

But before we take back CR, we botch another swap on the other Stronghold, so 1FD continues to hold 2 buildings, purely from our mistakes.

We quickly sort that out and move past what could otherwise be considered an interesting glimmer of entertainment in an otherwise boring match.

For the rest of the match, there isn't much going on.

1FD tries some solos and rallies against our holders, but they are not a real threat.

Some of their accounts can win, but not enough to make a difference, and we rotate reinforcements to continue our map dominance.

When the hives open, both teams race across the map to clean up some almost free points.

And by this time, even if we control the entire map, we're barely sitting on 50k points while 1FD is above 20k.

But as we get closer to the mines opening, we're already mathing out the remaining points on the map.

We want our win, but we don't care much for points past the 80k mark.

So just like WxD disbanded in our previous match so we could get some threshold rewards, we're also planning to disband as soon as we reach 80k.

Funny enough, we win both mines and a few seconds later we can start disbanding because we've gotten our 80k and it's impossible for 1FD to score a win over us at this point in the game.

So now 1FD claims the map and their points start to skyrocket. They clean up the remaining points in the mines and jump in score.

What I find extra nice from 1FD is that they also disband after getting 60k.

They know that's the maximum points they can get and don't want to get in trouble with us for pushing further and getting closer to our score.

That's a nice two way handshake to end a clean game.🙏

So the game ends with a win for us, a very clean 80k for the max threshold rewards, and 1FD with some nice rewards for their 60k.

And honestly, that's probably exactly what we needed from this match.

After getting absolutely destroyed by WxD in Match 1, this was the complete opposite.

We got our win, got the maximum threshold rewards, and even managed to create a memorable blooper with my ru*** racing march capturing Casterly Rock while I wasn't even trying to take it. 😂

More importantly, this is probably what N0X should look like in UC.

We're not one of the monsters at the top of the bracket, but against alliances around our level, our strategy and coordination can make the difference.

Now, with 2 matches out of the way, it's very likely we'll be playing RRH in our 3rd.

And even with our superior strategy, RRH has bigger accounts, so it's unlikely we'll be winning that one.

But let's not jump to conclusions. For the time being, this is probably the target outcome for N0X in UC.

We're a regular UC alliance after winning 4 matches in the regular AC season and only losing 2 against the top alliances.

In UC, we inevitably lose against the top alliances, win our "losers bracket" match and most likely lose our 3rd match.

At least that's how it looks on paper. Let's see what happens next Wednesday.😏