After a very tough battle, the most important test is coming up: the final match of the season. This match will determine whether we make it to the playoffs and get a chance to face the top 16 Game of Thrones alliances from around the world.

Both teams know what’s at stake, so the pressure is immense.

Today’s opponent is YGI, or Yggdrasil. They’re a very good alliance, on a similar level to us. The battle could go down to the wire, and no one knows who will win.

Preparations are already underway. The soldiers are waiting for orders from the High Council and our queen. We’re receiving instructions on how to prepare, and we’re waiting. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to mobilize everyone, so we’re starting with a deficit of five players—69 vs. 74.

I have one goal: to capture castles in honor of the best Polish alliance and to support it!

The countdown has begun.

3... 2... 1... and here we go!

I set my sights on the Temple of the Warrior. I’m moving very fast on my boots, but it turns out that my teammate Cipher pol 0 is faster. That’s great news, because the building is on our side. On top of that, we manage to capture one more, but the enemy is fighting back too, since they still have the other two.

At moments like this, I always keep an eye on what the opponent has captured so I can let the rest of the team know how the swap will go.

Often, when I see that there aren’t many people inside and time is running out, it means a swap is about to happen.

I wasn’t wrong. Despite a very good reaction, Platon90 was able to take the building, and the YGI warriors quickly reinforced him. You can tell they’re experienced at this, because they did it instantly, and despite the information on our side, we were too late.

At the same time, we’re trying to do the same on Warrior, but we’re not succeeding. We stumble right in the first minutes of the fight. The pressure is immense, and it shows. LordPaykoman takes advantage of the situation and captures the building.

Current score: 3–1 for YGI.

Our second push on the Lannister Outpost goes better. Reinforcements could have arrived faster, but luckily everyone makes it in time and we secure the building.

We also manage to take advantage of the confusion surrounding the buildings, as we capture the Targaryen Outpost with solo attacks.

We’re back to a 2:2 tie, though we have different buildings than at the start. This works in our favor, as we get 200 points and our opponent gets 80, even though their buildings have abilities that boost army strength.

Now it’s time for the ports.

This time, my boots prove to be faster, and I capture our port. The second one is ours as well, so there’s no trace left of our early slip-up.

Now just two more swaps, and we might start pulling ahead.

I leave the building a millisecond before Beatrise, who takes it over, and a moment later, reinforcements arrive. A bit slow again, but fast enough to beat the opponent’s attacks. The building is secured.

The second port remains.

Everything goes according to plan, and we now control both buildings. This puts us in the lead: 19,880 vs. 19,640 points.

However, this isn’t a lead that allows us to rest, so the fight continues. The most important thing is that we have good buildings that yield a lot of points, and we need to hold onto them now.

The battle for Casterly Rock is coming up, but before that happens, the first rallies are being launched. It’s strange that the opponent is delaying them for so long, given that they’re losing points on their buildings, but we won’t wait—we’re heading for the Temple of the Mother.

Instantly, after a few good attacks, we capture the building. The rally I participated in didn’t even have time to attack it. The opponent must have sent reinforcements too quickly, because they failed to defend it.

I’m getting ready for the CR.

Speed boots and…

I’m slower!

But SonsiadMat from NoS has it! A brave warrior and my running rival turned out to be faster this time. 😊

We’re now taking a decisive lead, although we lose our port before the attack on Casterly Rock. The current point difference is about 500 in our favor, so it’s time to start defending and slowly start thinking about the mines.

After a few calmer minutes, we pull ahead by four thousand points. YGI, however, has no intention of sitting idly by and is preparing to take over CR.

At the same time I’m taking over the Targaryen Stronghold, I see a massive attack on the center of the map.

That was a really powerful strike.

Our support was too weak, and the opponent took advantage of their strength to brutally seize the building. Szostek is one of our strongest players, and he was simply driven out.

Wow!

After that spectacular move, we’ve lost our lead in points, and now we have to go on the offensive.

I’m still holding the Targaryen Stronghold because there wasn’t time to swap out after the attack on the CR. Fortunately, this building isn’t that crucial, so we can afford to lose it, although this is definitely not the best moment—the enemy is starting to close in on us.

In all this chaos, we’re also losing the Targaryen Outpost.

The situation is starting to spiral out of control.

However, we manage to exploit our opponent’s momentary weakness and reclaim the Temple of the Warrior.

One support unit was definitely not enough for our 10-rally. 😊 YGI’s intelligence is poor if they didn’t realize such a massive attack was coming.

This gives us an attack buff, but our opponent still has the edge in points earned and is starting to close the gap.

We have a slight lead of four thousand points.

But how long will that last?

Just as I predicted, we’ve run into a very bad situation. I easily lose my Stronghold, and my teammate does too. The confusion with the CR and the lack of a substitute are coming back to haunt us right now.

YGI is already catching up to us at a rate of 420 points per minute, so the queen makes the only right decision:

Assault on Casterly Rock.

Right now, this is our best chance to stop our rampaging opponent.

We set up a rally and go!

The attack goes very well, except that...

The building is captured by Ksok, our best—but only—archer. 😊

It’s not an ideal situation, but at least we’ve recaptured the building. We can catch our breath for a moment, because the points-per-minute score has evened out.

After four minutes, as expected, we lose CR and have to get back to work.

More precious minutes tick by.

During this time, YGI launches a few good attacks, and we… just watch.

While waiting for the CR to reopen, we’re doing practically nothing. I’m a little surprised by this, because our lead isn’t that big. In fact, it’s shrinking with every second.

We’re making another attempt to storm Casterly Rock.

I hope this time will be more successful for us.

To our complete surprise, however, we run into a wall in the form of Herr Knispel, off whom we simply bounce.

We fail to capture the building.

This comes as quite a surprise to us, and above all, it lands us in serious trouble. We have to repeat the attack, but we’ve already lost a lot of time.

We’re pushed back even harder.

Before the attack, there were 22 million troops in the building, and after our strike, over 10 million remained.

This definitely changes the situation.

We desperately attack other buildings just to capture something. Thanks to the weak defenses of the Strongholds, we manage to take them over.

However, this is only enough to keep YGI from catching up to us quite so quickly. They still have the advantage in points per minute and are closing in all the time.

There are three minutes left until the mine.

We can’t wait any longer.

We have to act.

A moment later, I hear the order to attack the Warrior, and seconds later, the rallies are already on the move. My modest army supports them, and we manage to capture the building.

At this point, the opponent has a lead of only 20 points per minute.

So everything will come down to the mines, which open in two minutes.

And right now, the most crucial moment of the entire match begins.

This is the moment when I have to give it my all. The whole alliance is counting on me.

We also need a little luck, because there are two mines.

Countdown.

Go!

Unfortunately, I fail again…

But!

Two other NoS players capture both mines!

We’ve got them!

But will that be enough?

We still need to make at least one good swap, or else YGI will easily catch up to us.

Now every second really counts.

Seconds that will tell us whether we’ll make the playoffs or not.

Wiśnia takes over the other mine, so we can feel relatively safe here. YGI would really have to try hard to take it back.

That leaves the mine closer to us.

TerrorMaker has it. He’s good, but YGI’s sheer force might not be enough.

A rally is heading his way.

And this is the perfect moment to use a bubble on that building.

An extra minute could make all the difference in the final score.

We manage to fend off the first wave of attacks, though we’re down to just eight million troops.

But every second counts.

Every second means more points.

We gain more precious minutes.

The second wave isn’t as kind to us, and we lose the building to Wallace 1st.

Still, those minutes did their job.

We manage to pull ahead a bit in points, and while we’re at it, we try to catch our opponent off guard. Instead of another attack on the mine, we launch an assault on Casterly Rock.

YGI was clearly spooked by this move and, after a moment, uses a bubble on CR.

We don’t make another attempt.

We don’t have to.

Thanks to the points earned from both mines, we have a sufficient lead.

After a match full of twists and turns, mistakes, great attacks, failed attempts, and a point-for-point chase…

we can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

We’re heading to the playoffs. 😊

Summary

It was a do-or-die battle.

This time, luck was on our side, and it was the mines that ultimately secured our victory. For most of the match, we held a slight lead, but toward the end, our opponent was scoring more points from buildings and closing in on us faster and faster.

Those extra minutes of holding onto the mines allowed us to secure the win and paved the way to the playoffs.

It was an incredible and very evenly matched battle. Huge congratulations to YGI, because they made things really tough for us and didn’t let us feel confident about victory until the very end.

But this time, we pulled it off.

NoS is in the playoffs! 🏆