Tales from the past UC S10 BDR vs DPS - recap

Todays recap is from the UC season 10 match between BDR and DPS. I missed a recording for one match of the regular AC season so sadly I am not sure if we played against DPS that season before.

Even before the match BDR had been the favorite. Which was true against the match against FDH too though … so it did not really mean anything. Matches in UC tend to be brutal. Both sides want to win, usually … especially in the loser bracket.

Being too sure about winning cost BDR one match already. There was no room for big mistakes (come on, everyone does small mistakes … they are kinda ok … right?).

In the beginning BDR had a clear advantage. They had 19.800 points and 98 castles on the board. DPS on the other hand had only 15.900 points and 80 castles on the board.

Why are those numbers even important? Well … Good question. The more castles on the board, the more troops you have available, in theory. In theory, because not everyone has 3 million T4.

The weather had been winter snow, which does indeed make the number of troops even more important, as it gives an increase in rally size.

BDR did a good job in racing for the initial buildings and took all but the tower of the warrior.

They switched the lord in their outpost first, then did the same in the enemy outpost. At the same time DPS tried to do a switch at the tower.

Let’s just say BDR seemed to have way more training in switching out lords. DPS lost the tower, while BDR got their second switch done on the enemy outpost.

So far everything went really good for BDR. No problems … losing one of the buildings in the racing phase is not a big deal, depending on the building of course.

The first rally on the mother was mostly losing for DPS … really not a good start for them. It must have been quite frustrating.

When the ports opened BDR again was faster … on both.

DPS went for the tower next. Twelve rallies but well timed? Sadly for BDR yes … only one rally was way too slow, with a difference to the others of about five seconds. All others were in a three second window. Many of you might know how hard it can be to get those times right … DPS did a great job!

What did BDR do to counter that? They disbanded the tower. With that timing, a good move.

Next up was Casterly Rock. Again, BDR was faster. And they were out for blood … the tower of the warrior in red seemed to be an affront to them.

While timed rallies are usually something BDR does really well, this time there were quite big gaps between the rallies … nothing too problematic but strange, after training that for a whole season (and a lot of seasons before!).

DPS at that point decided to use the BDR tactic and disbanded right before the BDR rallies hit.

Instead they focused on the Targaryen Outpost.

Their rallies were a bit off though, which gave BDR the opportunity to reinforce. I won’t tell you that they got BDR down to six defenders … because that would be saying that DPS nearly kicked out inanepunk 😉

Both strongholds were captured by BDR.

At 17 minutes into the match BDR already had more than double of DPS points and they were holding all the buildings.

Keep in mind this was all before the mines. The chances for a miraculous victory by going all in on the mines, which was possible in the following season, was not an option at that time.

While holding all the buildings gives you a big point advantage, at the same time you have a different problem. Most troops are out of the castles while the DPS had most of their troops available.

They tried hard to get all the points from the BDR hive. In the end they got nearly all the points. BDR on the other hand laid waste to the DPS hive too. Even with the difference of the initial points though … that was not enough.

20 minutes before the end of the match BDR was ahead with 74.200 points vs DPS 31.260. The highest amount of points per minute possible at that time were 1060. I did not even need my trusty calculator to know the winner of the match at that point (to be fair … for quite some time then).

At about 17 minutes to go BDR disbanded the Targaryen Stronghold. DPS took it only seconds later. All this while BDR was still not at 80k points (the needed points for the last match rewards)… but they were close.

At 14 minutes and 35 seconds left to play BDR finally went above the 80k points. DPS was at 32k points. BDR started to disband the buildings (some really fast, others a little bit slower).

DPS was fast in conquering those buildings and only 41 seconds later all the buildings were under the control of DPS.

They needed 8k more points … which was easily doable. Would it be enough for 50k though?

At 20 seconds to the end of the match DPS needed only 80 more points for the 50k … and I was rooting for them! They had fought well. Yes it was a clear victory for BDR but DPS was more than just a sparring partner.

Twelve seconds before the end … they were still missing 40 points … just one tick of any building… or any of the BDR castles with points in them!

And nine seconds before the end they finally got their tick. After that they even got the missing points from the BDR hive …

The match ended with a victory for BDR (if you are surprised now … you should really read up again …) with 80.120 points and DPS getting to 50.340 points. And believe me, those last points for DPS to get to 50k were more nerve wrecking than the whole match before. And I played for BDR…

And finally a short video for you to enjoy. Again just a few scenes without music, so use your own playlist ;)