CommunityFortress

Crazy intense fun to watch action in tonights matches. I wasn't able to catch much of the first two matches, but in both the higher seed prevailed. This sent Blight.Own and eMg into the Lower bracket to battle for survival.

The first map, Granary, resulted in a 5-3 win for Blight.OWN and eMg facing a potential elimination in the second map Gravel Pit. Things turned around for eMg however as they were able to take both sets of the stopwatch match. I strolled home from work to catch the last map Yukon which turned into quite the slugfest. A tense first half ended with eMg up 2-1, but at the start of the second Blight turned it on. First they made it 2-2, then rounds were traded again to make it 3-3. Blight.OWN took it to 4 to get the first shot at match point before eMg leveled with only a few minutes left in the half through a sweet YZ50 backcap. Blight barnstormed mid on the start of the next round however, leading to an easy take of the 2nd point and a sudden attack on the last point. Platinum, with good heals from BlackyMonster, came up big with the clock ticking down, scoring a triple kill from a top the shack. Blight took the round and eliminated eMg from the tournament. It was a spirited match with the Yukon map most definitely going to be turned into an eXtv.

Another TF2 classic followed the Blight.OWN and eMg match with the Upper Bracket Final between Blight.Fanom and Complexity. Before I get into the results, if you have time to watch the Videos on Demand from TGBF.tv, check the action out. The replay starts with the 2nd map with m0lk and eXtine on the mic. Read more for a recap of the entire match.

The map rotation was the same as the previous match, Granary, Gravel Pit, and Yukon. Granary was a huge surprise. SolidSnake has been able to successfully run the Demo-Knight setup on this map against lesser teams, but its hard to ignore the fact that he might have been more productive if he had stayed with stickies the whole time. Great patient play from Blight persevered and they definitely shone in this map, exposing weaknesses in Complexity on what is one of the most traditional competitive TF2 maps.

The second map, Gravel Pit, is traditionally considered a Complexity map. From defense to offense, these guys know how to play it. They started it out with a pretty good offense, clocking in a time of 5:30 but Blight.Fanom themselves had a very successful attack on B. Attacking C with a couple minutes on the clock they were able to sneak in below Complexity's time and take the first set. On offense for the start of the 2nd set, they had a bit more trouble. Creative Engineer rollouts, thanks to the ability to move gear, were present on both teams. Blight utilizes double Engineers effectively, although this approach missed it's greatest opportunity when one Engineer didn't run over to repair the other's level 2 sentry, which then loss a face to face with coL.Jaeger. The 2nd set was much more of a Complexity game with Blight.Fanom finally capturing C with a time in the upper 9 Minute range. With the clock ticking down from 5:30 Complexity was capturing the B point and Blight.TheFragile with TLR made a risky move to stall the capture. TLR attempted to jump from the area outside the house into it through the window while TheFragile climbed the inner ramp and met him with uber. Unfortunately he missed his jump, TheFragile popped in order to make it into the house, then couldn't do anything while TLR got mugged outside. The misstep cost them the round, though they were looking at a tough hold on C.

In the 3rd set, Complexity set a great quick time which proved too much for Pandemic to overcome. They came close to sending Complexity to the lower bracket on Gravel Pit, which would have been revenge for in-season losses on the map, but instead things went to the third map Yukon.

For one reason or another Complexity has often shown weaknesses on the more uncommon maps, and tonight this flaw exhibited itself once again. coL started the map out with Kritzkreig, which was seeming to work out initially. Blight.Fanom was playing very smart however and the entire team began to hang back more, ensuring the safety of their medic until the uber was reached. Again SolidSnake utilized the DemoKnight, at times successful and at other times not able to contribute enough. coL managed to utilize their skills and tricks fairly effectively, but were outmatched by the composed Blight team. It was 3-1 at half-time, with Blight.Fanom holding onto the last point when time expired. With the 2nd half, Blight-Fanom did not let up. They made it 4-1. Getting a little brash, they tried to push out hard from the 2nd point to re-take mid but were punished when the attack faltered. Complexity made it 4-2, and were performing better during the mid fights yet suddenly found themselves defending last, and essentially the match. A standoff resulted with Jaeger poking forward, and Blight.Fanom playing back. They had all the right to take their time and be cautious. With both teams holding uber and not much coming from Blight.Fanom, Complexity took the initiative, or the bait depending on your perspective, and pushed out. With Sollys in the tunnel, SolidSnake attached to his healing beam and Pyyyour's feet on the pipe, Blight.ww- (wonderwall) came flying through the air at Pyyyour. SolidSnake hit ww with 2 pipes yet somehow wonderwall managed to sling a final rocket out and take down Pyyyour. With their backs to the wall Complexity had no chance at salvaging the round and for the first time in recent history Complexity have been sent to the Lower Bracket.

With Complexity being dealt a sudden blow, and Blight.OWN gaining confidence after winning a tight match over eMg, tomorrow's Lower Bracket Final will surely be a tense affair. Blight.OWN will be looking to knock Complexity out of the Tourney early and make it an all Blight final. TGBF.tv might be doing video coverage, but at the least you will be able to join the TGBF mumble channel (mumble.tgbf.tv:64742) congruently with the STV cast and listen to eXtine doing a radio cast. The action kicks off at Noon EST, supposedly. eXtine will probably be in there just a little before the action starts.

The Grand Finals, featuring Blight.Fanom versus whoever wins the LB finals, will kick off at 2:30 EST with m0lk making shit happen to be there for the cast. Be sure to tune into TGBF.tv and check it out!

Pwnage.tv will also be covering both matches.