Hey everybody, this week is lakeside week. Lakeside has made its way into being a highlander standard now that is liked among tons of players. The scout and sniper play are very key on this map, with its great sightlines. Engineer is actually an extremely crucial class too. This is a very DM heavy map, and if your team cant balance a strong offensive push and a strong defensive hold they will have trouble. I’m looking forward to the matches this week, as many of them will be close. Lakeside always provides some exciting action. Enjoy.
Mexican Cat Ranch vs Looking Handsome
I think it’s safe to say that Looking Handsome will be able to win this match unless Ranch decided to actually practice for a match. Apparently they have not been scrimming, which is clearly affecting their performance. They made 3rd place last season, but they really don’t look like a 3rd place team right now. I believe they can step it up, but I suppose it’s really just a matter of how much they want too. Looking has been a strong team for seasons now, and this Is the kind of map they will be strong on. Lakeside can really favor a strong defense holding style team which weather they admit it or not they are. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though, and if they get hold of the point I can see them holding it for a minute and a half almost every time it’s captured. If you also weren’t aware, they picked up ruwin on scout (I’ll assume) and on this map scout play is key, and he will be able to easily trick the cat ranch with his movement to make many distractions for his team to make a play or frag them himself. If ranch can shut down ruwin, open sightlines for their sniper, and aggressively hold the point to reduce the clock time they have a chance at this.
I predict a 4-1 for Looking
Players to watch: Hein (Looking medic), ruwin (Looking scout), both teams snipers.
Tangerine vs The Syndicate
It’s pretty easy to say that tangerine has no chance now without b4nny and cyzer, and that so many people thought they carried. It’s honestly hilarious how wrong those people are. In highlander, one or two players can’t carry a team of 9. That’s not how it works. Some players might get more frags, but highlander involves so much coordination and team play in a different style that a single fragging class doesn’t matter as much. Fortunately for tangerine, they have a group of very talented highlander players and 6v6 players that still know how to play together. I honestly felt like as a team they were making so many mistakes with b4nny and cyzer that they may do even better now. As I’ve been saying though for weeks now, -ts- is a really strong team with strong players across the board. I said early on, if their teamwork continues to improve they could be one of the top 4 or 5 teams easily and they are just about their. This should be a fairly close match, and rather than watching individuals go huge I think this will be a strong coordinated match. Whichever team can out play the other team will win, no individual players will be making the difference in this match as both teams are so heavily stacked.
I predict a 4-3 for tangerine.
Players to watch: Gareth (tangerine sniper), cowbeef (tangerine engineer), TMP (ts pyro), and kyle (ts scout).
Bonus! Points vs Axl Wat
Bonus is a high platinum team that has been playing middish level platinum teams for a while now, excluding their first match. I don’t think Axl can win this match, bonus is strong in every class and has to level teamwork. This is a very important map for engineer play, and again. Lincoln for bonus is way too good at engineer and will be a huge factor in their success.
I predict a 4-0 for Bonus!
Players to watch: Lincoln (engineer for bonus), NovaMode (bonus sniper).
Gangsta Posse vs Blunderful [ Match of the Week]
In my opinion this will be the closest match of the week, (hopefully the one that extv casts) for a few reasons. Mainly that both teams are a bit under-rated but are both very strong. Blunderful is clearly known now as an underrated team that has some skill. Gangsta Posse is another underrated team (the second team to come from the Gangsta Gang Clan) that is being a bit unrecognized because of their 0-2 record; however they have had to go up against two very strong teams so far. One of the most recognizable strengths of bfl is their ability for their scout and pyro to set up great plays for their team to make a big overall play. On lakeside especially, if a team can be holding the point properly then they will be able to easily shut down any flanking enemies. Posse has strong players overall, but they have a 6v6 mindset which has been proven to fail in highlander. Especially since lakeside is a pretty obscure map. Posse does have some very strong players like Chriz on sniper, which is a huge advantage on lakeside which has some crazy sightlines. They also have a really strong aggressive jumper in hooli their soldier, who is the other playmaker of the team. Blunderful will need to have a way of holding the point aggressively, yet ready to back out when they can. I say this because Posse definitely has a DM advantage over bfl, so in a straight up fight posse will win a fairly larger amount of the time. Bfl will have to use strong positioning on their holds, but be careful to not overextend on the hold which will often happen on this map. Blunder has an under-rated yet very strong demoman in Tonto, who may prove to be a game changer depending on how his team plays. Will his team open up opportunities for him to really do some extremely large damage? It’s hard to say who will win. Posse is a new team with skill; bfl is a newly noticed team with experience that will very much help them in this match.
I predict a 4-3 with many rounds ending in a double overtime, to Gangsta Posse.
Players to watch: Chriz Tah Fah (Posse sniper), hooli (Posse soldier), Cole (Posse pyro), useoftoaster (bfl scout), satan (bfl pyro).
Proprietary Nine vs Team Player
ProN is a team that is growing in strength by a large margin over the past season, and a lot of that credit has to go to their medic malent. He is becoming an extremely strong highlander medic and may be able to win his team many captures or rounds even because of how well he plays his ubers and kritzkriegs. Team Player is another team that has improved a lot with the help of some strong players on their team and a ton of experience. If the ProN team can be successful early on in the rounds I think the momentum of early fight wins can carry them to round wins, eventually to a match win. If this doesn’t happen though, Malent will have to really intelligently play these fights as a medic for his team to win.
I predict Team Player to win 4-2.
Players to watch: Malent (ProN medic), Sal (Team Player), Scouts of both teams.
Thanks for the read, good luck to all of you in your matches.
-Ma3la
