On Sunday 29th April, team eXile5 took place in the Mwave Online 8s finals tournament, wherein x5 was fighting for third place against the New Zealand team, Online Gaming Addicts.
The finals match was a best of one map on Damavand Peak, and playing against a formidable team like OGA meant there was little-to-no room for error to be made by x5.
Damavand Peak can sometimes be a difficult map to play on as there are 3 flags to hold; one on either side of a mountain and one directly in between, located in a tunnel. Both teams have a tank and a heli scout, adding to the complexity and need for strategy regarding this map.
Team eXile5?s line up consisted of beefay and Celerity in the tank, dluX/Syrim in the heli and BigArms, CryptiK, Floormassacre and 1MMort4L as the ground infantry.
First half
For the first half of the match, x5 started on the Russian side, with OGA on US. On rollout BigArms took the vodnik from the RU spawn to cap the C home flag and try to make it into the tunnel to cap B. However, OGA quickly moved their tank into B, thwarting x5?s first attempts to cap B. As such, beefay in the tank played defensively by holding the home flag and occasionally moving into B to put pressure on their tank and infantry, so x5 could try to make a push for the flag.
Early into the first half, whilst OGA had a strong hold on B, x5 decided to try a chopper drop onto the opposing teams? home flag to cap it, meaning x5 would have the bleed and would also ?sandwich? in OGA. x5 was able to cap A and bleed the tickets in their favour whilst holding off OGA?s persistent attempts to cap back their flag and hold B for majority of the first half. x5?s tank eventually started to put pressure on the B flag with the help of infantry and were able to destroy OGA?s tank, but lost their own in the process. A couple of x5?s infantry players remained on the B flag allowing other teammates to spawn on them in order to clear out all the remaining OGA infantry to cap B and lock it down, leaving x5 with a short cap-out over OGA. However, OGA was able to cap back their A home flag, leaving x5 with a two-flag hold over B and C for the remainder of the first half to win it 153-0.
Round 1: eXile5 153-0
Second half
Going into the second half of the match, eXile5 was determined to win, after taking out the first half. x5 was now on US with OGA respectively on the Russian side. On rollout, Syrim took the humvee from spawn to cap the A home flag and move into B. Similarly, dluX skillfully flew the heli through the tunnel with infantry to try and cap the B flag, but lost the cap after OGA?s tank and infantry pushed in quickly to cap B. Again, x5?s tank played defensively, occasionally trying to push B to destroy the tank and allow their infantry to move in; however, early attempts to do so failed as OGA once again had a strong hold over B.
Eventually, after various attempts to cap the important B flag, x5 coordinated their tank and infantry attack on B to destroy OGA?s tank, kill any remaining infantry, cap the flag and go into lockdown with a strong A and B hold for majority of the second half. x5?s infantry was set up to hold from all tunnel entrances, with the tank holding the B flag and moving around to cover all access points and prevent OGA?s tank from pushing up.
OGA eventually tried to make a chopper drop over x5?s home flag, but x5?s tank and infantry were quick to respond and held it. Throughout the remainder of the second half, x5 once again maintained a 2 flag hold on A and B. Towards the end of the second half, four of x5?s players were ?disconnected from EA Online?, thereby dropping from the server and leaving their flags less guarded and giving OGA an opportunity to move up and cap all 3 flags. x5?s players quickly joined back for the remaining few minutes of the match, but x5 was unable to stop the ticket bleed, which meant that OGA took out the second half 4-0.
Round 2: Online Gaming Addicts 4-0
Overall, team eXile5 won the match 153-4 against Online Gaming Addicts, taking out the Bronze 3rd place and $350 in the Mwave Online competition. Congratulations to x5 and thank you to OGA for a fantastic game.
A big thank you to the organizers of the Mwave Online Competition ? it was a great event for the Australian Battlefield 3 scene and we hope to see more well run competitions such as this.
Also, congratulations to team Immunity and Vanguard for placing 1st and 2nd in this competition.
