Posts from Favorites, to battle! - 7 - The Battle of Favorites! - 7

On Saturday at 1 PM Moscow time, we will play the decisive match. :smile14:

I think they said that someone who makes it through the upper bracket only needs 2 wins, right?

That’s right, it’s a best-of-five match starting with a 1-0 score. Currently, the score is 2-2, and we’ll play a decisive match.

That's right, it's a best-of-five match with a score of 1-0. Currently, the score is 2-2, and we'll play the deciding match.

Good luck, Admiral!!! I'm rooting for you!:smile14:

Heavy game, in which my mood changed to the opposite several times :).
In the first generation, the opponent unexpectedly took 113. I had good heroes (Pyre, Monere, Clavius with Logistics), Griffin Conservatory, normal with Zoot, but Dungeon and not the best army, especially after the fight with Ivor the neutral. Then I had to reroll two terrible Dungeon spawns, we started.
In the end, I spawn at the top; in the tavern, there's a Dungeon hero, so I have both 100 skeletons and harpies for speed. I scout the area – pretty empty. But I can't reroll now.
First, I moved Clavius along a pillar, a chest, and a dwarf dwelling to level 15, and experted Necromancy. Then a Dungeon neutral appeared, and I had to go kill it. After killing the neutral, I split my stack back home and, via the stable, headed to the grass area. There was a Rampart there, which I took on 117. The same day, I had to transfer the army to defend against a Castle. I took a Griffin Conservatory for 1 angel, parked on another one, a level 2. Clavius – with Logistics.
On 121, I took another 2 angels and went into the treasure zone on the rocks. There I grabbed a couple of Pandora's Boxes for 10k experience and ran into a block of Phoenixes guarding 2 components of the Elixir (I had the last one since 114). I leveled up Earth Magic. After splitting, I went into the underground treasure zone. It turned out to be a long and inconvenient tunnel, so, after fighting there a bit and getting a bunch of skeletons and 3 angels as a result, I split back home and went to the center. Meanwhile, the last neutral was killed by the left army.
Breaking through the GO, I immediately saw a Dragon Utopia. I took it on 126. Three creatures, they hit me a bit without Mass Shield and Skin, gave very bad loot. Titan's Sword, Crown +4+4, and two bags of gold. On 127, I park at the GO at the opponent's respawn to unexpectedly pop out on 131 and steal the growth. Couldn't pop out. Luna with Armageddon pops out and wipes out 3 of my heroes. And if I hadn't been hitting the Efreeti from the Dungeon side, she wouldn't have popped out. Although, the opponent also screwed up; he could have attacked Clavius and treated him to a couple of Rain of Fire spells.
Well then, I have to return and get rid of Luna using Tactics. Later she will come to me, but won't achieve anything special and will also die.
I have a Dragon Utopia at home; I take it on 133. It gives absolutely nothing. Gunnar takes down the Phoenixes, runs to a village in the treasure zone, splits there to get to a promising Pandora's Box for 100+ greater demons. I have all Earth Magic! A couple of Naga Banks, an angel upgrade. The next turn, I scout another Dragon Utopia on the lava, and a Griffin Conservatory next to it! Rush there. It gives the Wonderous Hat. Well, it seems I have everything, I need to pressure the opponent. I go on the attack with 20 Wyverns, 11 Archangels, and 600+ skeletons. I take the capital, Swamp, and Barbarian; next to the Barbarian I grab a Dragon Fly Hive. However, everything quickly goes downhill. I start falling behind in troops, and it's better not to look at the stats at all.
I jump into the opponent's treasure zone, steal Wings there. Nearby – a Dragon Utopia, but it's taken from under my nose. Fine, I retreat to my treasure zone underground. There I discover Dragon Utopias, as many as 3 of them, but all with junk. By the middle of week 4, the opponent emerges and shows off 100+ greater Wyverns, 1700+ greater skeletons, and smaller units. The problem – Jaharna has 25-40, while I only have 20-20. After buying the Cloak and Amulet, I matched the number of skeletons in a couple of days and upgraded them. I gathered about 50 Wyverns, 12 Archangels. Clearly too few. But the opponent, while unselecting towns, shows that he has no Air control! I manage to snatch a Pandora's Box with Dimension Door right from under his nose, which is pleasing.
We adjourned. I considered accepting the draw offer, but after analyzing the situation carefully, I decided to keep grinding. After all, 25 in parameters isn't that much. A couple of Libraries, switch the Necklace – that's already 14. A couple of good stat boosts at the Barbarian – 19. Well, a difference of less than 10 won't play a big role with a large army advantage. I planned to create a huge stack of Death Knights (4 external dwellings already taken, more available), possibly dragons. There were also a few more Dragon Fly Hives, and grinding skeletons with Dimension Door and Wings is a pleasure.
So after the continuation, I split the troops and started grinding. Inteus with a few Archangels colored 3 dragon external dwellings, recaptured the Speed Cloak, and took a good Dragon Fly Hive. Monere with Archangels captured a couple of Dragon Fly Hives. Gunnar was busy capturing towns, and Clavius was also capturing towns, consuming Libraries, and making skeletons. Soon, Necromancy Boots were discovered, and things got really fun. At the same time, the map was controlled relatively well; the opponent was limited to 3-4 towns.
Slowly, the Death Knights were grinded, and a second Necropolis was being built.
But on 216, the opponent didn't have time to make a move; he sported to me without troops and with artifacts, and was killed.
We tried to play the finale that same day for fun; it turned out quite evenly. If I had geared up properly and hadn't forgotten a bunch of items, I might have won.
So a couple more growth cycles, and the fight would have been easily won. It's hard to play without Dimension Door...
Thank you for the game!

Peter, congratulations on your victory!:smile13:

Congratulations, Pete:smile12: :smile54: :smile49:

Thank you for the game!

I took 113 because I already took a village in the treasure zone, no prospects or money, so I decided to take a risk. 2 decent lineups, Pit banned and a decisive, quite adequate playable hand. Even the fish at the start didn't ruin it.
Charna joined the main forces, grabbing Log and Earth magic within the first 3 levels. Bones barely stacked because of this, but oh well.
Quickly took the Barb and Swamp, but with Inferno there was a problem — too long a road. Several days of running on fast units. The birds fell easily, after that I went into the Inferno side treasure zone, it turned out to be poor, but there were boots and a Necro cloak. I was about to move on but scouted them, and there was a +5 all stats Bible and a Dragon Utopia. I took the sword and the Bible, but no way to take the Utopia :mad:
Turned around to another treasure zone that Luna was trying to scout, but 20+ groups of Liches blocked the way. But then the opponent came through the center of the treasure zone near the end of week 2 and wanted to take the main. I sent Luna to scout without showing Armageddon (4th Guild in Inferno), hoping the opponent would take the bait and go further, while Charna sat in the main ready to defend. But the opponent turned back home and killed Luna, which might have been the key mistake.
Then I went into the remaining treasure zones instead of the center, and in vain. After picking up a ton of Pandora's Box scrolls and putting up a couple of guilds, I never found Dimension Door. 2 or 3 Pandoras for all Fire spells, and also 2 Fire books :D
I grew decently, was even ahead in stats and power for a while, despite there being 10+ Arches and an easy Elixir on week 3, not to mention full control. But even Log + Boots + Gloves didn't save me. Deesa found Necromancy in the Scholar, also got a decent boost, in the depths of one treasure zone I found a Fly scroll, but too late.
In the end, when I realized how I could take the opponent's main and search from there, karma repaid the debt. I set myself up, essentially just as stupidly as Maretti did against me in the previous stage.

Thanks for the games and congratulations on a well-deserved tournament victory!

I rate my performance as very good, considering I hadn't really played this conflict much before and didn't particularly like it (so I didn't even expect to get this far), but during the tournament it proved quite playable on almost all templates. Only Necro matchups were a problem. Of course, I'd like to see fairies and psychos unbanned for more strategic variety with it, because right now there's often no striking power, and without Necros and Luna, there's rarely anything you can do.

Congratulations to Pete on his victory!:smile02:

Congratulations Pete with a very strong performance. Also well done to Redwhait, it was very close.

Maybe its time to look at the timer. If we want the highest quality of gaming we need more time. To many games are decided on time running out.

Congratulations, Petya! Glad to see you're keeping up the good work! Well done!
Zhenya also did a great job, even though he carried the entire tournament on pure skill, but the result is good!

Petya, congratulations on your victory!!! :smile49: :)

Thanks to everyone for the congratulations!
The tournament was very challenging for me. There wasn't a single easy match after I got out of the group, including a very tough game against Admiral, which I won by a miracle :)
Both finals were very close to being lost.
I won against Maretti with Fortress by using 3 skeletons :)
In the first game of the decisive series, I was just 1 move away from victory on the fast roads... or 2500 gold.
In the last two games, by the middle of the third week, it seemed that I had an unbeatable lineup, but my opponent somehow managed to find a stronger combination... Luckily, in the end, I managed to win!
Overall, playing with Necropolis was great, but not in the first week of matches :)
Thanks to everyone for the games!

Congratulations, Pietro! You are truly the King's favorite! :cool:

I was doing pretty well, but my opponent won't be able to finish the game.
Thanks for the game.

thanks for the game