I feared that the final on a map like that would play out the way it went.



We had some interesting stuff going on early with guys fighting over creepcamps and two rather early 1v1 with that long ass battle between noe and laxu at noe´s expand and some good hustling by junker, who was from the start in a terrible position.



But then two players were capped off their goldsources and it became kind of a dull lame game. One of the worst finals for sure. Besides the map i blame the late hour during the week for the three euros.



As said before :that two goldmines are so close by each other and the aggressor, depending on position, can easily kill the mines and gaining a lot of longrun advantages in a 1v1 is just annoying. Getting left and right 1 expand around ur main is mb an alternative, but on the flipside that can also cause some really weird situations, having two opposing mines next to each other.



Some things how i saw the player´s performances:



Wrecktify:



He won, so he must have done something right. Fair play to him and gratz to the 3rd title.



Oh, wait. That would be too facile by me.



I felt like he did not have a good early game with forgetting to put wisps in mine and not picking off items (but he later did, i guess). The elf macro was easy to do and done by him hundreds of time. 2 early expands, chippo build, fast aow/dr creeping - cheesy and easy. Then he ran into Junkerzam early at creeping and forced him to use tp and losing a lot of gold. Procdeeding to kill acos of the exposed mine and gaining a lot of momentum, especially macro wise.



Later in the fights he kept forgetting chunks of his hippoes, but it did not matter, since elf vs ud is in 95% of the cases just a rigged, broken matchup, especially early on.

He shoulda been able to finish Junkerzam way earlier, but since he could not, that worked out well for him, since otherwise on the other side of the map they maybe woulda have stopped earlier, having more bank to team him or even have a decent 3way (Yikes).



Once Junkerzam was out, he poked Tleilaxu some and basically only harrased him for 20-30 mins, getting some builds here and there, charm, forcing tp and tping himself. Then he found some courage to fight him actually in a lucky spot and killed half of Tleilaxus army. I do think he actually coulda end the game in 45 mins.



In the end it was more a patience thing and not doing some major fuck up with having 100 food perfect herokilling, harras avoiding hero combo and enough chims to set a nice focus fire on low level heroes w/o items.



He made for sure some good decisions, but could capatilize on facing 2 ud´s as elf, tleilaxus doing the work for him damaging noe a lot. Also i think he got somewhat underestimated. Noe was the favourite in the game and Wreck did not qualify for playoffs the past seasons, if i remember right.



Don´t get me wrong, i like how determined Wreck is still to play FFA and FML after around 20 seasons he already played. He is one of the most accomplished FFA/FML players for sure and some people don´t give him enough credit, because they missed a lot of good games by him.

He is very competetive, prepares for his FML games a lot and uses many meta tactics plus sometimes having some lucky circumstances which he often can use to his advantage. Often it seems he gets away with those a bit too easily for my taste, though. This game here for example. (elf cheese, hilarious manip, brash bullying /smack talk, races, time of day)



I am also still baffled when i look back at two other finals. Hopefully i remember correctly but it was that one with Yane/DasElend and Battle.Suck. Where they at first tripple teamed Yane out, then Wreck pushed Battle.Suck to team Daselend out, just to backstab Battle.Suck in Daselends base and make that naive tool his bitch.



Then the season where he smurfed. Smurfing was not forbidden at that time, but for sure disputable. He used some IP changing program, switched from abusing the human race to cheesing with elf (which is way easier to execute and not as risky to play as human) and somehow made it to the final, where basically seksi and Magadansky suicided each other, letting Wreck win.



Just two examples for those, who missed these games /seasons.







Noexx:



He is the most consistent player of the past seasons and had a good shot. But getting into the final as favourite is not that easy. Imo, he could been a bit more aggressive, probably going rifles-push switch to breaker/tanks later, but i guess he did not wanted to get the early lead and then mb getting teamed, but (ofc especially in the hindsight) with some manips i am sure he coulda push hard and succeed with it.



Facing necrowagon early as human can be really tough. He did okay by defending it, but maybe underestimated Tleilaxu and could have done better for sure with focusing necros/wagon and positioning better. He coulda scout better and manip more towards Tleilaxu to stop (sooner). He had no gold and not running goldmine at various points and without high level heroes that´s really hard. He somehow recovered and nearly got fully back in the game, but losing castle, not using enough mass tp, losing MK near the end cost him an unlikely but possible turnaround.



Oh and i almost forgot that shredder loss. Very costful mistake. These lusted spikes throwing pigs together with the weird maplayout/pathing and his sloppiness in this moment caused a maybe crucial early game moment. His creeping was okay, but with rifles it woulda been smoother i think.





Tleilaxu:



One of the positive surprises of the season. Although he profited from a suicide and two discs in his two wins during the season, he showed some good ffa sense and 1v1 fighting.



tricky odds for him, since necrgowagon is only good vs human & orc (if no dr) and still can get outmaneuvered or owned by high level heroes rather easily. He could implement a plan with attacking the only race necrowagon is best against. He got the better of Noe in the early exchanges, but coulda go 100 earlier and maybe wipe him completely before the 1v1 between Wreck and Junkerzam was decided. Then he tunnel visioned a bit too much, losing too much gold to high upkeep and not gaining enough levels.



Imo, he needed to get Noe´s help and pin Wreck into his base with 100 food necrowagon asap in the 3way. That was basically the only chance. Laming elfs with chims, picking off buildings and units, plus Dr lvl 6 was a sure loss in the long run, since the goldcount was somewhat equal or so low that it would not matter.



In the end building units was also a mistake. Needed to invest in items to keep heroes alive & spreading buildings.



With winning the semi and having a good season overall, he is one of the biggest winners of the season, imo. Rarely it happened that people who have to battle through a semifinal (which is often as tough as the final itself) winning the final aswell.





Junkerzam:



If i were in his shoes i´d been very upset and frustated/annoyed. He did quite well microwise but had a very rough start with burning a lot of gold having to tp at that creepcamp, not getting the item and overall having a rather bad creeping day. With facing an experienced elf and fighting an macro uphill battle plus having worse heroes it was a matter of time he would have to surrender to this often imbalanced ud vs elf matchup.



Imo he got caught in the moment with attacking ill advised Wreck´s base with some ghouls and few gargs (lol?!). Needed to set up macro and rather make a quick change from 50 to 80 food and scouting wreck and then pump asap if he decided to pump for attacking Junkerzam. Not sure if his decision making suffered by it being after midnight already during the week or it was the probable stress of a final situation.



After he showed some improvements in decisionmaking this season i expected a smarter game by him, but as it turned out he focused too much on fighting /micro instead of respecting the other very important facets of ffa aswell.

