The Command Post - Shifting Sands

By Adam Pipich on February 14, 2017 | Columns | 0

ManUp, Vision, and Alloy fight for control over Calpheon. Barcode continues holding Valencia for the foreseeable future. Gravity hands off Mediah to Critical. WolvesofWar merges into ChoNation to potentially create a new powerhouse. All of this and more in this week’s The Command Post.

The past few weeks have brought us pretty significant changes in the siege war landscape, and last weekend only furthers the trend. Barcode and their 3 guild alliance continues to hold Valencia, still undefeated in that territory since shutting down ManUp’s 7 week occupation streak. Last week, the ManUp guild master, Lacari, publically threatened Barcode’s reign on his Twitch stream, stating that he has been procuring allies to reclaim the desert castle. When it came time to siege however, ManUp had instead opted for Calpheon, deciding to contest Alloy’s 3 week occupation streak. Several other guilds also participated in the siege, namely Vision, Haven, and ManUp’s ally, Hikikomori.

The siege begun with Alloy immediately destroying Haven’s base, knocking them out of the war only minutes after it started. ManUp and their ally used this distraction to get a decent amount of damage on Vision’s walls early in the fight. The offense didn’t last long for Hikikomori though, just short of a half hour into the war Alloy had overpowered them and destroyed their fort. Vision went down soon after, unfortunately being sandwiched between Alloy’s castle and ManUp’s base. The remaining two powers fought for almost an hour longer before ManUp eventually pushed into the Calpheon throne room and destroyed Alloy’s siege tent, winning the war.

After the fight was over I had the opportunity to ask Lacari a few questions about his decision to go to Calpheon rather than Valencia. “I decided to look for a more enjoyable fight elsewhere,” he said, continuing on to explain his distaste for working with large alliances in order to fight for the more heavily contested territories. When asked if he was still looking toward recapturing Valencia in the future, he replied: “At this point in time, [...] I plan to retire in Calpheon and let the server do what they want.”

Due to ManUp’s decision to switch territories, Valencia was fairly quiet last Saturday. Barcode’s alliance had no opposition, leaving them time to practice against each other before ultimately giving the territory to Barcode. I don’t expect this to change anytime soon either, given that ManUp has taken themselves out of the running. When interviewing Barcode’s guild leader, he made it abundantly clear that they currently have no intentions of forfeiting their position.

Serendia saw some more typical action this past weekend, with ChoNation taking on Iconic for rights over the territory. Both guilds brought 2 allies, Villain and Illuminati on Cho’s side, and Iconic had Ascendence and Juicy to help them. Cho’s allies kept the other guilds at bay however, leaving the two major powers to fight one-on-one. Iconic put up a strong fight, briefly holding Cho on the road between the bases, but Cho eventually powered through, pushing the defending champions further back into their base until their tower was destroyed. This left Cho to swiftly bowl through Iconic’s allies, ending the war after just over an hour.

It comes as no surprise that ChoNation gunned for Serendia, they have been consistently taking steps to solidify their position as a proper contender in top-tier pvp. Last week, Cho absorbed the siege guild WolvesofWar, significantly bolstering their strength. I briefly sat down with Wolves’s ex-guild master, ZeroGravity, for some insight as to why they decided to go ahead with the merge. “I was getting worn out running a guild and being on every night, as a GM you kinda have to play this game 24/7,” he said. Adding on to that he continued: “[ChoNation] was honest, genuine, and their core seemed to be very endearing towards PvP [...] after talking it over with everyone, we decided we wanted to help ChoNation start taking regions by merging into them.”

Both Balenos and Mediah were largely uneventful this week. Balenos went to LotD without any contest, and Gravity freely handed off the Mediah castle to their ally, Critical.