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NDML 9
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The Grande Finale!2006-06-01 10:54 | daelmun


NDML|6 Grande Finale: Finland vs Sweden

Day: Thursday 1st of June 2006
Time: 20:30 CET
Channel: #ndml @ quakenet
Shoutcast: Provided by b|d-DaHanG
Q2TV: Hosted by TheWretch and d0c (Unconfirmed)

Click More for the preview...



The preview:

Hehe, have to write this reaallly quick as the game is about to be played later tonight. Anyway, just gonna give a short overview on this season and also try to introduce you all to each of the teams in the final.




So, we are about to wrap up another season of the Nations Deathmatch League.

But, before I'll introduce the two remaining teams, I'll just throw in my general obvservations on NDML6. Allthough I was in the admin-team from the playoffs last season, this season is really my first where I've adminned more than one single game. So I haven't been following this league closely for too long. First off I got to say that Gravgon is THE man for running this league year after year, so as long as he is in charge I have no doubts the NDML will still have that special position it currently has in the Quake2 community. The previous season was in many ways a very successful one, with a thriller of a final that could be followed on shoutcast and on q2tv, with Poland finally taking it home beating Finland who was coming from the loser bracket.

This season as well started out very strong:

- there was a core of fresh and motivated admins
- there were even shoutcasting of groupgames
- there were new teams that added some freshness to the league, much in the same way for instance Croatia did the previous season

So, even though some of the teams had lost their keyplayers from last season, the season had every chance of being a success. At least it seemed to be more open than ever, Sweden, Poland and Finland were still the top contenders, but teams like Estonia, Slovenia, Lithuania, and Ukraine were showing that they weren't THAT far behind. And Brazil and USA were showing that the teams outside Europe could put up a fight as well. But somewhere the league slowed down a bit, and teams got inactive due to Quake4. Some of the eager admins fell back on inactivity and new ones were added. Anyway, there were still teams that really were active and admins that put a lot of effort into getting the games played. To sum it up the last part of the league was very slow, and this needs to be fixed for next season in my humble opinion.

Anyway, back to what it's all about:



SWEDEN:
---------------------------------
Sweden has a strong history in NDML to defend, they have won every season except the last one. This year they started out in pretty nice form with a new core of players like zorre, slonken and pogo together with old heros like Purri and NaSSaL. Always a railpowerhouse, Sweden dominated in the groupstage totally outclasssing the Australian team and the team from Czech Republic. However, they also lost q2dm6 to Ukraine, but hard to say how much you can analyze a groupgame maploss before you realize it doesn't really make much of a difference in the long run, other than that the team can be defeated which we already knew. Anyway, lets look at their way to the final:

Groupplay:
(2:0) Australia
(2:1) Ukraine
(2:0) Czech Republic

Playoffs:
(3:0) Lithuania
(3:2) Poland
(1:3) Finland
(3:2) Poland
----------------------------------
In total: Sweden(16:8)Opponents

What we can see are the two extremely close encounters with Poland, showing that the team has the ability to remain focused even though the games are long-lasting. It also shows what maps they are strong on: q2dm1, q2dm3 and q2dm7, while they took a beating on q2dm2. But the most intresting game to analyze has to be against their opponent Finland:
Finland won: q2dm1, q2dm3, q2dm7
Sweden won: q2dm2
Now that really makes it hard to predict the outcome of the game, as they took down Finland on a map that Poland defeated them on twice. But they also lost to Finland on three of their stronger maps from their games vs Poland. Anyway, I still think Swedens main maps of focus are q2dm1 and q2dm3, so we should probably see those maps in the final. They have a solid play on any map, and their strong aim in general will make them a hard opponent indeed. I really hope they can get their best lineup for the game, it will make quite a difference. Now that Purri is missing, keyplayers like Zorre and NaSSaL who usually is hungry for frags need to do just that, frag a lot. It's gonna be intresting for sure to see if the Swedes can take back the throne that belonged to them for so long.

Expected lineup: pogo, zorre, nassal, bubkez, (ph)



FINLAND:
----------------------------
Finland is the cursed team of NDML. They have always performed very well, and in many people's eyes, they thoroughly deserves a win in NDML for once. If this is the year that will happen is yet to be seen. This season they have had a very solid lineup, allthough Provi is missing. Damiah, Dimmo, Foen and Thaigo being the main core of the team. They have all the experience you could ask for, but also the hunger to finally win the NDML after the defeat vs Poland last season. In the groupstage they played Turkey and lost the map on away server, which doesn't really say much as the pingdifference was too big to draw any final conclusions from the game. They did outclass Lithuania though, a team that showed great promise at times, but never got their act straight. Russia wasn't much of a challenge for this team, so they had a fairly easy way through the groupstage. Lets see what games they have played so far:

Groupplay:
(2:1) Turkey
(2:0) Lithuania
(2:0) Russia

Playoffs:
(3:0) Slovenia
(3:2) Estonia
(3:1) Sweden
-----------------------------------
In total: Finland(15:4)Opponents

In the playoffs the Finnish team looked very strong, only seemed to be challenged by the Estonian side, winning q2dm7, q2dm1 and q2dm2, but also losing on q2dm1 and q2dm6. Versus Slovenia they out classed the opponent on all the maps (q2dm2 x2, and q2dm1). So they surely is a strong team on q2dm2, q2dm7 and q2dm1. But they also can take defeats on these maps as they showed in their games vs Sweden (won q2dm2) and Estonia (won q2dm1). But they are so strong on their weakest maps I really don't find too many weaknesses to this team. They have the skills, they have the experience and they have the hunger. I can only hope that they can get their best lineup in action, and playing without the ever so present finale-nerves. Finland has already been in the final, now they need to do everything they can in order to reach the top.

Expected lineup: Dimmo, Damiah, Thaigo and Foen



Anyway, meet you all in #ndml on quakenet at June the 1st (today) at 20:30 CET! Be sure to make some popcorn, and if we are lucky we will see shoutcasting and q2tv and scorebot. But if you're really unlucky you'll see nothing of the above, just me trying to make smartass comments while eating popcorn.
Comments

KaraYa
avatar
2006-06-01 15:44 
great preview daelmun!
now lets get ready to rumble!
daelmun
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2006-06-01 15:06 
ha, thanks for adding the awesomenessest banner

And yeah, was thinking about writing that Sweden came from the loserbracket very early on but decided to write it a bit later and then I fogot it
Gravgon
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2006-06-01 13:47 
btw, I think many people have forgotten that Sweden needs to win 2 best of 5 while Finland only needs one
APKIS
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2006-06-01 13:38 
Yeah nice jom daelmun
Spam
avatar
2006-06-01 13:24 
sLONKEN gonna play
OhYeah
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2006-06-01 12:54 
Great preview. It's very exciting to see what will happen tonight =)
Gravgon
avatar
2006-06-01 12:20 
Awesome preview Daelmund, thanks very much for writing it (and thanks for the kind words :p).

As for myself, I wanted to add that Xircuit can also be expected to play for Finland (or maybe I'm wrong).

I took lesson of what happened this season and the next one will be "cleaner": Quality > quantity will be my motto
optimizer
avatar
2006-06-01 12:01 
hf

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