Well, first off this was my first time adminning, so I thank both teams for being patient despide my newbishness. Hehe, been a long day already, and it's been a hard weekend (yeah, you know why). That being said, I was looking forward to this match very much. USA has been suffering from facing fierce opposition on Euro soil such as Sweden and Poland! Hardly the teams you'd like to face with a 100 ping disadvantage. So, the game vs Ukraine would be a closer game I thought. Not saying Ukraine isn't a good team, they proved that in the first round.


Q2DM2 - UKR's map on USA's server


Ok, first off we headed straight to the "q2players east" server, which is the server we from Europe have the lowest ping on. Both teams had agreed on playing on servers where the guests would ping the lowest. That was a fair approach to the serverchoosing process in my eyes. The Ukrainian players all pinged inbetween 150 to 170. while the US players had from 20 to 90 ping or so (USA being such a big country westcoast players ping pretty bad on eastern servers). The process of scaring away the usually stubborn US duellers from the servers went pretty painless at first try. People eventually disconnected, allowing the teams to gather their troops.

Ok, the game started pretty quick. USA got the very first quad, but he got stopped quite easily. The teams instantly took control of vital areas of the map. Ukraine starting out holding RA-lift (Blaizian), while DaHanG on the USA team held RL-lift. Very smooth teamplay from Ukraine distributing weapons/ammo on RA lift, and never letting the liftcamper stand empty handed. Even though USA got most of the early quads, they never really managed to launch successfull attacks on the RA. Quite often the quadrun ended, yeah you guessed it, in the water. But still USA managed to get a small 8 frags lead 5 min into the game. But around that time UKR was proving to be a real pain in the ass for the american quad-runner and defenders. They stole a handfull quads in a run, but USA did some nice defending, killing the quadrunner in water or at the ssg-area. It was overall very few successfull quadruns throughout the game, and that made it easier for UKR to hold the lift (which they did with style). The americans never really got a bigger lead than 10 frags or so, and even though the Ukrainian players were fighting hard, they never got closer than 5 frags or so. While Blaizian held lift with great support from teammates, the americans struggeled with getting the quad out of water. Kaitech eventually managed to get quad to the RA-area, firing some shots at RA-camper from below, but got killed in his attempt of murder. 2 min to go, and the game goy closer by the second, only 4-5 frags lead now. But then finally, nebulous managed to cause some disturbance at RA-lift, eventually ending up holding it with the blaster in the last seconds. Last quad went to UKR, but of course he was killed at an instant like the others :) Very close game, some great battles at quad, and impressive how UKR managed to hold RA the whole game.



Q2DM1 - USA's map on UKR's server


Headed straight from USA to a german server, where they quickly made teams and started the game pretty fast. Pings were varying from good to not so good for the americans, from 115-180 or so. And all the Ukrainian players pinged about 60. Close start as always, although it seemed pretty fast that UKR was holding on to both mega and rail with more or less success. Blaizian held the lift, with good support from teammates in mega giving him rox when he needed. 3 minutes into the game, it looked like they had managed to lock down the map, and expected the score to skyrocket. They gathered frags, and 4 minutes later they had a convincing 25 frag lead. USA finally managed to take lift about 9 min into the game, but UKR still seemed to be holding mega and rail. When they shortly after lost lift as well, they launched an attack from water, lead by Manip to take mega. While nebulous held lift for a short while. Constant battleing in the mega and for some time neither of the teams managed to hold it for long. DaHanG and Blaizian were litterally killing eachothers for the lift, and finally 5 min before end DaHanG took it. By now the UKR seemed to be forced to regroup at rail, while USA had mega. Smoke did a good job securing rail and handing out rail to his mates. But USA never got complete control of mega. While Blaizian managed to clear out the lift, only to die in the attempt. Such braveness. But he finally won it back. 2 min left of the game USA is again in control of megaroom, and in a desperate last attempt to get 60 frags at once, they attack water. The last min is mostly a seabattle. But in the end Ukraine was the strongest team, even though USA did put up a great resistance.


Q2DM6 - UKR's map on USA's server

Same server and same pings as first map. Well, a lil harder time getting rid of stubborn duellers now, think we had to fuck oursevles for a lil bit to make them leave. But after we did that, they were kind enough to leave us alone, and they did not even hack the server. So that's worth the fucking of ourselves I guess. The game started after the last USA player finally got there, by then I was so eager getting the game started i forgot about the timelimit (which had been reset in between the 2 previous games). I have proposed votes for change of timelimit quite a few times on gxmod servers before, but this server decided to be gay with me. So the map changed to q2dm1 5 min into the game or so. Well, thankfully both teams agreed on restarting the game, and I was happy there were no slugs directed at my sorry ass :)

Second time around, UKR started out getting first quad, but USA was killing the runner early on. 2nd quad also went to UKR (who seems to be quad-stealers by profession from what I've seen in these matches!), Part1zan headed straight to bfg trying to take it, but manipulat0r did a good job defending himself from the slightly aggressive smurf. Eventually prat1zan got control of the bfg area though, while his teammates redistrubuted ammo/weapon and switching positions before heading for the next quadspawn. But in this part of the game USA managed to get a few quads, but never really making any successfull quadruns (much like the dm2-game). Still neb had a decent quadrun right after. While manip and grunt held onto rail/RA, the battle was still going strong for the quad. This time around it was USA who stole the quad right in front of the eyes of two Ukranian players. By now part1zan was heading from bfg position to the quad, with his super duper bfg10k gun. He managed to get quad, but was met with a shot in the face at exit. Luckily he spawned not too far from bfg, and came just in time for the next bfg repsawn, and got the yellow armor at the same time. The american team kept increasing their lead frag by frag, almost unnoticable. Grunt and manip in rail room was dominating the spawns there, and manip even launched an attack on the bfg pos with a well placed slug. UKR stole plenty of quads, but had a hard time coming out alive. When they finally did, they headed for rail, where the quad was instantly taken care of by (R)ping :) Quads were pretty evenly divided the two teams inbetween, but Blaizian was such a thief getting quite a few quads just to die. 5 min into the end or so, part1zan took his gun and headed for rail, clearing out the american railers there, and unpacking his own tent. Near the end part1zan even went out on a quadrun with rail, with 160 ping that's quite ambitious. But hey, it worked well! Last quad went to UKR too, Blaizian of course. But the americans could play hide and seek too :P Reasonably comfortable win from USA in the end. Btw; randy <3 I'm famous! Yeeehaaa.


Q2DM5 - USA's map on UKR's server

Back in Europe, on the same server as the last game in Europe. Needed a lil time waiting for Grunt to download some serverfiles, and while we waited the ever so happy camper d1tzu joined the USA team, sidelining manipulat0r. When the game finally got started, it was obvious this was gonna be a tough map for USA. Blaizian (no wonder) took the very first quad, headed to RA and cleared out any resistance in there. I thought USA did a good job fighing at quad though, d1tzu was having some nice railstreaks. Blaizian on the other hand was armoring up, while the Ukrainian made sure to give eachothers ammo/weapons. This time he was stopped by nebs slug from lower GL. By now UKR was totally controlling RA, and even got most if not all the quads. While the americans went for the RL, and from there launched random attacks at either quad/RA. Even though USA at times had 3 players by quad they had a hard time getting it, as Blaizian never seemed to be out of luck when stealing it in front of the enemy. The man of the RA room was without a doubt smoke, who held it for the start of the game. Muhaha cleared out the quad area with a good quadrun, and now the UKR place 3 players in the quad room, while the ever so busy smoke was holding RA on his own. But halfway through, the new RA room king DaHanG emerged, as he managed to secure the important spot on the map. While DaHanG did a very good job at holding RA, UKR seemed to be getting all the quads by now. They had a 20 frag lead with 9 min left to go. At one time there were 3 players at the same time down there fighting with ssg/rl/blaster at poor DaHanG, but he hang on in there. Killed them all, and didnt give it away. Impressive! 7 min left, and USA regrouped in RA. But a minute later they had lost it. Still trying to take over quadroom, they were struggeling with the enemys quadrunners. Even when they had 3-4 players there, the UKR players stole it. No wonder Blaizian got the last quad of the game. Not a bad game at all :D Too bad about the bad conditions for the USA players, seemed to suffer from lag.


Q2DM8 - USA's map on UKR's server


For last game the team with the highest fragcount got to chose server, and the other team chose map. Well, at least that's was what we agreed on. Seemed reasonable to me. As UKR had the most frags in the first 4 matches, they got to choose server. USA got to choose between dm3/dm7/dm8, and decided to pick dm8. With the ping in mind it may look like a lil weird choice, but then again Ukraine would be a fierce opponent of any of the mentioned maps. New server for this match though, as the USA players refused to play at the previous one. Luckily for me, the Muhaha agreed on playing on the server USA had settled on. Would be such a bad end for these games if it had eneded in a battle over servers, so I was very pleased with the decision.

USA got the first powerup. And in a funny momement, nebulous got the powershiled, but when he finally got rid of his enemies, he had 1 health left standing in the powerup-cave. He bravely left his powershield behind for a teammate to find and dropped down to certain death. It was sorta comic. Like the opposite of what you'd do if you we're gonna jump from a boat or a plane. Suicide is not the solution though, fellas. D1tzu managed to get ps early on, and tried to hold rail. But with his high ping, and aggressive opponents it was hard. There were also some scattered bfg actions around the map. After a while, UKR managed to get two powersheilds distributed around in the team, and with part1zan and blaizian wandering about with powershield, USA was in deep trouble. And when USA's only ps holder, d1tzu, got killed in a ps vs ps battle, it was suprising that USA still managed to some degree to hold rail area. While the UKR was controlling the yellow armor, providing cells to their ps holders. Well, UKR sorta took over most of the maps by then. Manipulat0r got a powershield and with 100 RA as well he tried to get rid of some enemy powershieldholders to no effect but getting himself killed. But he handed the ps to a teammate just before he died. Unluckily the new ps-holder was killed in an encounter with Blaizian when trying to retake rail. Now the UKR had 3 guys with ps, and all had rails. They were easily outaiming the americans who suffered from the ping disadvantage. It was pretty much obvious this was gonna go UKR's way. Only thing USA could do to fight the powershield would be bfg-attacks, but those never came untill the very end. By then it was too little too late. Also l33 should be noted doing a great job giving cells to his ps-teammates, even though he never got to have one himself.

5 maps played, some mistakes on my sides, and very professional players. Very little whining, and the serverchoice/mapchoice went pretty ok. Sorry for missing the scorebot, next time I'll get that :) GGs both teams