-- Report by nl'SanQuin --

After a week of delay it was time for a trans-Atlantic showdown between team North America and team The Netherlands! Because of the absence of servers floating in the middle of the Atlantic, it was decided to play home-away. NA’s server was used first and NL’s was for the second map. Both teams picked q2dm1.

After some delay, the first map started and NA took the lead. However, NL was able to keep track of the North Americans better than expected. Team NA were really playing free for all; the absence of ClanBase iTDM cup experience resulted in a lot of arena fights. This was quite surprising since in most of today’s iTDM matches the water area is the main playground. NL tried to pick fights in those areas where a high ping is least relevant.

After 5 minutes NA was leading by approximately 15 frags. But at this point NL seemed to get used to the high pings. At least that was the case for myself. Steadily the gap decreased in size and after 10 minutes of playing the scores were tied! NL now overtook NA and built a 10 frag lead. In the final minute NA made a last effort to close the gap and took back quite some frags, but NL managed to secure the victory by a 3 frag difference!

Because of losing their home map, NA was not very motivated to cross the Atlantic. Besides some yelling from adrenaline, the NA team kept themselves together and finished the map. This second map does not need any comments; it suffices to say that NA had a hard time.

The victory for NL here seems deserved. The second map was clearly not interesting, but in the first one both NA and NL put up a good fight that made the game close & fun! The NL team did not expect to win the away map, but with the NiDML point system this is a welcome surprise!

SanQuin