The battle of the brits, as it was dubbed by someone (me), was a highly tense match, easily the most exciting thus far this round. It began with the randomizer selecting MBO to make the first map pick. Without hesitation Megas was chosen for the first time in this tournament (by a player - it had already been selected once by the randomizer). The game began evenly, but MBO got a huge jumpstart about a minute in after a brutal MM hit on Jack, stealing a super jump and claiming an entire double blue spawn for himself. J@ck did not give up, but after this hit, he slowly fell farther and farther behind until MBO was crowned the winner, 127-89.
Jack took quite the thinking period for his first pick but finally settled on Ziggurat, a plain and rather unplayed map. MBO, however, proved quite efficient on the map, and he got a lead early which he didn't let up. Though it looked as if Jack could get a comeback started multiple times, he was never able to pull back in front of MBO, and missed a blue in the final second of the match (though it wouldn't have saved him - he would still have been down 12). MBO, though inches away from the blue, was also unable to get it to increase his points differential, and the score ended at 81-64.
Now up with a comfortable 2-0 lead, MBO was subjected to a barrage of "pick sprawl!!"s from matan and co., having creamed Jack on it in the warmup round. MBO, however, ignored their advice. I would never go so far as to say that bit wasn't wise, but what he did next certainly seemed iffy: he chose Core. At this point in the game, the rather slow-speaking public announcer crashed out of the match, and the poor abused cameraman (now I'm stealing your joke style perks) was left to both film AND commentate to the crowd what was happening. He seemed to be fairly successful, however, as Core is a rather easy map to film and doesn't require much movement (turn until you see the gems, and then wait ages for the players to find them and collect them). Anyway - as for the match itself, MBO started out trailing Jack slightly, just looking a bit slower to the gems and with his gem routes. He continually followed Jack around for a gem or two throughout the match and made some questionable strategic decisions on the point of reds v yellows. During the first few minutes, however, he kept himself within a couple of points of Jack with a couple of well-handled blue spawns. The third blue, however, went to Jack, who then began to distance himself from MBO even more. It stayed this way until the final half-minute in which MBO put up a furious fight, pulling within six, but he was unable to regain the lead and lost the game 81-75.
At this point the public commentator finally returned - but the time it took him to get back into the game was nothing compared to Jack's thinking time. The peanut gallery in main chat suggested Spires and King of the Marble among other things, and all of the rest of us thought Jack would know better than to take them seriously, but alas - he selected Spires! The longest map in the game, lasting 6 minutes (of pain), Spires had yet to be played in this tournament. Let it be known that matan and co. spazzed when Jack chose the monstrous level.
Six minutes later, however, nobody was laughing at Jack's selection as he proved more efficient and precise than MBO on the map, simply taking the better half of most spawns and landing on the point-heavy areas a split second before MBO. Jack gathered a strong lead in the first half of the match and maintained for the rest of the game, and though MBO looked to be coming back once or twice, he never was able to get the momentum spinning his way. Jack got a solid win of 85-67.
And now it had come to Game 5. Its game tied 2-2, with the peanut gallery shouting insults to it, the randomizer was activated - and it chose Promontory, the largest map in the game.
There is not much to be said for the first part of this game. MBO gained slowly but surely on Jack for about two minutes when suddenly Jack had a lag attack. His marble began to teleport tiles at a time and soon it stopped entirely, half-buried in the floor. MBO, at first unaware of this, added perhaps 20 points onto his already formidable lead until he realized what had happened. At this point the cameraman (also the tournament organizer) explained the rules fully for everyone so as to satisfy all questions: "we'll let the clock run out".
Somehow that didn't do the trick, but people seemed to accept it well enough. And so, three minutes later, MBO 'won' the game 85-38. Jack had still not logged back in after his crash. The tournament organizer then stated that it was MBO's choice - he had had a decent-sized lead when Jack crashed, and if he wanted, he could take the win. MBO, as the shamelessly good sport he is, chose to rematch Jack on the same map.
In due time Jack returned, learned what had happened, and rejoined the game. Promontory was started again - and again MBO took a lead and increased it as time went on, spawn after spawn building it up until he had a 30-point whopper with a minute to go. Jack valiantly continued his attempts to come back, but they proved futile, and MBO was victorious 116-71, and won the match 3-2.
Fun Fact: Jack got all 4 blues on Promontory.
Great games guys - the closest yet perhaps! Looking forward to more exciting battles
![:) :)](/media/kunena/emoticons/smile.png)