Robin's Match Previews
Index
Week 1 Poland vs Ireland
Week 1 Russia & Ukraine vs Norway & Denmark
Match Preview
Russia & Ukraine vs Norway & Denmark
Russia vs Norway & Denmark will take place Sunday 19:30 GMT streamed by Konstrush and refereed by Raven.
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| Russia might well have won the Nation's Cup 2014 but were disqualified for breaking the rules and Scandinavia took the championship. During the Nations Cup 2015 Russia lost in Quarter Final to United Kingdom, the score ended 9:7 to UK. The commanders of Russia last year were Grifon and Sifon. This year Grifon is commanding once again this time with Silver. Ukraine took part in Nations Cup 2014 as well, commanded by R1ch. They did not make it into the Quarter Final 2014 or 2015, sadly. This year, due to lack of active Ukrainian players, Russia & Ukraine have formed an alliance and are looking to win Nations Cup 2016. Will it happen? Russia & Ukraine has obviously some of the scene's strongest players such as Sodomard, Bendetto, Grifon, Silver and Dirty_Monk. Bendetto is one of the best archers in the game and is facing Norway & Denmark in his first match. Will Bendetto be able to shoot them in the face, or will Wierdo bring him down before he even raised his bow? Sodomard and Silver are both very talented infantries and key players. Sodomard has been inactive for a very long time, is he ready for Nations Cup? Dirty Monk has been playing cavalry since the game pretty much came out and is an excellent cav player. Will he and Rasko be able to bring down Norway & Denmarks cavalry? Russia & Ukraine won't have any kind of problems about the communication, it will be in favour of Russia & Ukraine. Will the commanders of Russia & Ukraine, Grifon and Silver, bring glory to their team? |
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| And now going from one of the best teams to Norway & Denmark. Norway & Denmark were part of the Scandinavian team with Sweden that won in Nations Cup 2014, including Sweden. Norway decided to make their own team 2015 but it did not end well. They had to leave the tournament due to lost motivation and inactivity. The commander of team Norway last Nations Cup was Anders. However, Sweden and Denmark played in alliance lat year under the command of Oliveran. Both Norway and Sweden & Denmark performed badly last Nations Cup. Maybe it has changed now since Denmark decided to merge with Norway instead of Sweden. Looking at Norway & Denmark's roster it consists of players like Wierdo, Anders, Levhan, Greed, Viglaf, Kohath and Arraknia. Viglaf and Wierdo are extremely good at playing cavalry. Both been playing cavalry since a very long time and are also some of the scene's strongest cavalries. Anders was very active back in the days, but now you barely see this excellent archer playing warband, sadly. However, Anders is back to make sure Norway & Denmark will win vs Russia & Denmark, but will it be enough? Greed is another great archer, that means They have 2 really good rangers. Levhan, Arraknia and Kohath are all good infantries. All playing from time to time, maybe they play to less native? The infantries of Norway & Denmark will have to play very aggressively to make it work. They can not let Greed and Anders be drawn into melee, if they do, the round is lost. Norway & Denmark need their rangers help shooting the enemies archers and cavalries. Will their commander Kohath deliver some good tactics on both maps, or will Russia & Ukraine make better tactics? |
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| First map will be Naval Outpost, made by Firunien and already played in the ECS and WNL. It is a closed map and will be in favour of Russia & Ukraine. Some people find it as a mixed map. The spawns are relatively close to each other, and can be pushed fast. There's loads of camping positions furthermore you can set up crossfire pretty easily. Naval Outpost is a very balanced map, and is one of the best maps right now. The standard setup is 2 archers, 2 cavalries and 4 infantries. Maybe the time has come to do some different setup? The factions are Rhodoks vs Nords, quite balanced in my opinion. Rhodoks can do the cleaver drops but Nords has the axes! Nords are extremely good on closed maps, and some likes to have 5 infantries, 1 archer and 2 cavalries as Nords. Maybe we'll see that as Nords? Who knows. Nord axes can easily crush their opponents shields. Rhodoks has to make sure that does not happen, in that case Nords archers would shoot them to death comes. Russia & Ukraine has way better rangers than Norway & Denmark do. That will be another favour of Russia & Ukraine, but they can't just think their archers will do everything, teamwork is the key of victory. Bendetto, Grifon and Max are all great archers. They can just be running around on the map and setting up crossfire easily, since they know how it works. But are Anders and Greed any match for them? The 5 infantry tactic might not work for Norway & Denmark, considering they don't have that many infantries. To make sure everything goes right, I'd still say Norway & Denmark will go with 2 archers, 3 infantries and 3 cavalry. That's what I think their setup as Nords will be, looking at their roster and figuring out their classes. Russia & Ukraine's infantries are very good, I am pretty sure they will overrule Norway & Denmark infantries without any kind of problem. Russia & Ukraine has to be careful of not walking into a crossfire that Norway & Denmark setting up, and also watch out for Wierdo, he might come in their back and couch lance someone if they don't pay attention. Wierdo is known as one of the best cavalries in the game, he is a very good cavalry with javelins. He might ride around on the map and throw javelins into Russia & Ukraine cavalries if they are not careful. Rasko is another great cavalry, pretty new to the scene I think. I am quite sure Russia & Ukraine will be playing Rasko or Dirty Monk as cavalry on this map. Or even both. Both of them are excellent as cavalries. I have seen Rasko playing very aggressively during matches and dying. Hopefully, he won't do that mistake on Sunday; it might a round lost for them. Obviously, both teams has to think wisely about tactics and their setup on this map. The normal setup might not work on this map, since both teams has excellent players at each classes. Instead, both nations has to figure out their enemies weaknesses and strike their weaknesses as soon as they can. If one nation figures out the other nation has good infantries, then they can be adding one extra infantry and removing a crossbowman. But if they remove a crossbowman or archer the crossfire will reduce a lot. Moreover, if you reduce your crossfire, the other team can easily push and kill the whole team. This map is pretty much about crossfire and tactics. My prediction is that Russia & Ukraine will win 6:2 on Naval Outpost. |
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River Village, the 2nd map, is made by Reggae and was used in the WNL. River village will be in favour of Russia & Ukraine. The factions will be Swadia vs Vaegirs. Russia & Ukraine will be going with 3 archers, just like Poland will against Ireland. Russia & Ukraine has extremely good archers as well, and they can easily set up a sick crossfire that you can't avoid. Infantries will be doing long awlpike drops to their cavalries. Cavalries will be in need of long awlpikes a lot. Infantries are quite useless on this map as I mentioned in my previous preview. Infantries will be there to push archers if they have to, or rise the flag when it is needed. Otherwise, it is an archer and cavalry map for sure.Will Anders and Greed be able to shoot Russia & Ukraine's archers before they shoot them? I doubt so, but we'll see. Norway & Denmark will have to think wisely about their setup and tactics on this map to make sure they won't get caught in position by Russia & Ukraine. Russia & Ukraine are playing training matches almost every day, so they know how this map works, and they know how to play it in a proper way. I am pretty sure that Russia & Ukraine feels more comfortable Playing River Village than Naval Outpost. It's pretty much also about where the flags spawn. Flags play a big part in this map, and it is very important to do the right moves before the enemies. Norway & Denmark will win 1 single round on River Village. If they had the flag in their favour, and could easily see where Russia & Ukraine were splitting up then they decided to push one side and caught some of Russia & Ukraine off guard, then they would manage to win the whole round. Russia & Ukraine will be setting up crossfire all over the map, and make sure their archers are protected at any time. Russia & Ukraine are ready to sacrifice their infantries, just to make sure their archers will be in life and still being able to shoot Norway & Denmark into pieces. Once Norway & Denmark are running to the flag, Russia & Ukraine's cavalries will rush their archers to slow them down and make sure they won't be touching the flags. Maybe Norway & Denmark will do the same? A team without archers are useless. Russia & Ukraine has always been good at finding enemies weaknesses. Will they be able to find Norway & Denmark's weaknesses? |
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My prediction is a victory for Russia & Ukraine with a score of 12:3 against Norway & Denmark.~~***~~
Thanks to Aeronwen for the formatting and Syreth for the graphic!
