Match Preview
North America vs Finland
Given time : Saturday 19:30 GMT.
The first confrontation of this Nation Cup is gonna see the North America facing Finland in order to determine who's gonna share the lead of Group B for Week 1. And the least which can be said, is that those two teams are not beginners when it comes to Nation Cup. In 6 editions, they have been participating every single time and if they eventually felt short getting to the final phases, they're definetly used to that kind of events and know how to hold the pressure. What is going to be interesting is watching how they're gonna perform versus eachothers ; because they both intend to give an hard time to their opponent!
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| It is always a special thing to fight North America because of the home-away system. But more than that, if you actually look at their team, you have many reasons to be scared, whoever you're. Assembling all the best players of the NA community must have been all but not an easy task however Arys and Oodle proved that they could do it and consequently, they're coming into this match with a pretty solid roster, but more importantly, with players which know eachothers very well. It is really hard to find them a weakness because no matter if you look at their cavalry, infantry or rangers, they took their best representatives, to give the best performance possible. Their infantry core, composed of PPK, Oodle, Aporta and Troubadour is going to be a deadly threat for any Nations, especially with the ping advantage. Those four will be able to count on some pure elite cavalry, I named Vinny, Heat, Wily and Cru. And if any of the Group B players forget to hold up their shield, make them remember that Jeffrey, Lagstro, Achilles and John are ready to build up with any of your mistakes. Their shooting is simply astonishing. The last WPL showed how dangerous any of those players could be, and even though the ping was largely at their advantage troughout their whole matchs vs EU teams, it gives a good indication of their form and that if they get to figure out what could work on the hardside (EU server), then they can definetly put up more than a good fight and go far in the Nations Cup. |
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On the other hand, Finland is once again answering the call, and they also have their lots of stars in their ranks. Lead by someone who does no longer need to be presented, Sotamarsu, the fins are not willing to give to the America team an easy ride and in order to do so, they also brang an excelent composition which aims to handle anything those damn americans could sent to them. Though, on the paper, their team doesn't look as balanced as the NA's one is. If they can count on their so damn rangers like Sota, Ryozu and Bauglir, they might lack some really decisive infantries like the ones NA is gonna put in front of them. However, if they can time up their positioning and engagements with their cavalry, axL, Dopey and Varagian, two players which proved being deadly when having the room to do so, will do the rest. All in all, I find the team Finland etablished really interesting and I'm yet to see what they can do together. With the server ping differences, I expect this match to be really close, but with a slight advantage to Arys and coe. It is Finland task to prove me wrong and give all but not a walk in the park to the North America team. |
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| Ironically, the two first maps played for the Week1 of the Nations Cup are the two new maps which were implanted for the Warband Native League 5, some months ago. If people figured out to play it for a while already, it might not be those two map they know how to play at the best of their capacities. Concerning Naval Outpost, it is this kind of Map where pre-positioning can have a major influence in your way to approach the fight, and win it. Some would say that it is the case for every maps, and I would tend to agree with them, but on Naval Outpost, I find it even more important. If you give up the Central Ally to focus on either Boat or the In-Between Spawns, you give your opponent a chance to control it and be faster when it comes to take positions for the foutain flag. However you also take the risk of an early engagement by doing so, something that some leaders prefer avoiding. North America might want to use Nords to engage very early with their infantry and build up from that with the momentum on going. But if Finland manage to set up a decent bunch of crossfire, then it will be probably not so easy for them to do so. With the superiority of their infantry I would still give NA the upper hand on this map. |
When it will come to River Village though, this might be another story. If Finland can use their cavalry really well, teamplaying with their rangers, than they have a little chance making the difference they need to beat NA. It will be all about their decision to not put up with NA's style play and make the game, create the opportunities, and not waste them. They do have the players need for such a task but I don't see NA sitting passivly to let them doing so. I expect River Village to be a bit closer than Naval Oupost for the reason that the infantries won't play the same role than on the close map. Though, Finland will need their two/three players who have the hard job to play infantry to be extremly solid, especially under the flags. Playing more than that, or not having them being decisive at the right moment will simply means game over in my opinion. | 
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Thanks to Robin for giving me a good exemple of how to set up the thread and Aeronwen through him, since she has been the one doing all the coding/formating stuff.
Thanks to him aswell for allowing me writting a preview myself. Since matchs didn't started yet, I don't have anything to do and I was really willing to make one analys about this match and he has been kind enough to let me doing so.
