Match Preview: Fearless vs. Irish Rebels
The Warband Master Tour is heading towards the second week matches and today we are taking a look to what looks like one if not the most interesting match-up of this weekend, seeing Irish Rebels, the unlucky finalist of the previous edition, facing the last ECL champion, Fearless.
Team Information
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Fearless is the last warband reigning champion, timewise speaking. Of course, winning the ECL isn't quite the same accomplishement as winning the ECS like Freelancers did, a month before them, yet it still is one and one Garde & friends can be happy about. Due to this, they're probably coming into the WMT with some confidence even though the teams standard for this tournament are certainly higher than it was for the last ECL. This said, the boys didn't fail their start in the tournament beating Aequalitas on a relatively close scoreline.
Their roster almost didn't change since their final against Rising Rival. Last additions to the team are Maximou, Kane, Rapez, Bendetto and Smiley, five players who can potentially bring a lot of strenght to an already quite decent roster, and able to switch between archer and infantry for most of them. Players to keep en eye on for this match from the old Fearless roster are Pusiak and Garde who can be really dangerous as cavalry and Ascarion and Bullsara (also leading) for the infantry will certainly also make a difference if needed. Personally, I also expect Dest to make an important part of the work as a support/spearman, especially considering the maps played this week limit cavalry movements heavily.
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Among the teams which have always flirted with the elit tier of Warband, Irish Rebels is certainly the most famous one. Runner-up of the previous WMT, runner-up aswell in the WNL5, third place in the ECS2, it looks like they always showed some really strong and regular performance while always lacking the little touch which makes team winning tournaments. Once again, lead by Dragz and Boris, the Rebels are looking for their very first gold medal and once again, their roster looks quite scary.
Their main infantry core recently suffered Brian and Thorr's departure, just before the tournament starts however, they can rely on Oliveran to lead the way, alongside deadly players such as Sebek, SuperLilli or more recently, Gibby. As per usual, they will need Hopkin to carry their cavalry departement, but Viktor and especially Watly will also have a huge role to play, and Fearless will be quite an interesting test to see how good they're perfoming. But the real strengh of IR resides in their rangers. Toi, Virus, Attila, names which are no longer needed to present, with eventually some decent reserve in the person of Blade, and Sphere if he shows up.
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Maps
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The WMT has this particularity to bring a large choice of new maps aswell as a few old ones. This week, which is part of the closed map mastery will see a reworked Nord Town, edited by Azan, being played as the opening scenery. Options on Nord Town are rather limited, even on the edited version. If the rangers no longer have the upper roof on both spawns, they still got two other spots that can be deadly when well used. As on any close map, infantry are gonna be key but they can't be the only factor both team rely on to win the match, and if Rhodoks are known to have a stronger infantry than Swadia, many people might argue that Swadia is still way more balanced and at its advantage on such a map. As Fearless and IR aren't teams used to fight eachothers that often, I expect them to act rather carefuly at the begining, and that could be where IR's experience makes a little difference. It would be interesting for Fearless to get rounds as early as possible, to get the momentum on their side and start influencing IR's moral as much as possible.
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The second map is Desert Town, made by Taleworlds and edited by Erminas. It is also part of the new map brang in for this season and despite a few appearance, has hardly ever being played competitively recently. It will be interesting to see how well those two teams can adapt on such a relatively new map but a bad performance doesnt necesseraly mean everything as those maps won't be ever played again during the tournament.
This said, it could very well be the turning point of the match if none of the two teams managed to take a clear advantage from the first map. Desert Town is quite huge and rotation aren't that effective unlike some other maps. Either you decide to control the middle and expose yourself a little, or bet for one of the two close spawn flags, which is always a risky scenario. It is also quite easy to prevent cavalry from being over dominant by having someone dedicated to the spear and I will be probably trying to look out for what Dest is doing, knowing he is those kind of infantry nearly always playing as a support role. If he can prevent Hopkin and/or Watly to be effective, than Fearless definetly got a opportunity to challenge IR in a fair fight.
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Closing Notes
Overall, on the paper atleast, Irish Rebel looks like the favorite and if they focus and play calmy and without pressure, they should be able to get this quite convincingly. But .. there is no perfect scenario nor matchs won beforehand and many people expect Fearless to pull off an upset. A new challenge for them, certainly. But far from being an insurmountable one.