AWARDS, THOUGHTS AND THANKS
This thread marks the end of the seventh Nations Cup, the longest standing tournament in competitive Mount & Blade Warband.
First of all, a very large (figuratively and literally), well deserved congratulations to our medal winners![/center]
Turkey
This competition has seen no team more consistent than that of our winners this year. This is their sixth Nations Cup medal and first overall victory. As the home-nation of Warband and a powerhouse of the clan scene over the years with RN, Union, SoE/F and more, conquering the Nations Cup has always been a matter of pride for Turkey. It is, then, fitting that Rayden, who captained the Turks to their best previous finish (2nd in 2013), should be at the helm for their first triumph. As a leader and player, Rayden has been prolific since the early days of the game however his appearances in the Nations Cup have been separated by absences resulting from internal conflicts in the Turkish community. In the last few years he has established himself, in the eyes of many, as one of the greatest ranged players of all time and has been consistently devastating for his opponents in the Nations Cup 2016, attaining 63 kills across the 6 matches he played - 8th highest in the competition.
What Turkey represent is an effective and flexible fighting force of versatile and experienced players. With one of the smallest rosters, almost all players were required to play multiple classes and to do so at a world-class level is no mean feat. All the names of the players are listed above but obviously, other than Rayden, special mentions must go to:
Menethil - Known throughout the scene as a lethal ranged and infantry player, 6th most kills (66) in the competition. The Menethil-Kick is real and terrifying.
Sir_Arthur - This year's Golden Sword winner, with a whopping 92 kills and an exceptionally gifted horseman.
Khefren - Scoring 62 kills with one handers and tieing Menethil with 66 overall.
In the past, Turkey have been accused of training too hard and burning out early on in the Nations Cup. This year, their shock loss to Finland in the group stage tells a different story. However, the display of strength that Turkey have shown since then, giving us possibly the most one-sided NC Final ever, has been incredible. They have raised themselves head and shoulders above the rest and proven their absolute superiority this year. Well done and well deserved.
It is unfortunate that so soon after their victory, yet another tragedy was suffered in Turkish capital of Ankara. These inhumane attacks send terrible shock-waves of despair throughout the country and a thought should be spared for those affected.
Belgium & Netherlands
The historic alliance between these two countries has taken a transformation in the previous two years; going from group stage knockouts to two consecutive Nations Cup second place finishes is a transformation beyond any other. This is of course in no small part down to star players (take your pick) but what must be mentioned is the team spirit present in this side. Those in the BeNe team often refer to how close they are as friends and of course, we can all see this reflected in the videos they share, as well as the (in)famous Allejoppa.
While they didn't look too strong in the final, roundly trounced by Turkey, whom they knocked out in last year's semis, BeNe still had a brilliant run and showed the world how capable these two tiny countries can be.
United Kingdom
Probably the team that has showed the most steady improvement, throughout the years, of any. From humble beginnings to a consistent semi finalist, three years running, the UK have really established themselves as a great Warbanding nation. While many of their squad members are draped in gold from clan competitions, this wasn't the year for UK to take home the Nations Cup. A narrow loss to BeNe leaves them with a deserved bronze medal, which is a fine achievement nonetheless.
Another word about those who continued,
This year was the first time we ran the Nations Cup B. This was designed to give knockout teams a chance to continue playing Warband and have a good time, as a response to requests from players. It seems a no-brainer now and while not all of those knocked out in the group stage participated, seemed to be a success.
Congratulations to NC B:
1st - Sweden
2nd - Austria & Switzerland
3rd - Norway & Denmark
A word from myself,
Brilliant as they are, this would not be a Nations Cup without everyone who participated. No team failed to get a single round, and most of you managed to get at least one kill! So great going all, round.
As mentioned, this is the seventh Nations Cup event, since the first in 2010. This is my second as an admin (the other was 2011) but I have participated in every single NC so far, in some form, whether as a player, captain, admin or streamer and it has consistently proved itself to be a great event for bringing the community together. Every year, players are forced to break free from their clan allegiances, meet new people, learn to play and communicate with them and it always proves to be a success in the end.
I could talk about how it is a testament to the game and the community, that we still put on events like this and how active the game still is after all these years, but I really don't see the need. What I see is a competitive scene that knows itself very well. We are no longer surprised at our activity and we do not need to be. Competitive Warband offers something which no other game can; it continues to bring us back year-after-year, and each time we look forward to the next. Some of the squads have barely lost a member since last NC and while there are new faces, some of them making a very strong mark indeed, kicking off the competitive year with the NC and feeling the permanence of those old stars is a great reminder of the scene's history.
We can now look forward to what the rest of the year has in store for competitive Warband. I plan to continue streaming but I'm pleased to see that the level of activity barely made that possible this tournament. For the first time, we see streamers almost fighting over matches to cover and the quality is continuing to improve as well. As always, my role will be to help the competitive scene in whichever way I feel best. A lot of you are making remarks on the forums and on streams about Bannerlord. Rest assured, I will be here to make sure that when we transition, we do it right. It is of course going to be a massive change with a tonne of long term benefits but please understand, you only need worry about it when I tell you (not yet!). For now, the best thing we can do is to keep enjoying Warband and keep improving the quality of tournaments, streams, level of play and professionalism of teams. As far as I'm concerned, we're well on the right track!
Hopefully everyone enjoyed this Nations Cup, whether as a player or spectator.
Cheers,
Frank / Lust
Many thanks to the many who made this competition what it was,
Thanks first to all of my fellow admins. This is the largest team I have ever been a part of working with and my god, does it make things a lot easier! Every admin has put in a great deal of work to make this one of the best ran tournaments in the scene's history. Here they all are:
Aeronwen - In addition to scrutinising and maintaining the rules, livestream, bans and announcement threads, she is the one coordinating the rest of us admins and reminding everyone of all their tasks, keeping the administrative machine churning.
Deacon - Probably the most prolific tournament administrator in the history of the scene. His expert knowledge of the game, and understanding of the community, make him invaluable in any administrative roster, when making decisions. He also took care of the pick nights, which have become a staple of competitive Warband.
Dyktator - Master of cards and keeper of old tomes. He has done a lot of work keeping threads up to date and his experience with the game, combined with his cool, rational head have been great during this NC.
Erminas - Taking his wealth of experience with the Weekend Cups, now taking part in the more major tournaments, he did a massive amount of work updating threads, preparing fixture graphics and overseeing work.
Fabio - Almost every single match in this competition had a referee and benefited greatly for it. No tournament goes of without any hitch but this NC went pretty smoothly and Fabio was the man who arranged the referee schedules (thanks for the referees themselves below).
Harman - For developing a proper automated system to handle ID checking, making sure teams are playing fair, this really saved a lot of time and made the team more efficient. As the only player with two NC titles, he is also unmatched when it comes to experience in the competition.
Scar - Legendary admin and player, who has also taken BBCode design to the next level. In addition to designing all the threads, he also created the ruleset with the same flair that always results in excellent content with brilliant presentation.
Thanks also to Calamity, who joined the team as a consultant, primarily to advise the team on issues relating to the NA team. I am confident they were well treated and as always, it was a pleasure to have them in the tournament. Calamity also contributed with many helpful suggestions and was generally supportive.
For the Nations Cup 2016 logo and winners medals, thanks very much to Chat Noir. I have already expressed my thoughts on the logo here and needlessly to say, it is wonderful to have such expertly designed graphics for the competition.
Thanks to all of the referees for keeping the tournament matches flowing so well and by the rules. This is always a tremendous help in the NC, where there are often inexperienced leaders or different factors to consider.
Airelhach - 1
Bauglir - 1
Gasset - 2
Galahad - 1
John Bain - 2
Raven - 3
Robin - 4
Rome - 7
ReneKB - 1
Surkan - 2
Tardet - 3
Kiano - 2
Special mention to Rome for refereeing seven games!
A massive thank you to everyone who streamed. These live feeds are records for the ages and represent a grander advancement in the community. We really had overwhelming service this year, on the streaming front and the quality continues to raise. This is obviously something quite close to me personally, and I'm thrilled to see so many groups working to produce top quality Warband streams now. Can't wait to see it keep getting better in the future.
The channels that provided streams are listed here, along with the number of matches they covered:
Greedalicious - 9
DoF_tv - 4
Konstrush - 4
MB_tv - 4
Bladecast - 1
And to all the additional casters who joined them, as well, many thanks: Aeronwen, Erminas, Purzelblume, Raven, Piccolo, Aksamit, Watly, Kohath, Belendor, Thunderbeau, Fozzy, and Cleric
Thanks, of course, to our server providers. Without you, the tournament literally wouldn't be possible and obviously the Nations Cup creates some extra sensitive issues around servers as well. Overall, we had very few problems and a good, stable environment for this years brilliant matches.
TaleWorlds - 6
Captain Lust - 2
Defenders of Faith - 5
The Kingdom of Swadia - 3
Team Poland - 1
Sabo - 4
Special mention to Viglaf for being active in updating and maintaining the admin mod iterations at the start of the tournament.
Thanks to MnBComp for the great interviews and scores being pushed out onto social media (Aeronwen, LeRoux, OGL) and graphics provided by Chat Noir and Kohath. Also to guest interviewer, Greed.
For the entertaining, insightful and interesting stats, thanks very much to Yami and Harman.
The master of cards has dealt again; thanks to Dyktator for shuffling the NC2016 into his deck.
Match previews are alive and well this year! Thanks to Varangian, Viktor, Tardet, Robin, Greed and Rayden for their contributions.
Many thanks to Sjaeles for running an excellent betting thread for the competition and congratulations, Pendragon for winning it!
The video competition, at the start of the tournament, was an early highlight for many and really helped to set the the mood this year. Thanks to Osiris for running it and to aD_RaGe, Belendor, Duken, LeRoux, M and Shoxi for their outstanding entries.
Thanks to everyone who posted and made suggestions on the forums and across social media, as well as everyone who tuned into the streams, creating the NC buzz that brings the tournament to life!
Once again, thanks to every single player who took part. Even if your team didn't do well or you weren't happy with your personal performance, the essence of competition is in the players. Well done for taking part in this historic event. Special mention for the Irish team, taking part for the first time.
All players Nations Cup 2016, list:
14thor12 Achilles Aira Airelhach Aldro Alene Alloo Alpha Alvar Anchor Anders ANIMEWNOE Anthony Aporta Arch3r Ares Arraknia Arys Asediado Attack Attila Augustus Avantro axL AZAN Bauglir Bendetto Bitter_Bloom Blackhawk BlackTide Blade Blixn bohemi_kopek2 Boris Brian Broomstick Brownie Bullsara Burdie Caius Can Caps CarpeDiem Cavetroll Ceasar Charlini Ciiges Cleric_Johnson Clockwise Colonel Corey Corgan Cradoc Crazed Hobo CristoTheVicious Cru Danate Daniel Dante Darklight Deacon Dingus McLingus Dirty_Monk Disturbed DoctorPepper Dominique Dominus Donut Dopey Dr Doener Dragz Dreaon Dume Dyktator | Eduard Elazul Eltharis Ereinion Erminas eRRoR Fabio Feanor Fetter Bomber Fietta Firunien Flans Flex Foley Freezy Galahad GANNICUS Garde Gasset George Gibby Goldenblack Golradir Gordioss Greed Grifon Guacc Gubbo Gunebol Habrak Halt Harley_Quinn Harman Hayalet Heat Hippotitis Hives Hokej Hopkiin Horace Hugoboss Hun Ice iLoveUnNorm imNotAlone Iovca Irsman Iruvatar Jabbe JarvisAndPi Jeffrey9792 JJJJJJJJJ John Johny Juve Kane Katniss Kellermann Khefren Kiano KilleR Kingjohn Klockis Knezevic Kohath Kore Krhman Kulis Lagstro Latinkon Leofric LeRoux Levhan LexT | Lt LukeLdor M Macco MaHuD Marek Marko Matafiks Max Maximou Megamen Meldo Menethil Merzhin Messius Mete_Khan Mitchell Modus Momcilo mOnkey Moonshadow Motthe Mr Boston Ncromancien Neathar neD Noldor OGL Oliveran OliverQueen Oodle Osiris Parasdoxa Paulo Pendragon pepa168 perpzije Petee Peter Peterman Piotes Pon Posh PotatoLogic Potion Seller PPK157 Princelele Prusak Pyrokar Q RadCrusher RaGe Rasko Raven Raven Rayden Razer RD Reek Roberta Robin Rodriguez Rome Rubarjiman ryozu S0ul Salakien Sandcrab Sandorra Savage Scar Sebe Sebek Sento | Shakalis Shanksy Sharky Shingen Shoxi Sifon Sikici Silver Sir_Arthur Sir_Knight SirAlecks Sjaeles Sjtaf Slash SlyFox Smiley Smouker Sodomard SotaMursu SoundNinja Sparkie Sparta Specimen SpheRe StarstenCahl Subzero Superlilli Surkan Svoboda Tallie Tardet Tarias Theo Thorr Thunderbeu Tigerwhite Tito Toi Tomy Traeeseron Trebron Troubadour Tuvius Tyhke Unicorn Varadin Varangian Vashj Vergtyg Vernon Vex Viglaf Viktor Vincenz Vinny Violet Virus Vivar Walter Warcrown Warhammer Waringham Watly Wierdo WilySly Woj xls Yager YipMan Yona zDevilBox Zoltanus Zulu Zytum |
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