Large Maps table updated on: Mar, 22

Ok, so, for two days I asked every tournament (not only this one) moderators and a few good players to give me their opinions.

The moderators didnt commute properly to handle this situation a month ago. Alex has IRL cause to void those games. However, depriving the opponents from points is not fair.

The main goal of rating system is to show skill.

We add special rule considering game voiding: If player misses the round COMPLETELY, and doesnt even play the game in that period - the games are frozen (temporarily void) until he becomes available again, but opponents advance in next round anyway. @Snook592 will have his chance at beating Alex and getting his points.

As a bonus, we will work on new system for tournaments - if player doesnt like his disposition at 0th turn, he would be able to inform the mod and reject it one time in 48 hours, or whatever is specified for tournament.

Please send your complaints about rating system to support@massiveassault.com , this inbox is constantly opened in my browser.

And yeah, we need separate tournament rating. The problem with communication is what we all had in that situation.

Glad to see the forums are active.

if you want, Snook592.

Hi friends,

Group 1 without alex was simple enough for Snook and Rem with the first managing another double victory against and the second (repeated and unfortunate history for Rem but maybe in the next tournament if their paths cross again the curse of Snook will lift for him like it did for me against Canya )

In group 2 favorites qualified with a particular spectacular battle in one of the direct confrontations - it had everything: emotion, drama, sacrifice, tongue-in-cheek dislosures (3 choppers from a 8 $ country on Wasserland!), last minute rescue (of the country Gatling by timm who despite his long absence can still play a mean game - playing good MAN seems to be like riding bycicles: once you learn it you never forget ). In the end a well deserved victory after a long absence and against a double world champion - well done... easily best game of the round.

Group 3 and 4 were symmetrical with first rated winning all 6 games and double reversals with both 3rd raters scoring double victories against second favorites. If Neverodd wasn't a great surprise at least for me (I warned about him in opening comments and he put up a good fight even against happy in one of the games) I must take particular note of YuryGuru's double victory against RobiRobs - I played both of them repeatedly in the last years and would have given Robi as favourite; congrats to Yury for his progresses.

Group 5 saw another surprise qualification: LeonAV managed to secure second place with a double victory against vetere (one of the games could still be fought but vetere being on the back foot chose to let time expire), Leon's victory against Canya was remarkable with an early surround of a warship - nice to watch and short . I managed to win all 6 games thus finally lifting the curse of Canya after 4 consecutive losses although to be honest he had the upper hand in his red game; however instead of playing a long and exhausting battle he chose to let time finish maybe so he could focus more on the small maps semifinals - we wish him best of luck there. As watching from the group I recommend my double victory against vetere, both games had an initial prudent defensive phase followed by counter-attacks, especially my green game was difficult with an early invasion of my 18 and constant zoning out of his mobile amphibians with battleships and a great number of destroyers - without false modesty I would put it as the most technical game of the round. Another particular feature is that I didn't recruit a single warship in none of the two games .

Group 6 featured only BotaniK and Rambo in the end because both lubkirill and -LEDOKOL- didn't show up. BotaniK put up a pretty good fight in both games with reasonable overall strategy but repeated tactical errors - that is he frequently lost units and loaded transports unnecessarily. He made me remeber with nostalgia the times when I banged my head repeatedly for forgetting important units and especially loaded transports within reach of some combo from opponents ; often enough those combos involved amphibians of course ))). Anyway both games were nice lessons in the importance of mobility and shrewdness by Rambo and we hope learned by his opponent - I'm sure he will improve considerably after these defeats.

In group 7 tese and giaconi beat all opposition and made 1-1 in direct confrontation; both of them won their red games with relative ease "punishing" some isolated 12's left behind enemy lines .

In group 8 the greatest confrontation was between Prapor and ALEKSANDR, especially the game where Prapor plays green (the only one still playing of the round). ALEKSANDR has to win it for qualification because he lost one against IronD, if not he will have to play tie-break - the battle itself is really worth watching: long and tough, Prapor was between -10 and -20% map domination for most of the game and at some point down 50$ in army size but later he managed to have for a turn or two larger army despite still being on the minus side percentage-wise. ALEKSANDR bought his first warship after turn 20 conquering an enemy 12 - in the meanwhile he compensated with a shitload of firestorms... I think the maximum count was 15!!. Also I think it's the only game of the whole round played on all the map - that is all neutrals were invaded or conquered ... definetely on the list of games to watch .

P.S. I hope people realize that making these comments implies watching many games which is very time-consuming especially for long ones on large maps. Between family, job and playing quite a bit of MAN time is among my most precious resources . I'm saying this as an introduction to the idea that if some players feel neglected I apologize but I'm doing my best - my coverage will always be not uniform and maybe a bit biased towards my own group. If other players want to add comments or point out interesting games that I might have neglected they should definetely do it.

Congrats to all qualified and good luck in the next round, hope to see the others try again in next tournament .

Thank you for your comments, Lord and for your time!

I think you do it better every day, with more information about games. It is like a small newspaper of the MAN2 tournaments!

Congrats!

I hope when you have time a little prediction about 2nd phase groups!

I know that might sound choosy but I am a little phobic to the concept of predictions .... that is more for betting agencies than for us .

Here is one though - the ones to win and qualify will be the best, the most beautiful ... and often enough the luckiest

Large Maps table updated on: Apr, 1

Hello everybody. I have a problem, the second game with giaconi disappeared. I'm there for the reds

Large Maps table updated on: Jun, 7

In group A Rambo had swift 2 victories with the red showing his blitzkrieg and how to convince opponents they lost in under or arround 10 turns ; in his green games he was on the back foot but still with fighting chance - now that he disappered again like he periodically does and with Snook not playing that left the group with 3 tie-breaks and timm + ALEKSANDR qualifying by default.

I won't insist on group B and D - they were kind of symetrical with first rated qualifying and one victory and a draw between the favorites.

In group C we had the most impressive duel of the round - dav vs giaconi: in his red game giaconi had almost all his army in one piece and made quite a punch through dav's position while the former champion shrewdly made a long and calculated retreat delaying his opponent and allowing other portions of his army to make progress on secondary fronts; in the end he exausted giaconi's forces enough so he could stop and beat him.
In his green game Giaconi was truly impressive - he took a page from the master and although his army and map domination were inferior for most of the game it was his turn to make delaying and calculated retreats while slowly exhausting dav's forces. In what was probably the best game of the round he came back and counterattacked pretty late (I think after turn 25) and won an impressive victory.
Of course both games are very long but if you have time I definitely recommend watching.
LJ vs dav11 was also interesting and peculiar in that almost no neutrals were involved, most of the battle was directly between our countries - dav played a scrappy but very technical game making most use of every single unit and won a nice victory thus denying my chances for qualification to my considerable grief .

Large Maps table updated on: Jul, 23

Ле рой , Прапор!!! Давите Буржуев!!!)))

Well,

Large Maps Groups finished!

Our winner is: happygrue !!

One more nice award is now associated to your nick!

Great tournament of this player. It seems that this format is good for him. Remember he won too Medium Maps Groups tournament!

Waiting for the brilliant analysis of Lord.....try don't be very bad with me!

In attached image you can see Final Table of the tournament.

I hope all the players involved had a good experience in it!