Thanks to Bacillus we have predictions and another Aftermath!

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Bacillus' Snowrollers - Gangbang very late aftermath.

Foreword: As people seemed to like my aftermath last time, I decided to put a little more work and focus into it. The report turned out to be really long. Nevertheless, it should be much better composed and easier to read, so it's not completetly a bad thing. Is this way too long, or do you want more aftermath like this? Please give me feedback even if its just "Too long, didn't read" and I'll tune my final preds and remaining aftermatches according to it.

Snowrollers - Gangbang

Uh oh, a weird match indeed.

NS_METAL

Round 1 - GB (M), SR (A)

SR gets surf hive. GB opens with early armslab. 3 marines spread out for capping, Tane and Hopsu get SG and head through mineral into the nodes. Meanwhile SR builds Storage D and Smelter nodes.

A little disorganised first round. SR plays quite passive and allows the two man pressure to walk around, first to heating (no node there) and later on to smelter node. The simultaneous LMG pressure to Stor D node keeps SR skulks spread out and the smelter node goes down without much resistance.

A little later a SR baserush takes out obs, but fails to cause much else. Really unlucky for SR, Espiritus crashes right before he could take down coolant node. The extra res GB got from it was valuable later on. Meanwhile the game slips slowly into GB's favour. Tane forces the SR to defend stor D rt with his shotgun, the rest of the GB secure the cooland and smelter area nodes. A little later Kuitmo recaps Tane's SG and manages to take out stor D node without much opposition.

At 5:35 Tane manages to pull off some amazing shotgun work, taking down Atman's fade at Heating room's ladder and following up with another nice skulk frag. Without fade SR can't clear smelter for hive 2nd hive. Peach keeps the pressure on the surf area and techs up with 6-7 nodes. The rest of the round stays steadily in GB's control. At 8:40 Kuitmo practically decides the round with a nice lerk-fade-skulk frag combo in heating. Jetpacks are ready at 10 minutes and the surf hive goes down at 11 minutes. 1 - 0 for GB.

Once again, I'd say the early skulkwork of SR was a bit too passive. The skulks rarely intercepted any marines and Peach could control the momentum most of the round. With momentum came map control. The mineral and flight nodes were practically safe and cooling side went down maybe once or twice. Combine this with Peach's masterful res control and you've got a winning combination.

Round 2 - SR (M), GB (A)

GB gets surf hive. SR opens with two early cappers at flight and one at powerbanks and goes for an early obs. The first surprise of the round is Aleksi getting kicked due to a 'rate change' while gorging. The kick forces GB to readapt, get a new gorge to cap Storage D and also leaves them down to 5 players for quite a while.

While GB is down 5 players, SR pushes in and takes out heating node with some great shotgunning by Enigmatic. They also manage to cap coolant side nodes easily. A little later Hopsu recaps heating, but GB still struggles heavily with the map control and doesn't manage to do any harm to SR's nodes. With their economy booming, SR easily secures mineral and smelter hive areas with PGs and forces GB to get the hive to coolant. Due to the early lost gorge, GB gets their 2nd MC a little before 5 minutes. That has to hurt a lot, especially on a quite remote hive like surface.

Doogie builts coolant hive at 5 minute mark. SR reacts immediately and they're getting PG at supply 20 seconds later. Tane's fade and Kuitmo's lerk barely manage to fend off the first two shotguns, but the second wave of shotgunners takes out Tane's fade and gets the PG up. Because of the PGs, GB can't do much damage to the 7 RT economy of SR. The cooling hive goes down at 7 minute mark. From that point on its all downhill for GB. SR techs up with practically the whole map secured. The surf hive goes down at 11:30 to a 3/1 upg sg hmg combo. During the whole round enigmatic has been solid with his SG and HMG and he finishes the round with 25 frags and one death.

It's really difficult to analyze the round due to the early lost gorge that messed up the GB game badly. Late chambers, late 2nd RT, lost heating node and the lack of RT biting left GB with a big disadvantage into mid and late game. SR on the other hand played well and capitalized their advantage smartly. Enigmatic's marine performance was almost flawless, although I feel he didn't really even get tested because of all the disorganisation in GB's play. Tane's fading on the other hand was solid until the one slight mistake and death. I doubt any fade in ENSL could've held the coolant against the waves of shotguns.

NS_ORIGIN

Round 3 - GB (M), SR (A)

SR gets biodome hive, GB opens with 3 rines capping double, early armslab, 2 basebuilders into a shotgun pressure to power core. SR builds power core and ventilation nodes.

I found Peach's plans for Origin really intersting. Getting double capped early was far from the standard pressure and cautios furn cap routine. I've yet to figure out if the plan worked for GB's advantage more than the standard play, but it certainly didn't do bad.

While the shotgun pressure didn't manage to kill the power core RT, it still kept SR busy. DBL stayed up for a few minutes and Kuitmo managed to take out vent RT without much resistance. With a little bit of luck the power core would've gone down too and given GB a nice early advantage with two nodes taken out. You'll also have to give a lot of credit to Enigmatic's lerking. He effectively kept the LMGs from reinforcing the powercore push, which most likely saved the RT more than once.

Although the double stayed up for surprisingly long, GB never really got the furn side into their control. Klawz managed to kill the capper and took out the furn node. Although the furn side nodes were capped again by GB a little later, they still were down to 0/1 at 4:30 when the 2nd hive was dropped at vent.

Since the furn hadn't been capped for long, GB was forced to recap the dbl before proceeding to the growing vent hive. Luckily for GB, Enigmatics lerk got killed during the fight over DBL and wasn't sporing the progress to the vent. The vent PG went up at 6:30, a minute before the hive would be up. At this point NsN crashed and GB was forced to attempt the hive takedown with 5 players and only 2 0/1 upgrade SGs. Long story short, the hive lived and GB was forced to regroup at their PG on top of DBL.

The rest of the game was a struggle for GB with low upgrades. They managed to hold on for surprisingly long against the focus fades, but eventually the SR advantage took over even though GB managed to hold their ground for 2/1 upgrades and jetpacks. The furn PG went down and the hive went up just before 30 minutes. Big credit for GB's teamwork, I didn't think anyone could come back that close against 2 focus fades and practically no upgrades. Nevertheless, 2-1 for SR.

I think this was one of the best rounds of the match. Apart from NSN crashing, everything went smooth and the game was way closer than the metal rounds. Enigmatic's lerking was the biggest highlight early on. Dying at DBL later on wasn't a good idea, but eventually the time they stalled at DBL paid off.

Round 4 - SR (M), GB (A)

GB gets furn hive, SR opens with 2 bio cappers, obs and 2 SGs. GB caps ore and furn nodes.

For some reason SR didn't drop obs until a minute into game, having two shotguns sitting in the base for quite a while. After the SGs got to laser, tane smartly sneaked into MS and forced them to turn back for some more delay. Once they got to lava catwalk, the lerk was already up. The next few minutes were quite hilarious as GB just backed off in front of the shotties. Hopsu's permgorge and Kuitmo's lerk kept on harassing the shotguns as they proceeded to take out furn node. The first of the three marines died to spore at furn area, the next one to spits at ore. Meanwhile Tane and Doogie flanked base and manage to take out the ip and force the bio side cappers to fall back to base. The rest of the furn was easily cleared by GB, Hopsu recapped furn and Doogie set up the hive at 4:30.

SR reacted by getting a PG between or and DBL. The push managed to take out Tane's fade at ore, but the constant skulk harass, spit and spore forced them to sieging positions. The sieges never got up as the hive was ready and the leapskulks cleared the spore weakened marines. NSN's fade finished the struggle by taking out the PG a few minutes later.

GB quickly recapped ore and proceeded to the SR nodes. A little later the a baserush took out SR's upgrading armory. From that point on GB steadily kept pushing SR back to the power core PG. With all the res areas under their control, GB controlled the rest of the game. The MS went down roughly at 20 minutes. 2-2.

Another good round. Tane's fading was the only disappointment to me. Otherwise GB showed some nice teamwork and smart play. The Hopsu Kuitmo combination did great job both on defending furn side nodes and a little later they also saved the hive from getting overrun. I feel that SR could've played more aggressive and pushed the 2 shotguns before the lerk could come into play, but otherwise the teamwork was the major factor on both teams. A good round in overall.


Bacillus' Snowrollers - Ru Preds

The last match in the prem division and both teams are out of the top two for this season. Nevertheless, both teams had some very good moments on their last ensl match, so I'd still expect to see good NS.

The 2nd week proved that SR belongs to the very elite of the remaining ensl. They improved a lot from the week 1 and almost ended up beating the mighty Gangbang in an entertaining 2-2 tie. Especially Enigmatic was absolutely on fire vs GB and I don't think he's going to slow down against Ru. SR also took a very convincing marine victory on metal, so they shouldn't be slipping free rounds for the opponent on marines anymore. I think their skulkwork was still a little passive and it resulted in a lost vent node vs a lone LMG on origin last week. Apart from some minor mistakes om the skulkwork they seem to be going very strong now.

Ru on the other hand played 3 bad rounds and one excellent round last week against FL. Their marine rounds were quite desperate and didn't last even 15 minutes altogether. However, the alien side worked quite good especially on metal, where they managed to force FL into a proto vs 2nd hive war. Although FL eventually overskilled the 2nd hive fades and took the victory, it was by far the best round from Ru this season. On origin they also showed that they're ready for baserushes and other risky moves, so the SR comm has to be on his toes at all times. On marines I can't see Ru taking rounds unless SR fails both early game and lifeforms big time.

I'd say the alien rounds are a walk in the park for SR, but they can't afford all that many marine slips. Especially the possible baserushes might be fatal if not handled properly. Ru on the other hand needs to improve their game in overall and on marines they'll have to pull off some remarkable improvement or some neat surprise to take a round. They'll also have to handle the destructive force of Enigmatic's shotgunning and lerking. I'd call it a 4-0 for SR unless SR makes a mistake or Ru plays an excellent round like the metal aliens against FL. I expect Enigmatic to be man of the match, especially on early game SG and lerk.