I was perusing through my IRC channel, which has swelled to ten idlers and is bursting with excitement and conversation, and I came across LooseCannon from LucK saying, “mike getting lazy on hisss preddsss =p”. My first thought was concern for my precious idler; I thought Sir Hiss might have eaten him and taken control of his computer.
Quickly remembering that was just a nightmare I had about Disney movies, I thought back to the eMazing tournament page, which I’ve visited about 750 times to look up the bracket and get background information for teams in previous predictions. I vaguely remembered thinking it was weird that Round 6 was being played on Tuesday.
Wait a minute, I thought, today is Tuesday.
Upon further investigation, the situation wasn’t as dire as I feared. Sir Hiss wasn't involved at all, and there’s only one match to predict because Legerity and n3mesis either rescheduled or they’re going into their 48th overtime. I’m assuming they’ll just play later, and I’ll post that prediction when the matchup is known.
Since there’s still one match to be played, my record from last week is incomplete. I’m 2-1 thus far, avoiding the Round 5 Apocalypse, and bringing my total record to 92-30.
Round 6 (de_contra, de_train, de_dust2)
LucK vs. It Takes Five – I feel like I’m the villain on the “eMg Predictions” episode of Scooby Doo. The dog gets all the tasty treats, and I’m in handcuffs yelling about those meddling kids.
The meddling kids, in this case, would be It Takes Five. They’ve spoiled another one of my perfectly good predictions by beating Unheardof, which is just another example of how ego-centric society has become. What about my needs as a predictor!? Back in early 2007, the good old days, teams respected their predictors. They nodded politely as we told stories about how we shared files by uploading them both ways, through the snow, at 1 kbps.
In all honesty, congratulations to IT5, once again. They’ve played well, and they deserve the praise. They didn’t get here with five forfeit wins (yes fragout!, we’re looking at you).
Last round, they took the bookend matches on Fire and Strike. Not to toot my own horn (read: commence horn tooting!), but I mentioned that as a possibility during the FragTech/Legerity prediction. The lesser known teams have more reasons to be motivated, and because Fire and Strike aren’t standard maps, they could easily make up any skill difference with hard work and preparation. For anybody who is curious, the scores were: Fire 16-12, Nuke 6-16, and Strike 22-19 (double OT).
LucK’s matchup wasn’t as close; they beat OSG on the first two maps (16-11, 16-3). Because I’ve done so many predictions, I feel like I’ve gotten to know the teams a little bit. So at this point, I wish a fond farewell to Unheardof and Old School Gamers. They both played very well, and I’ll pour a virtual 40 for them the next time my CS avatar is binge drinking.
If you remember from the last prediction for LucK, I mentioned that their practice schedule hasn’t been strenuous for the eMg tournament. It won’t make as big of a difference as it did last round, because Contra, Train, and Dust2 are standard Source maps. In fact, I think IT5’s best chance of winning is to come out with a vengeance and take the first two maps.
Contra, while standard, is still a tough map to play on without practice. You need really good communication on rotations so you don’t end up with three people at the same sewer entrance on a site retake, or splitting when you should be rushing on a T side adjustment. And, from previous predictions, IT5 is not to be taken lightly. I think they’ll win Contra.
Train poses some of the same problems with rotations and communication, but to a lesser extent. I watched LucK play on Train earlier in the tournament against cyberXtreme. The score there was 16-10 in favor of LucK, although cX played with a couple backups. They weren’t coL-impressive during the win, but they were solid. The best hope for IT5, in my mind, is to have a shut-down CT side and then squeeze out three or four rounds on T side to win the map. LucK did a good job of coming out strong in each half, but cX came back after that initial push. IT5 needs to avoid that situation at all costs.
In my opinion, Train is the critical map. If LucK takes it, I think they’ll move on to a comfortable win on Dust2, just like Unheardof had a big 16-6 win on Nuke over IT5. But, if IT5 can eke out the win on Train, I think they’ll end up taking one of the other maps and move on.
In the end, I’m sticking with LucK, even though IT5 has burned me twice. I think they’ll be able to take Train and D2 after dropping Contra. It should be a great matchup though, and, as a fan, I hope it comes down to the last map.
LucK > IT5 2-1
Contra: 12-16
Train: 16-14
Dust2: 16-10
Focus on my swinging watch. You’re getting sleepy. Very sleepy. When I snap my fingers, you’ll wake up, all teams will have good luck, the predictors winners will win, and the predicted losers will prove me wrong.
Snap.
