Round 1 of the PBEM 2 vs 2 team tournament has started! (Tournament)

16 teams and 32 players will fight for several months to win the first PBEM team tournament organised on the Battlefield.com! The first two rounds will be bloody as the three favourite teams meet straight away! The winning team will get a nice cup in real life.

An Article by Hiliadan

Announced in a piece of news in June (Registration for a PBEM 2 vs 2 team tournament will open next week), the first PBEM team tournament ever organised for AoW3 started about a month ago, on July 15th. 16 teams of two are currently fighting each other in 8 matches. This is a double elimination tournament so the losers of this first round will drop in the loser bracket and will have a second chance to stay in the tournament by fighting each other.

The tournament uses v1.16 of the PBEM balance mod  which solves most of the official release's balance issues (see the different articles about the balance mod for more details, especially the latest one: PBEM balance mod v1.16 released) and allow a good PBEM experience for competitive level matches (but is also strongly recommended for casual players, including single players).

A poll was run to ask to players from the Battlefield.com who they thought would be in the top 3 of the tournament.

Results of the poll (also viewable here)

The favourite is thus B&I - Hiliadan & cbower, part of the team A Song of Blight and Ice (B&I) which also includes Ezekiel (Eskild) and AlXStormrage, who fight under the banner Bastard of the North in the tournament.
Coup de Grâce, gabthegab and Tussel, and King Serpents, marcuspers and Evgendil (their full team also includes Jean_de_Metz who fights for The green elephant and Jonny Thunder who fights for rrrrookie & jonny thunder) are also favourites.

Unfortunately for these three teams, they will fight each other in the first two rounds of the tournament!


Tournament's roster - Coup de Grâce faces King Serpents on round 1 and the winner is likely to face B&I on round 2 (or the loser if B&I loses)

What may explain the position of favourites of these teams? Their ranking and previous results probably.

• B&I - Hiliadan & cbower:




• Hiliadan: 3rd highest ranked player, he has one of the lowest win ratio (60%) of all of the 6 players but he lost mainly against gabthegab (twice in large FFA) and cbower (three times, including in the previous Duel Tournament) as well as twice against Lightform - playing Necromancer before it was nerfed - in the previous Duel Tournament


• cbower: 2nd highest ranked player for a very long time, he played 28 matches and still has an excellent win ratio (77%), his only nemesis is gabthegab, whom he never beat.


• B&I has two very strong and experienced players but may struggle against gabthegab




• King Serpents:




• marcuspers: 9 matches and only 1 defeat. With less matches played, less is known about marcus except that he and Evgendil know each other very well and are very used to play together.


• Evgendil: 10 matches and 2 defeats only, including one against Hiliadan & cbower. A very strong player, Evgendil does not hide his love for Archdruid (and especially Elf Archdruid). His performance with other classes will be watched closely!


• King Serpents relies on two players with exceptional win ratio but who almost never faced the other favourites (no match against gabthegab and 1 defeat against Hiliadan+cbower for Evgendil+Jean_de_Metz but marcuspers was not involved). The match up against the 2 other teams is thus more uncertain.




• Coup de Grâce:




• gabthegab: the uncontested king of PBEM. 24 matches, 24 victories. 1 tournament (SeeR's PBEM tournament) won and currently in a very good position to win another one (2015 PBEM Duel tournament). Humiliatingly crushed cbower in 3 turns in their last tournament game, gabthegab is the single player to beat.


• Tussel: less well known than gab, he will have to demonstrate that he can play efficiently with him. Currently ranked 9th, Tussel plays both PBEM and live MP and fared relatively well in the live MP tournament organized on the Battlefield.com.


• Coup de Grâce gathers two strong players but the gap in skills between the team mates may be wider than in the other two teams.

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