ok, since this morning I just uploaded the YouTube vids and updated spare historic team stats for revision so unless I missed something I guess that means that then we're finally all done with this UnFreeZe Spring 2024 tournament edition. as said, despite being of smaller scale than other ones it has been all the exciting and epic the same, likely among the most memorable ones, so thank you everybody for participate and complete/honour it in full, well done. now when it comes to the small final commentary, I think that it did not fail to deliver and the wait was worth as it consumed one of the biggest comebacks ever. it all opened with pro-q3dm6, ass pick, which was indeed a great pick for ass, they definitively played good their off-game game with the choices, both did in fact, however in-game it was totally different story and out of the blue ass formed with a team totally different from the one that draw the first leg from the get go. top elite champion players or not you do not introduce such a number of changes from a strong performing team just like that. that was definitively perceived as a "mistake" but perceptions aside the fact is that it just did't work out and here ilm played arguably their best game of the final (as a whole) with a much more solid team game and easily took a 10:4 score that considering the parity between both looked virtually decisive as it turned the whole final around 3:2 +5 rounds on their favour. in this map rico connection apparently broke with a 8:4 score that lead the match into a server restart on next 9:4 round, that was appealed/reviewed in-game and it's confirmed now in-video to be the case. as explained other times that's the standard procedure for "timeouts" here, in the event of a drop the match shall continue until the round ends, then on round end in the event of a mismatch the sever will automatically trigger a full game restart resuming the game from the last scores counting obviously the round that has just been scored. any other procedures (ex. waiting it out) are not strictly forbidden but not enforced/approved by any means. once settled that charon3dm9, ilm pick, was played and despite great improvements from ass (compared to the opening game) it was not enough to really challenge ilm on, in my opinion, their strongest home map that they once again took easily with a 10:6 score once again growing their overall final advantage into 4:2 +9. to be honest at this point, considering the momentum as well as the score, the title looked done for and if it wouldn't have been for a historic ass comeback in the second half that would have been the case as at this point it was just a matter of rounds (not even games) for ilm to take the tittle (just 11 rounds to be precise in the two remaining games they needed at this point). hub3tourney1 did in fact play along that and despite ass finally scoring their first map of the second leg ilm collected nevertheless 7 rounds which was more than half those they needed at that point to comfortably making it 4:3 +6 into the final and decisive map q3dm7 that they had even picked themselves. considering the double (games/rounds) draw would even benefit them on scores that was virtually a game of difference with just one game left as then only scores of 10:3 or more could make ass champion at that point. I don't know if that had some sort of psychological effect or anything but the case is that what happened in the last game taking everything in consideration it's very difficult to explain by itself alone but I guess that moments like this are what make big time games so special. not that ass taking q3dm7 would have been any surprise/upset or anything as from a finally 50.5:49:5 projected match up it's clear anyone could take anything here but precisely that's what makes such a 10:3 (or higher) score the more unusual. and pretty much I think that was all with the second leg I think, as said, a really epic encounter, congrats to ass on the overall victory and well played both, legendary.
as for the already mentioned follow-up event I just sent this morning invitation to everyone on the list so now waiting input/confirmation from the people involved to organise that within these weeks (i.e the next week or exceptionally the week after the latest). just to be safe and/or in case someone else might be interested here it's as a well how the tournament follow-up game should (ideally) look like this time:
- event: UnFreeZe Spring 2024 - Present VS Past ALL-Star Game
- date: Thursday 16 or Sunday 19 of May of 2024 21:00 CEST (UTC+02)
- teams:
- present: ricky, iron, angel, blaze, blah, fusion, inifity
- past: ami, aimer, fau, sub-zero, mwhq3, ribx, cth
- backup/change/replacement: bishop
- server: fpsclassico.com:27970 or fpsclasico.de:27970
- maps: teddm1, 6++, overkill, 7++, cpm4a
- format: five 7vs7 showdown games
as said, since it has been a smaller tournament I think that a interesting format/setup this time would be set the current best seventh of this edition against a team of former best sevenths so considering general activity/interest and after review it for sensible balance I just came to the list posted there then now just waiting to hear back from those to schedule that so far only aimer has confirmed that. additionally blah from that list doesn't have a forum account thus I couldn't reach then I'd appreciate if the people around could get in touch with him to let him know about this. as usual that's just the base card to get started, the final date will have to be agreed/established once the participants are known (as it can be otherwise) same as with the final line ups so those interest please stay tuned and in case someone not in the list is also interest feel free to join here for consideration depending on the circumstances.
other than that for the aftermath of that, that I assume that in one way or another it should happen, when it comes to the eventual Diamond Clan-Team UnFreeZe undisputed rematch I just invited this morning as well kf and loverex for that and much to my surprise kf unexpectedly replied right away (no bullshit this time) to communicate that after talking with their team they seem not to be interested in that at the time of writing then I guess that means that I'll try to get in touch with the Moskva guys next for a classic UnFreeZe showdown after the community game instead and that should be it. considering they have lately struggled to make any games happen we'll see if it finally happens therefor those interested make sure to not miss the currently planned community game as that can be the final game of the season by now.