TWL-B Week 2: Hot or Not

[Nipple Nibbler]

acidbomber was incredibly annoying to play against while he was under....

[ogron]

acidbomber was incredibly annoying to play against while he was under....

Yeah, he was a great under, but Stayon/Megaman89 (S16) and Spezza/Kate Upton (S17) really crushed AcidBomber/Zhou.

I wish there was video of the S16 Dice/Penetrate finals, it was such a massacre under. Those guys got handled so bad, really showed his limitations against elite, high IQ players.

I can still see Acidbomber camping in the cram shooting through the hole 2x to harass over as Stayon waits him out and dives him and clears him out, super cringe.

[Pressure]

Still in search of the Pandora vs. Rapid and Pandora vs. Plade videos for review tonight. If anyone has them, please share, thanks.

[Pressure]

I feel like that Plade game was the first good game Fire's played this season and looked cohesive as a unit. Ro/Kado in their first game under together looked amazing. With Kess/Bacon, Spezza/Kate, Stayon/?, Renzi/?, Kado/Ro... seems like there is an under renaissance going on. TWLB has been pretty much the same for 10 years, with the exception of under since all the replacement overspiders and sharks have been culled from under, leaving it pretty weak the past few years. Over looks the same as usual, but the pandemic has completely refilled the cupboard Under with the influx of returning basers.

Don't forget Rough.

[Heaven]

Don't forget Rough.

rough recruited so hard he lost his LB underspid position looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

[renzi]

Pressure good write-up, thanks for the content.

TWLB has been interesting, with 5 contenders it's a bloodbath and the short regular season hasn't left a lot of time to figure things out. I usually spend a good month transitioning from TWLB to TWDT-B and vice-versa, in terms of style, port locations, strategy, assignments, etc. before really feeling 100% in terr. I completely blew a game vs. Pandora Week 1 with (in hindsight) bad port placements and some other things that worked well in Basing Cup and TWDT-B but weren't a good fit against them. Playing vs. Gun's spider stackfast also requires some re-tooling.

I feel like that Plade game was the first good game Fire's played this season and looked cohesive as a unit. Ro/Kado in their first game under together looked amazing. With Kess/Bacon, Spezza/Kate, Stayon/?, Renzi/?, Kado/Ro... seems like there is an under renaissance going on. TWLB has been pretty much the same for 10 years, with the exception of under since all the replacement overspiders and sharks have been culled from under, leaving it pretty weak the past few years. Over looks the same as usual, but the pandemic has completely refilled the cupboard Under with the influx of returning basers.

That might be the biggest storyline of this season, how insane under is going to be. If you were to name the 10 best unders of the last 10 years, it might be something like: Stayon, Spezza, Acidbomber, Kess, Mikes, Zung, Kate Upton, Renzi, Mcvicar, Megaman89... and we've got 6 of those players playing, and Ro/Kado have the same talent level, Jurassic or whoever Spastic plays will also be up there, while Pandora has a lot of legendary spiders to throw under, too.

And those players didn't all under in the same seasons. The 2011 TWLB underspider pairs were something like:

Stayon/Megaman89 (Dice)
Acidbomber/Zhou(Penetrate)
Hulk/flared (Thunder)
Henry Saari/Sulla (Spastic)
Producer/Weaver (Real)
Frank The Tank!/Murder (LEGO)
Kess/Renzi (HEIST)
cremation/Endangered (Fierce)

There's really only 5 elite underspiders in that season. I'd say there's at least 8 right now. So should be pretty fun to watch those 2v2 battles this season.

Slight correction - pretty sure it was always stayon/mikes under for dice except the season I won lb with them it was stayon/me under


edit: never mind just saw you said 2011

[Pressure]

I can't find the Pandora games so I can't do the rest of the week 2 games. Staff should make better effort to have all games recorded for next weekend. I'd consider doing this again.

[Pressure]

If i can figure out how to actually record, I might end up recording two games.
Think all Spastic and fire games will be covered by heaven and porkjet..

Just use QuickTime and record your screen.

[Majorcrisis2]

I can't find the Pandora games so I can't do the rest of the week 2 games. Staff should make better effort to have all games recorded for next weekend. I'd consider doing this again.

If i can figure out how to actually record, I might end up recording two games.
Think all Spastic and fire games will be covered by heaven and porkjet..

[Pressure]

Spastic vs. Gun (9:12 – 15:00) | LINK
Summary: This game started out as a 7-0 shutout, with Gun dominating flagroom fights and holding durable crams. Both teams fielded the same lines they used in their other games. Oder vs. Pressure; pork/jr5 vs. hulk/WillBy; Cripple, Stayon, JAMAL vs. turban, skatarius, saiyan; JURASSIC/wbm vs. nowon/Spartan. Even though Gun looked slightly stronger on paper, SPASTIC had a great line here and there was every possibility this could have been an upset. The real deal proved to be different, as Gun were just too consistent in their top and under control and cram. You know Gunmin must have had some serious flag and top bar control when cripple is yelling at his team to control top bar. turban and skatarius put relentless aimbot-assisted pressure on Oder and his sharks all game while saiyan applied close to that level of pressure and made a few highly aggressive plays, contributing more to overall control by locking the top bar and flag. There isn't much to say about nowon and Spartan, Spastic had no answer for these two at under. jr5 got pushed around by hulk and WillBy all game. porkjet played well, but there is only so much you can do with an average partner who was in over his head. Cripple and JAMAL are usually capable of 100 kills in 20 minutes, but neither broke 90 kills in 24 minutes since they couldn't control top bar as they usually do. Although jr5 is the NOT player of the week, Spastic just really needs a better terr so that Oder can shark. Cripple, JAMAL, and Stayon cleared and took over top multiple times, but couldn't maintain control since Oder couldn't trust jr5 and his spiders couldn't survive behind him. This dynamic forced Oder to hide for most of the game instead of fighting for proper positioning to provide advantageous drops. Even in cram, watch what happens from 14:00-14:28. These huge shark gaps created by precipitously and/or dropped jr5 reps occurred all game and contributed largely to Spastic's inability to maintain control when obtained, and ultimately led to their loss. This game would have been closer with Zizu in terr and Oder in shark, since top control would have been more attainable and sustainable for their spiders. Once Gun hit 14:58 flag time, something clicked for Spastic and they went on a futile 6 minute run. Had they played that way all game, maybe they'd have had a better chance.
HOT: skatarius (118-52, 1 TeK), turban (109-55, 1 TeK)
NOT: jr5 (5-103, 2.8 RPD)
Plays of the game: Stayon great under push and lure opening top for Spastic to take flag (0:55-1:10), wbm great under push forcing Pressure into ear and opening top for Spastic to take flag (4:13-4:26), saiyan recovers from right ear and goes on overflag rampage resulting in TeK by skatarius (4:35-4:56), great escape by Pressure to keep Gun in the flagroom (7:05-7:22), porkjet absolutely destroys Pressure to force spawn race (8:50-9:02), Spartan and nowon dominate under and Spartan gets TeK (15:26-15:40)

[ogron]

Slight correction - pretty sure it was always stayon/mikes under for dice except the season I won lb with them it was stayon/me under


edit: never mind just saw you said 2011

they played cripple/jamal/domi top that season (s16), stayon/mega under:



and they played a bunch of different unders, mikes won 3 titles and dice/dicegeon has 7.

[Pressure]

they played cripple/jamal/domi top that season (s16), stayon/mega under:

and they played a bunch of different unders, mikes won 3 titles and dice/dicegeon has 7.

It was megaman89/Stayon that season. To counter Acid.

[Pressure]

Spastic vs. Gun (9:12 – 15:00) | LINK
Summary: This game started out as a 7-0 shutout, with Gun dominating flagroom fights and holding durable crams. Both teams fielded the same lines they used in their other games. Oder vs. Pressure; pork/jr5 vs. hulk/WillBy; Cripple, Stayon, JAMAL vs. turban, skatarius, saiyan; JURASSIC/wbm vs. nowon/Spartan. Even though Gun looked slightly stronger on paper, SPASTIC had a great line here and there was every possibility this could have been an upset. The real deal proved to be different, as Gun were just too consistent in their top and under control and cram. You know Gunmin must have had some serious flag and top bar control when cripple is yelling at his team to control top bar. turban and skatarius put relentless aimbot-assisted pressure on Oder and his sharks all game while saiyan applied close to that level of pressure and made a few highly aggressive plays, contributing more to overall control by locking the top bar and flag. There isn't much to say about nowon and Spartan, Spastic had no answer for these two at under. jr5 got pushed around by hulk and WillBy all game. porkjet played well, but there is only so much you can do with an average partner who was in over his head. Cripple and JAMAL are usually capable of 100 kills in 20 minutes, but neither broke 90 kills in 24 minutes since they couldn't control top bar as they usually do. Although jr5 is the NOT player of the week, Spastic just really needs a better terr so that Oder can shark. Cripple, JAMAL, and Stayon cleared and took over top multiple times, but couldn't maintain control since Oder couldn't trust jr5 and his spiders couldn't survive behind him. This dynamic forced Oder to hide for most of the game instead of fighting for proper positioning to provide advantageous drops. Even in cram, watch what happens from 14:00-14:28. These huge shark gaps created by precipitously and/or dropped jr5 reps occurred all game and contributed largely to Spastic's inability to maintain control when obtained, and ultimately led to their loss. This game would have been closer with Zizu in terr and Oder in shark, since top control would have been more attainable and sustainable for their spiders. Once Gun hit 14:58 flag time, something clicked for Spastic and they went on a futile 6 minute run. Had they played that way all game, maybe they'd have had a better chance.
HOT: skatarius (118-52, 1 TeK), turban (109-55, 1 TeK)
NOT: jr5 (5-103, 2.8 RPD)
Plays of the game: Stayon great under push and lure opening top for Spastic to take flag (0:55-1:10), wbm great under push forcing Pressure into ear and opening top for Spastic to take flag (4:13-4:26), saiyan recovers from right ear and goes on overflag rampage resulting in TeK by skatarius (4:35-4:56), great escape by Pressure to keep Gun in the flagroom (7:05-7:22), porkjet absolutely destroys Pressure to force spawn race (8:50-9:02), Spartan and nowon dominate under and Spartan gets TeK (15:26-15:40)

Pandora vs. Plade (2:49 – 15:00) - unavailable

Pandora vs. Rapid (15:00 – 5:00)- unavailable

Week 2 Recap: It is widely agreed that this season is fierce. All captains and assistants know the reality that were the pre-season "recruiting wars". Now, hard lock has occurred and teams are done scrambling. The season is short, every team plays each other twice, and every game counts. When was the last season in 10 years that week 2 matches yielded a crowd of 120 spectators and carried so much weight for playoffs? When was the last time a forum post got 80+ mostly heated replies in 48 hours (shoutout to Poseidon)? It's definitely long overdue. Zizu lost faith in Rapid and left for Spastic, freeing Oder to shark and making Spastic an even more legitimate contender for the title. Most other lineups are set. Gun, Pandora and Plade lead the way, while Fire has advantage for the 4th playoff spot over Spastic and Rapid who are fighting to get out of the danger zone. Only 4 teams will make it. Will Fire or Spastic go 2-0 and increase their chances at making playoffs? Which of the current leaders are going down this coming weekend? I have so many questions, but since I have no answers here are the HOT players, NOT players, and play of the week!

HOTW: Trasher (122-58, 1 TeK) (94-25, 1 TeK)
NOTW: Poseidon (62-56, 1 TeK)
POTW: porkjet absolutely destroys Pressure to force spawn race (8:50-9:02)

[Nipple Nibbler]

That was a really nice bomb from pork. Really weird positioning from you though pressure.

[Pressure]

That was a really nice bomb from pork. Really weird positioning from you though pressure.

If I admit why I died there, turban may kill me.

Let's just chalk it up to porkjet being a beast and me being bad.