Red Bull Wololo: Legacy Age of Empires IV - June Weekly #2

The fight over Heidelberg Castle has started!

For those who missed it

Yesterday the second of the weekly Red Bull Wololo: Legacy June qualifier events concluded; an event series hosted on EGCTV to determine two of the qualifiers for the massive $300,000 Red Bull Wololo: Legacy event coming up in October. The first one was won by Beastyqt last week after an epic final against DeMusliM Sunday night. After another massive open stage, eight players emerged victorious to battle it out for the $2000 weekly prize pool again and those juicy league points leading to the monthly final. This week also featured a new custom map made by very talented map scripter Adne, a very successful addition to the event as it provided very exciting and fast-paced gameplay.

Early stages

Starting with quick Best of One's in a massive round of 256, leading to Best of Three and culminating in Best of Five Finals, the event was action-packed right from the start again. With quite a few upsets happening at the start already, as both finalists of the previous week, Beastyqt and DeMusliM, got eliminated before the Quarterfinals already. Showing once more that the top of Age of Empires IV is an extremely hard-fought battlefield. In DeMusliM's case, it was the popular TheMista who pushed through their group with HuT and others, absent last week due to his farming job but available this time because of rain in Greece. Beastyqt's group on the other hand got topped by the Turkish top player Kasva in a very promising performance. Austrian Knuschelbär kicked out WAM (who made was in the top eight of Golden League) and Core (who could then observer for us on Sundays live stream) to advance. The other players who made it in to the Quarterfinals where MarineLorD, Leenock, ZertoN, Vortix and 1puppypaw. 1puppypaw notably beating Capoch in his group to push through.

Quarterfinals

The Quarterfinals started off with mYinsanity's Greek farmer TheMista with HRE against the Korean SC2 legend Leenock's French on the new map Frisian Marshes. Due to lots of little ponds with Shorefish being spread all over, the map enabled a lot of aggression, both giving the opportunity to gather lots of food as well as providing ample targets to attack in form of the fishing Villagers. Both players trying their hardest to use that to their advantage, TheMista with a faster Castle Age and Man-at-Arms against Leenock who opted for Feudal Age French knights. Leenock managed to come out ahead here though, keeping down his opponent's Villager numbers and managing to produce enough Knights to keep up the aggression almost constantly after a few dicy-looking moments in his own economy.

The second game featured the same two civilizations on Dry Arabia, the French this time chosen by TheMista though. This time he was the one staying in Feudal Age longer, using Knights to raid Leenock's economy while going for a big three TC boom and a big Villager advantage. Leenock defended well though and kept the Age advantage, as just after TheMista reached Castle Age, Leenock instead already teched up to Imperial while fielding only half of TheMista's Villager count, 100 to 50 at the point of finishing his Imperial Landmark. He quickly used that to gain a military technology advantage as well. At this point, both players took a moment to build up their forces, TheMista catching up in tech while Leenock in turn grew his economy. The game continued with a few skirmishes in various places until Leenocks forces, supported by siege, managed to break through and started to push into TheMista's base. Seeing himself unable to defend, he went for a full All-In, even pulling his Villagers, to rush into the heart of Leenock's base and snipe the Landmarks. Leenock had the HRE's emergency repairs available though, and with a hard commitment to defense, managed to prevail and decide the series 2-0.

In the other Quarterfinal sets that ran in parallel, Zerton managed to win the first game on Frisian Marshes against the big favorite MarineLorD, but ultimately had to concede to the Frenchman 1-2. Kasva pulled through against his Austrian opponent Knuschelbär 2-1 (mostly famous for his AoE3 performances so far) in an extremely long match that lasted well beyond two hours and 1puppypaw, who had to forfeit in the last event due to accidentally spilling a drink on his keyboard and damaging it, beat VortiX 2-0.

Semifinals

In the next round, MarineLorD was facing off against Leenock giving us another duel between two high-level SC2 pro-players, while 1puppypaw came up against Kasva.

Starting off again on the new Frisian Marshes, MarineLorD's HRE was up against Leenock's Mongols (interesting side note: they banned those two civs for their opponent in turn). Leenock immediately went for the Mongol classic of going forward with a Villager and two Spears to put up an aggressive Outpost on his opponent's gold, even persisting and burning the Mining Camp on it down, but he got sniped when trying to follow it up with a second Outpost on a woodline. Not wanting to fight it out economically against the HRE, Leenock chose to start early harassment with a few Horsemen and more Spears, keeping their eco advantage small and reaching Castle Age just thirty seconds after his opponent. MarineLorD managed to snag some Relics for his HRE bonus though, boosting his already strong economy even further and allowing him to transition to Imperial Age a lot faster. Not wanting to let his opponent just build up undisturbed, Leenock set up Trebuchets and Outposts with springalds on a little hill facing MarineLorD's initial Town Center. The Frenchman didn't lose his cool though and with the help of his first bombards coming out, managed to defend with almost no losses, going up 1-0.

To come back, Leenock wielded the French himself against MarineLorD's Delhi on Dry Arabia. Wanting to use his civilizations Sacred Site bonus, MarineLorD early on sent his units forward with two Scholars to one. Leenock tried to deny it, but with superior unit control, MarineLorD won the battle and managed to secure the site, while the resulting military advantage meant that he could wall it in, while also going for the other two. Not able to deny this, Leenock decided to invest heavily into his military, while Marinelord went up to Castle Age quite a bit faster, wanting to get started on those free but slow Delhi upgrades. Sending a group of Villagers forward, he also set up aggressive Keeps, going forward from the Sacred Site closest to Leenock. Using mostly Tower elephants allowed him to destroy most of Leenock's Spearmen, Archers, and Crossbowmen by pulling them into the range of his Keeps. ultimately Leenock could not find anything against this, giving the 2-0 to MarineLorD.

The duel between the Turkish Kasva from the Istanbul Wildcats and Canadian 1puppypaw started with as Kasva as the Chinese against 1puppypaws Rus on Frisian Marshes. For many, this came unexpected, due to the Chinese usually not being seen as the Civilization of choice for aggressive, open maps. Knowing the weak point of his opponent's civilization well, 1puppypaw consistently harassed and denied the forward gold of Kasva, stopping him from gaining a big Zhuge Nu mass. Remarkable here that he achieved this by using mass amounts of Archers, having 90 of them before even hitting Castle Age and forcing Kasva to resign.

In the second game, Kasva had Mongols against 1puppypaw's Delhi on Dry Arabia. Right at the start, there was some worry about the game being decided early, as 1puppypaw forgot to take his free economic upgrades and continued to not click them in Feudal Age. Being harassed by the Mongol Outpost rush of course didn't help. Kasva on the other hand had no idea about this though, especially that his opponent was missing the Efficient Production technology, and in turn, invested into early Feudal military to fight for the Sacred Sites and compete with the normally much larger Delhi army and meaning that his own economy was not getting ahead either. Winning an important fight due to the help of five scholars compensating for a lot of incoming Mongol damage, 1puppypaw was suddenly ahead, going up to Castle Age before Kasva even started building a corresponding Landmark. A few minutes into the new age he finally noticed his missing technologies though and at least clicked some of them. Kasva managed to reach Castle Age himself, but after a few more fights had to resign again, still being too far behind and letting 1puppypaw advance to the finals to meet MarineLorD.

Finals

Now it was time for the final Best of Five. The first map was of course again Frisian Marshes, featuring the HRE for MarineLorD against 1puppypaw's Rus this time. We got off to a great start as 1puppypaw went forward very aggressively with one of the Rus wooden fortresses right on his opponent's deer and berries, forcing MarineLorD to invest more into Feudal Age and not go up to Castle Age, something that is usually a good choice for the HRE against Rus. While 1puppypaw managed to harass his opponent, he also missed out on taking Shorefish and stayed in Feudal Age himself though. Continuing a varied military production of Archers, Spearmen, Knights, and Rams, 1puppypaw kept MarineLorD's economy small, managed to dominate his army, and eventually pulled off dangerous Feudal pushes, launched from the forward position that he successfully held throughout the game. This was enough even for MarineLorD, giving 1puppypaw the 1-0.

The second game saw MarineLorD pick Rus against Delhi on High View. This time 1puppypaw found a big improvement in his strategy, clicking those free upgrades early on. MarineLorD in turn went for fast Castle Age on one TC, reaching it just after minute eight. 1puppypaw walled and secured himself the center Sacred Site, as well as a second one in the western corner at the same time, making use of his bonus again and immediately pushing for the third one in MarineLorD's eastern corner. The Frenchman secured himself three Relics to compensate a bit with that massive Delhi Sacred Site gold income and stole himself a fourth one, right under the nose of one of 1puppypaw's Scholars with one of his riding Warrior Monks, eventually getting the fifth one as well. With additional Villagers and hunting cabins working for him, it seemed that MarineLorD was well ahead at this point. 1puppypaw just had his first two Tower Elephants out, accompanied by a few Spears and a decent group of Scholars, it looked like we would get a decisive battle in the center against MarineLorD's Knight and Warrior Monk army, but instead, they barely passed each other and while MarineLorD went to raid 1puppypaw's eco, the Canadian in turn just ran in for the kill on MarineLorD's Chapel with its three Relics, whacking away at it with the power of his Elephants, forcing MarineLorD to send his army back and engage in an unfavorable position between the building and a woodline. 1puppypaw immediately made use of this, winning the fight with great army control, reinforcing with more Scholars, and burning Landmark to the ground. MarineLorD couldn't counter this, as he had not ranged units of his own and the big number of Scholars holding three relics was more or less unapproachable for the Rus Knights. Sending Villagers forward to drop a keep right in MarineLorD's base sealed the deal and gave 1puppypaw a 2-0 lead, making him still undefeated in the Road to Wololo and only needing one more victory out of the next three maps to win this week’s event.

Next up was MarineLorD's English against 1puppypaw's Chinese on Altai. This time MarineLorD pushed hard immediately, using the English Longbows to their full potential, denying 1puppypaw's Feudal Landmark and getting a very fast victory of his own.

With the match going on to its fourth game, we got an Abbasid mirror on Lipany. The Feudal Age again saw aggression by MarineLorD who went forward with Villagers to put op Towers on 1puppypaw's base, staying on two TCs. 1puppypaw in turn opted for three and defended against the forward Tower with Towers of his own. Both players chose a mix of Horsemen and Camel Archers for their army and after a favorable engagement, 1puppypaw managed to stop the aggression, killing the forward Villagers. Having an extra Town Center running for all this time meant that he suddenly was massively ahead in Villagers and as a result of the lost fight he suddenly had a military advantage as well. MarineLorD had to rush forward with Castle Age, but while doing so, both players raided their opponent's economies, increasing the economic difference further since 1puppypaw's base was much better defended by leftover defensive Towers. Eventually, he got to Castle Age as well, still keeping an advantage of about twenty Villagers. To deny MarineLorD from catching back up with Lancer raids, 1puppypaw walled the right half of the map off, while pushing the right with his army and securing it further with a Keep. This meant that MarineLorD got more and more boxed in. Not being a pushover, MarineLorD managed to get up another TC of his own and did catch up Villager-wise in the meantime, only behind a bit in military numbers. This, however, was enough for 1puppypaw who got out Trebuchets and under the protection of forward Keeps pushed further and further into his opponent’s base, building another Keep touching the side the enemies main TC and winning him the event 3-1!

After another incredibly exciting weekly event and with all these top players fighting for the highly sought-after league points needed to qualify for Red Bull Wololo: Legacy, this event series produced great matches, glorious upsets, and promises amazing action for the weeks to come. Next weekend featuring the legendary Age II map Four Lakes as another community created addition to the pool. To watch all this live, head over to EGCTV's Twitch Channel on the weekend or go to EGCTV's YouTube and get caught up on any matches you missed out on.