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World of Warcraft: MLG Friday Matches Breakdown

By: Matthew Donald Coyle - Published August 29, 2009 at 11:33 AM EDT - Writer Archive
GotFrag takes a look at each one of the matches that went down Friday night at MLG Dallas.


GotFrag.com - MLG Dallas kicked off last night with the first four matches being played. Below we have broken down the key events of the matches and given you up-to-date information to bring you into the second day of match play. Get ready for a full day of all out WoW.

Day 1 Breakdown

SK vs x6, x6 over SK 4-1

X6's BM Hunter takes down America's darling boys.

It seems that the 3.2 patch has effected RMP's damage and cleave teams have stayed about the same. For those unaware, Patch 3.2 introduced a resilience change that basically lowered damage 10% across the board. Blizzard did buff hunters though and their damage seems tremendous especially as the Beast Mastery spec.

SK couldn't seem to get their offensive play style going for them. We're used to seeing phenomenal swaps with Enforcer/Pookz/Realz going balls out to land kills and the match going their way. None of this match seemed like the SK we've been watching over the past several months except for Game 4 where SK swapped to X6's Souler(Paladin) and killed him before bubbling (Ala Payce of eMg)

X6 just dominated most of the matches with overwhelming pressure on the low armor classes of RMP. X6 looks very strong in this tournament, they really don't have anyone to worry about except making sure they perform at this level if they want to finish this tournament strong.

eMg vs Fnatic, eMg over Fnatic 3-2

The Battle of the Shaman teams.

Both teams came into this tournament as wildcards in a RMP dominated event. There has been speculation on how eMg's lineup of Enhancement shaman/BM hunter/Disc Priest will perform in a LAN environment vs the top teams, also being that eMg refused to scrimmage any of the teams participating in the tournament prior to MLG Dallas. Fnatic has enjoyed great online success with their new lineup, especially since the recent 3.2 patch has buffed their composition. Fnatic is the only team in the world that hit 3k rating on 2 different teams, which is quite a feat if you look at their Win/Loss record on live. Many teams have been quoted saying that Fnatic is the "Team to Beat" at MLG Dallas, including their Leader Yog himself.

The matches start out in intense fashion, with Games 1 and 2 being very exciting. Fnatic's health bars of Yog and Woundman spike with them narrowly escaping with 1-2k hp throughout each match, while Twix and Flexx both narrowly escape death a few times as well. The score is even after 2 matches, then eMg comes out with an all-out-zerg strat(Kintt throwing in all his damage on priest, which he had around 15k at the end of the match) on Fnatic's Warlock, dropping yog in convincing fashion. Fnatic started the 4th match in awful positioning, eMg was able to put serious pressure on both Yog/Woundman, and eventually dropping Yog early. Fnatic won the last match for their own pride while eMg seemed to give up since they had won the series already. Kintt can be quoted after the 4th match in his chat log saying: "I HAVE A RAGING BONER RIGHT NOW", being that Fnatic was the team they were most scared of going into this tournament. Enhancement shamans look extremely strong this patch, this writer expects to see more of them in the high ratings come the start of season 7.

Gravitas vs Button Bashers, Button Bashers over Gravitas 5-0

This was the first RMP mirror match of the tournament. We're going to see more and more of these mirrors since there are 5 out of 8 teams running this composition. Gravitas faced a huge uphill battle in fighting the heavily favored Button Bashers team. Gravitas was the 8th team invited to the tournament, being that their team has swapped players a lot of the last few months, which is bad for team chemistry. Button Bashers on the other hand are world famous for their RMP, especially their Mage Orangemarmalade, after his performance at the ESL World Masters.

Gravitas comes out strong being able to stay toe to toe with Button Bashers in the first match. Orangemarmalade manages to out-pressure Gravitas' Celex, eventually making Gravitas' priest Toes run OOM(Out of Mana). After this match, Gravitas seems to be outplayed in every aspect of the match. In the 5th match, it is again a very close match with Toes being able to pull some miraculous play, but his team was not supporting him. Eventually, a repeat of game 1 happens, toes runs out of mana and BB scores a kill. In this writer's opinion, the stream doesn't do justice to one of the players in the game, especially on Gravitas' end. The other pro players at the tournament will tell you that Gravitas' priest Toes was easily the most impressive player in this series, even though his team was 5-0'd. Never has a priest SW:Death'd 3 polys, 1 blind, and broken a rogue's vanish with dispel(If you dispel the rogue at the same time the rogue vanishes, it breaks their vanish) against the most accomplished RMP in the world. If gravitas' does not do well in this tournament, they should definitely consider building a team around this player.


aAa vs Complexity, aAa 4-1 over Complexity

aAa came into this tournament relatively unknown to the American scene. From what the Euro's have said, aAa was not on the same level as Ensidia, who came to MLG Columbus and placed a disappointing 3rd place. Complexity, on the other hand, claimed to have upgraded their roster, retiring their longtime rogue HappyMinti and acquiring the online famous rogue Reckful. Everyone was eager to see Reckful in action, especially after a lot of the hype he built around himself this season(being the highest rated rogue in the world as well).

aAa comes out as the standard Frost/Mut setup while complexity chooses a unique setup of Arcane/Mut. Complexity chooses to focus the Mage, which is a very questionable decision in RMP mirrors, and aAa manages to score kills on Reckful. After 2 matches, complexity switches back to the standard Frost/Mut setup and they are again outplayed by aAa. Things go completely wrong for Complexity throughout the series, with several important spells missing for their team. Complexity seems to finally get it together in the 5th match, but it's too late for the series. aAa proves themselves to be a threat to this tournament, and none of the Americans will take them lightly after hearing what Ensidia had to say about them.


Day 1 turns out to be a bad day for American RMPs with American RMPs only winning 2 matches vs foreign opponents. Will the cleave teams of eMg and x6 dominate this tournament, or will Fnatic or RMP step up as the team to beat? Day 2 starts soon..

Related Links



MLG Dallas Saturday Melee
MLG Friday Matches Breakdown
MLG Dallas Friday Night Melee
Friday Night Round Robin Preview
MLG Dallas Team Preview
MLG Dallas WoW Weekend Pass
MLG Dallas Team Preview
MLG Dallas WoW Weekend Pass
MLG Dallas WoW Broadcast and Match Schedule
MLG Dallas WoW Tournament Details, Teams, Rosters and Prizing
Be A Spectator!
Official Rules
MMO-Champion.com
MLG Pro Circuit Landing Page
Official World of Warcraft Site
MLG Columbus WoW Tournament Results
MLG Columbus WoW Tournament Video on Demand
Official HP Site

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