NPL Klang Day 2

Day 2 was supposed to start off with the knockout stages but due to the rain that poured on Saturday evening, the organizers brought it forward. MC Pian had already informed everyone that the games that are brought forward would start at 7.45am. Probably some of the teams had already been eliminated or made it to the next round without having to finish of the remaining games, so there were lots of walkovers. In Division One it's a different story, those with remaining preliminary games played for win so that they could avoid being in the stronger bracket in Quarter Finals.

The QF stage is an extremely tricky stage, don't think for one second that you've got two wins you're guaranteed a spot in the semis. At this stage, each and every point counts especially if the games are very close in your bracket. So when you win, make sure that at least 4 or 5 of your players remain alive or if you have to lose or draw one game, inflict maximum damage to your opponents.

Our bracket consisted of Demonz, Ronin and Tag Effect, while the other group had Nemesis, Delta Rovers, Black Widows and Perlis Hunters. We're pretty confident that we could notch up a win against Ronin and Tag Effect but Demonz would be very tricky. Our game for the quarters would start off with Ronin then Demonz and finish off with Tag.

Before we went in against Ronin, Tag was facing off with Demonz. Suprisingly though, Tag Effect won over an unusually loose Demonz. This turn of events was not what a lot of people expected but that's what makes it exciting. For WK, we're about ready to get down with the biznez of killin' fools.

The game against Ronin was crazy! On the break we managed to clip one Ronin and all our players made to their bunkers without being marked. Then we managed to get another two through the snake side but lost two as well - Loco & Jr. Caranthir & Kherox were in the 50s while Kaymo were not too far behind at the 30s. Then came a rather dissapointing show of gamesmanship by our opponent . Caranthir alleged that a Ronin had been shot before he raced on the left side of the field trying to avoid being checked. At the same time, Kaymo was onto him, marking him everywhere but the marshalls still did nothing to halt the advancing 'cheater'. An inexperienced and overly excited ref finally pulled the 'cheater' out and wanted to pull Kaymo out as well. Lucky for him (the inexperienced ref) Mohsin intervened, otherwise Kaymo would've shot the ref himself. Seriously it should've been a 1 for 1 call against Ronin!!! In the heat of the moment, Kherox was taken out leaving only Caranthir and Kaymo left - not good. Caranthir managed to take out Ronin's last man and grabbed the flag. Unfortunately for Kaymo, he had to be pulled out because his pack had shots on it - another "I Killed My Brother" incident for him! WK won but it was an expensive win which was at the expense of 4 players.

We only had a few minutes to re-air, reload and rehydrate before MC Pian called us in again to face Demonz. We're up first then it would be Tag Vs. Ronin. We started off pretty well against Demonz but once we started losing players the whole fort just crumbled. Again, we managed to get their frontman Terry but not the rest of the gang. Credit to Demonz for really playing tight which has got to be the hallmark of their strategy. Poor Loco had to fight off four marauding Demonz before being pulled out. Nevertheless, we lost to a really good team but it would've been better if we took some of them Demonz down with us as well.

It would take quitesome time before the next and final QF game against Tag which virtually ran over Ronins with a 100-0 score. So now we've got Tag who has pulled off two wins which has very much confirmed their place in the semis - NOT!!! Demonz and WK are tied with one win and one loss but the former has the upperhand with a better body count record.

Demonz was up first against Ronin when the QF for Division One restarted. Like WK, Ronin managed to get only one Demonz player in their loss. It didn't matter for us, we know that we've still got a shot in the semis but unfortunately though we didn't keep count on the score. With Demonz winning against Ronin, they've sealed their place in the Semi finals. WK still has a chance to eliminate Tag Effect and go into the next round; only if we beat them by 98 points.

As mentioned before, we went in not knowing what was needed of us to go into the next round. Tag was definitely going for a defensive posture in order to protect their lead against us and knowing that attacking us would be very detrimental. Off the break we managed to get into our bunkers safely but breaking down the very defensive Tag was very difficult. We killed them off one by one but at the same time we lost some players as well. Kaymo couldn't move forward as the paintballs he had, messed up his loader causing erratic accuracy. Kherox finished off the remaining Tag players and Kaymo hung which was probably the final flag of the day for the team.

We went back to our tent and sat there cleaning our equipments at the same time wondering if we could make it into our first semi final since NPL UM. MC Pian's announcement few minutes later confirmed that WK would not move to the next round. The teams that advanced to the Semi Final stages were Demonz, Tag, Nemesis and Delta Rovers. Demonz would be facing Delta Rovers (a very fiery match that one - accusations of cheating, playing on, wiping etc.) and Nemesis squares off against Tag Effect (Benny injured his back during this match and had to be taken to the hospital by an ambulance. We wish him a safe & speedy recovery).

For the first time this year, Demonz won the tournament, Nemesis were second and Delta Rovers took their first podium with a third place finish. Looks like the race for the Overall Champion title is still up for grabs, who knows probably WK will win the final two legs hehehehe....

Overall, I'd say we had a great tournament despite the team's shortcomings. We are actually improving, if compared to Kuantan our QF result was much better. Yeah we know, we have to try harder and suppose that we should be more careful in our gameplay. One point that we would like to raise though is we are seeing players being more daring to cheat .We hope that the refs could be more tougher on their calls against these cheaters, if it was a 1, 2 or 3 for 1 then call it so! Do not be afraid of the backlash, as long as you know that you did the right thing by removing the f'ing cheater! We saw one of the games, this particular team from our observation plays on even though having been obviously shot and they'd wait until the ref comes to pull them out. Well Karma was in full effect on that particular game, their opponents got away doing it which incensed the hell out of 'em. Guess it was ok for them to do it, not anyone else.

Warning to our future opponents: Cheat against us and we'll f'ing murder you!!! We love to 'bonusball' cheaters...