Week Schedule

Finals

This week will be the week of Finals for each Division. Check the bracket page, and if you are in, schedule your match in time. The default time is on Sunday at 20CEST (unless otherwise noted). This page will be updated as soon as the matches are scheduled. As a sidenote, there will be 3 polls during this week for each division winner.

Premiere Division: saunamen vs Nine Legends: Postponed
2nd Division: Team Russia vs iRate: Team Russia wins!
3rd Division: NrS vs Strength of Silence: NrS wins!

Also thanks to Charlie "Flayra" Cleveland and Harry "puzl" Walsh for publishing news of the finals on the NS website.

Semi-Finals

Unfortunately one of the Semi-Finals was not played during the last week, and it has been given chance to be played during this week, before Saturday.

Premiere Division: Flatline vs Nine Legends: Forfeit loss to Flatline

Predictions

If you are a predictor in any of the divisions, please post your prediction of the Finals to me or Zamma before Friday. And if you don't know whether you are check it here:

Premiere: Tweadle, jiriki
2nd Div: Maxx, Rolex
3rd Div: nE|Bu, C-mies

jiriki's Division 1 Prediction

Nine Legends vs saunamen

Impact players
Nine Legends: b1 (com), pantsu (fade), Scale (lerk), Fana (marine)
saunamen: Peach (com), Invasion (fade), Tane (marine), zharp (sg)

This match will be probably the most exciting match to see in the season if both teams live to their exceptions. Nine Legends have a colourful roster, top players from many countries, all of whom could be playing for their national teams. b1, back in the business, is the solid commander of Knife, Fana is the good all-around player, pantsu is a strong marine and fade, Scale is the lerk from Levitacus, dux would be exceling marines, sherpa is good all-around but also having a very good tactical viewpoint as he was the former? main commander and lastly Kira is a fine all-around player as well as sublime who can handle lerking as well as trolling, if necessary. Wltrs could be their strongest marine or fade if he would active.

Saunamen on the other hand is almost Team Finland, having most of the Finnish top players: Peach being one of the best commanders in NS history, Invasion being a strong fade and marine, Tane being a strong marine and fade. Kuopio girls NsN and ekri are still quite new to the top-notch scene but have shown top performance at times, and this match will show if they are ready to face the best of EU teams. Naturally all fades are strong skulks too, but the performance on the match day decides a lot more than any predicted skill ranking. Hopeanuoli and Fera are both good all-around, both being capable of (flash) fading if necessary. Zharp is one of the top EU shotgunners and also a fine lerk. TOmekki could a very strong marine, but I'm not sure if he is active at the moment. Additionally losing Citrus was a major blow to both of their marine and alien (fade) roster.

Maps will be probably, ns_origin for saunamen and ns_veil or ns_tanith for Nine Legends. Tactics wise, Peach most likely going to rely on his team performance as well as nL so normal shotgun pressure on nodes would be expected when 1-2 marines cap. If veil is played, jetpacks or 4-marine squads are possible. As the game proceeds, Peach might use something off-the-wall tactics such nafty pgs, turrets, vent rushes, anything while I would find b1 a bit more conservative. Both teams should be using very usual alien tactics (fade, lerk, rtfade, hive, chambers + rt), again relying on their skill and well timed rushes. Neither of the teams is less likely going to use scs as first chamber or humping fast robots on marines but even if either of the teams fails at the 2nd hive, neither is going to give up that soon and that is when the invisible battle of the commanders, b1 and Peach, will take place.

In NSNC, saunamen won nL quite clearly and they seemed quite strong winner favourites in the beginning of this season, but now I would reckon the situation has changed as nL roster has gotten stronger and saunamen's a hair weaker. Additionally, if my memory serves me well, nL has been more active during the recent week. Even then, I think Peach'es commanding and saunamen's overall skill will work for their favour.

saunamen 4 - 2 Nine Legends

Maxx's Division 2 Prediction

Team Russia (3-0-0) vs (3-0-0) iRate

Impact players
Team Russia: ares, Blade, Macpersil.ru, Snake, sone, Well, _PC, top, 7IIV
iRate: Dainton, Aleksi, Tweadle, -=DeZ=-, Querformat, tjerge, Tk-`, Tuberi

Ah, the finals are finally here, there were no surprises in the semis and the top teams from both groups will now compete in what seems to be an action packed Season Six (division 2) Final!

Team Russia came from nowhere into European scene and (despite Mcpersils initial protests) was placed in the 2nd Division. As the season draws to its end, they find themselves fighting iRate for the division crown. Letting only two rounds slip during the Group Stage they are just one victory away from putting an exclamation mark next to what has already been a very successful debut.

iRate have been the division favourites and haven’t disappointed so far, but the recent loss of their commander and co-founder Entropi may prove to be quite a blow to their marine rounds. All is not lost however as they are still capable of yeilding a strong roster, especially with the addition of former Velveters Tweadle and tjerge, but will that be enough to beat Team Russia?

We will probably see atleast one tie breaker; iRate has a strong alien lineup but losing their comm will weaken their marine performance. TR on the other hand excel neither aliens or marines, but have solid performance on both. This is a hard match to predict, but a draw is not an option and one of the teams has to take the pedestal.

Final Prediction:

After a long and close game, I think iRate will finally win the game. Team Russia has proven me wrong almost every time though, so it wouldn’t come as a surprise to me if they did it again. Good luck to both teams, and remember that this is the grand Final where there are no losers, only winners.

Good luck and above all have fun!