Hey all, just wanted to do a little report of the Dutch WCG qualification I played the 5th of july. I had a great day there, especially as I won the qualification in the end, and can go to the world final in Köln in November.
After the very disappointing absence of AoE3 in the Dutch qualification last year, everyone expected the same this year. However, on 21 April the Dutch WCG organisation released the game list and AoE3 was on it, partially thanks to the great support from the Dutch community.
I knew I’d be one of the favorites, as I’d been in the top 25 for quite some time, though there was going to be some heavy competition with several other Dutch players high in the rankings. About a month ago I started training seriously for it, firstly by choosing my own civilization. I tried some of the best ones, and ended up going for India because I just love their diversity and of course they are one of the best.
There’s about 5 civs that could give me serious problems though, as well as having to find a good strat in an India mirror. I trained a lot on these matchups, mostly with clan mates who I’d like to thank for their great help and support! I’ll skip the trainings – playing some 70-80 games in the last 2 weeks as well as analysing stats and replays from other competitors – but in the end I was quite confident, even though I knew mirrors and India vs Japan would still give me problems.
On the day itself I left early to make sure I wouldn’t be too late and ended up having to wait outside for 30 minutes. When we could finally sign in and set up our computers, we quickly found some problems. The Warchiefs, the first expansion, wasn’t installed on the computers, which meant 3 civs would be unplayable, and they didn’t update the game to the latest patch. After more than an hour of trying to fix everything, the game was patched but we could not play the 3 missing civs, and we could start the groupphase while C&C 3, the other game played there, were almost starting their semifinals.
They seeded the 4 highest rates, me as #1 seed, so we wouldn’t meet before the playoffs. I almost lost my third game in the groupphase but somehow won it, so ended as groupwinner. I then had to play the quarterfinals vs Powerboy, who started off well in the first game, but I pushed back and not even camping could help him to turn the tide and I won the game. The second game he decided to skip the first part and started camping immediately, this time also seabooming, but I took the sea, aged up and forced him to attack, and he lost the final battle and the game.
In the semifinals a stronger opponent was waiting, 4th seed Necrote. He played India too, we did almost the same both games but I slowly got a better economy and won both games. In the other semifinals the 2nd and 3rd, Adjeking and Xiphos, played each other, Germany vs Japan. Nice games too, and Xiphos surprised me with a 2-0 win.
Then I had to play him and these games were very intense and long games. He was playing Japan again and I seriously messed up the first game because of some new counter he found. I was behind in score most of the time, but just stayed defensive and aged, and very slowly took the advantage and won the game, was very happy to win this game, almost couldn’t believe it. The second game was quite long too, and he had good chances there too, but in the end I had a better army and won a big fight, and it was gg shortly after.
Very glad I qualified, had a great day, it was fun to meet other Dutch players. We had dinner together and went home. Next stop Köln!
