Weenus and bootman's Training Camp Wrap-Up 2

Posted by: bootman

Scoreboard Final Dallas Venom 19 SF OPTX 24

Our very own Dallas Venom faced off against the San Francisco OPTX this week for the training camp starting off with Dead or Alive night. Master continued his wins with a 5-4 win over the OPTX rookie NinjaCW after CW game off a very respectable win over Offbeat last week. While both players decided to use their secondaries, it was an exciting bout nonetheless, unfortunately, Phoenix didn't have the same luck against #1 ranked DoA female Vanessa.

If any of you didn't watch the replay of this match, I suggest you do. Although the scoreboard makes this fight look like a blowout in Vanessa's favor, many of the rounds came out very close with Vanessa's combo timing narrowly giving her the round. In the very first round that Phoenix picked up, she almost had a perfect victory, but Vanessa was able to get a punch in right before losing the first round. From there on out, Vanessa did a great job of keeping Phoenix on the boards and not able to get out of her deadly combos for a duration of the round. Phoenix showed a lot of potential in this match, and like I said, if you missed the replay, take a look.

Following DoA night, it was time for another not-so-exciting FIFA match. Kat Hunter decided it may have been a bad idea to have protected player Stermy playing in this training camp from Italy, and decided to use taxi player Nate. The first half went back and forth with a lot of great defense from both players, but Barmoa completely dominated the second half with three straight goals to pick up the victory.

The counter-strike team between the Venom and OPTX started off fairly even in the first few rounds going back and forth, but then the OPTX kicked it into gear by winning four straight rounds, and much of this was attributed to our biggest fan Warmach1ne. Right now the OPTX is a freight train, and we here at the Venom were hoping to prove that the Core just didn't bring their “A” game last week, but San Fran came to play and came out as the better team of the night.

Finally, we get to the most depressing part of the training camp week, Chaos and Muffinman didn't take home the W when playing against the San Francisco racing team this week. Our matched turned out much like the LA vs. Carolina race where the underdogs managed to take it. This race was very important for Dallas as well for the win. Prior to the race, the score was in favor for San Francisco, but only by a 4 point lead, a first place finish from either Venom racer would have almost guaranteed the comeback victory for the franchise, but miximup was able to hold the first place finish, resulting in an overall victory for the OPTX.

Outstanding Performance
Venom|Phoenix

Phoenix played an amazing match, and as much as the readers are going to want to say we're playing favorites due to being a part of the team, you're wrong. Phoenix came out strong in this match, and almost had a flawless round over Vanessa...that's a big deal. Throughout the rest of the match, every round came down to the wire (except the fifth where Vanessa held control the entire time), and you could tell that overall experience was in Vanessa's favor to close out the rounds. The reason for Phoenix getting this award though, was the amount of potential that was shown with her gameplay throughout the match. If any of you other ladies are reading this, keep an eye out and don't let the score of the match fool you.

Scoreboard Final Complexity LA 23 Carolina Core 15

Kicking off the week with Dead or Alive 4, PerfectLegend continued his winning streak by absolutely demoralizing OffbeatNinja, but belle wasn't so lucky as we saw a score that reminded us of her performance from season one. I'm not quite sure what Offbeat's deal has been during this training camp, but it doesn't look like his normal self when he's playing. If you watched his match against PL, you know what I am talking about. PL ha absolute control over Offbeat from the start to finish of pretty much every round. On the girls end of things though, Mystik made up for Offbeats performance with a great 5-1 win over belle to make up for last weeks match vs. Vanessa. Both of these ladies have a lot of eyes on them coming into the season, and how they perform within the next couple weeks will show us a lot about how they'll be looking during the regular season.

The FIFA match was the highlight of the night starring KreeganBG and Anomaly. I was really excited to see how Anomaly would do playing someone on the same continent as him, and hoping he might make an upset, but Kreegan put on the man pants and went to work. Kreegan continued to stay undefeated with a 2-0 victory over Anomaly, and as long as Lake doesn't have plans to try out a taxi FIFA player, Kreegan just may be the only FIFA player to go undefeated in the training camp.

Now this is a loss that we won't give Carolina too much scuff for. They managed to only lose 11-7 this week, which is a great improvement from their 15-3 loss to San Francisco. In this match Lake decided to bring back everyones favorite teddy bear wielding, noclip bunnyhopping, knife-walling quick-switching killing machine!!!!!! JUSTIN “SUNMAN” SUMMY!!!!!!!! Not even that intro gave the poor taxi player justice. Sunman, or as I like to call him, “the taxi driver” didn't have a phenomenal match, but he definitely kept up with the team like the days of the old. If any GM's are looking to sub out a player before the regular season, Sunman is definitely on their radars. As for the Core, keep on truckin' fellas, and just remember, everyone else is “all online”.

This was without a doubt, the shocker of the week. One of the most least feared racing teams in the league, snagged themselves a win over one of the best. This race started off the same way that it finished. GTO started with pole position and managed to finish the race in first place securing the dominate victory over the core. Early in the race Chavisan went for a pass on Phantom and ultimately secured his fate in last place, whereas GEL made the same mistake on GTO giving him the first place finish. Hopefully the compLexity duo can keep it up, but if they're wins only come based off of starting positions and other teams mistakes, they're going to be in a lot of trouble in the coming weks.

Outstanding Performance
coL|Forza Motorsport 2 Team

That's right, these two impressed with this win over Phantom and GEL. Even with the luck of the draw, you would think Core would have taken this one, but GTO stayed on his game and managed to finish in first to win the race. It is well known that coL's racing team was one of teams lagging in catching onto to the switch to Forza, but they just may be up to speed now. As mentioned before, hopefully this isn't the end of the wins for these two.

Scoreboard Final Chicago Chimera 15 New York 3D 26

Its looking rough for the defending Champions. There isn't much more to say than that. There are any number of reasons or excuses as to why Chicago has lost in convincing fashion two weeks in a row, and hopefully for Chicago players and fans alike, these reasons or excuses do not follow them to Los Angeles this summer, because things are getting grim.

Chicago's World Final clutching duo of Black Mamba and Kasumi Chan faltered first in the week. Both males kicked off with their primary characters this week, and 3D's Chappelle seemed desperate to make up for his 5-1 loss to PerfectLegend from week one. Chappelle seemed to be punishing Mamba with counters and throws, while Mamba looked to be more combo heavy. Still, Chappelle played a tight first three rounds, then bounced back and forth, before sitting the MVP down for a 5-3 final.

The ladies on the other hand played with their alternate characters, with KC playing as the famed super ninja. Disappointingly enough, I didn't see much super ninja cheese, which seems to have disappointed KC as well, who pulled a Chappelle, losing 5-1 to Coolsvilla.

Next up, the return of Wizakor. 3D's first season MVP and FIFA World Champion had sat out last week, allowing his taxi player Mojo to fall to Kreegan 2-0. This week, Wizakor had a taste of his own medicine, and instead of getting a chance to put Chicago's new player Eafra on at blast, Wizakor found himself going toe to toe with Chicago's taxi player, Michs09. Wizakor would go on to score the only goal of the game in the first half, a fact that worried some viewers. Hopefully, we can see a stronger offense from Wizakor in the near future.

Thursday night was a highlight for the fans, when Chicago and New York went head to head in yet another Chicago match that was forced into overtime. Yes, they lost this one too. This is a trend thats beginning to worry me. Regardless, it was a great match, even if Tuscan seemed like a sub par playing field for two high potential teams. Chicago tried out Ryan Pham as a taxi player, who filled in for the controversially drafted Hahn. Pham seemed to pull his weight in the match, being a reliable rifle as always, screaming out to General Managers still looking to fill a spot; "I'm still here, damnit!"

Over all, I'd say it was a better showing for Pham as a person than Chicago as a team. They still have a lot of ground to cover before they're playing on par as a returning World Championship team. 3D on the other hand looked much better than last week, but keep in mind, 3D looking good overall isn't very hard considering how poor they looked last season.
The match series ended with Forza of course, and yet another upset at Chicago's cost. ComeBackDan came in first, with ch0mpr in second, and Darkstorm in third. JasonX found himself at the receiving end of another screw up and a fourth place finish. I'm sure that Chicago's GM Brian Flander is well aware that this isn't a good representation of JasonX's consistency, but its still scary fact to see one of the most terrifying players from the first season playing below par.

Outstanding Performance
3D.NY|Forza Motorsport 2 Team

Perhaps its been two strong performances against Chicago, or perhaps its just myself being starstruck by any players who can catch an advantage over ch0mpr and JasonX, but this one is going to the 3D Forza team.

Either Online is the Chicago Racing team's Achille's heel, or the shock of playing Forza has finally set in. Honestly though, Chicago seemed capable of performing at the Combine, so its looking as if the internet is killing these boys. It would be fair to expect a serious trail of revenge after the LAN season begins in LA. Be sure to keep your head down to duck the flying tires.