While we patiently wait for Phobos to gather his courage and hit that "Join" button on Game 3, it's time to review the picks of Game 2.
But before that, there's some change in the Pick Rating Panel!
DrApe is gone, he has retired from Warzone. According to an unconfirmed rumor, he felt into despair after witnessing the awful skill level of the first two games. But whatever the reason behind his retirement is, the fact is he needs to be replaced.
So I reviewed dozens of applications, and after careful consideration, I proud to announce Ralph as the new Pick Rating Panelist.
Since his brilliant trophy win in 2018, he has been a great addition to the strategic community and we're all lucky to have him.
And without further ado, let's discover the results of the second game:
Game 2
https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26962979---
Nauz's picks:Ralph: 6/10
Going for the classic 12 in 2, with a 1-2 double on East China and 3rd in the America's is a great choice with this distribution (but also very predictable). The 4-5-6 ensures coverage in the Americas, and with Russia so bad Nauz has it all covered. His picks are ordered okayish, with 3-4 allowing a combo, 5th covering both the 3rd and the 4th, and the 6th denying US expansion.
My main concerns are:
1) If Nauz loses his 1st pick, both the possible 2-3-4 combo with no intel on counters and the 1-4-5 dead-rubber-in-the-west outcome,
2) How vulnerable he would be to the West China counter. With the EC combo so strong, and the SEA ftb I argue that the WC-counter wouldn't be an unreasonable 4th or 5th pick.
Overall okay+ picks, Nauzhror knows his MME. A bit too vanilla for my taste though, I want to see the Caucasus double in distros like these!
Jeff: 3/10
Both player picked very similarly, as you would expect with all of Russia being useless. For Nauz the picks are not terrible but lack imagination. When you encounter a distribution like this, you need to stand out. The West China bonus was there for the taking and neither player had the balls to go for it. Nauz went for the EC combo, likely knowing it would be split. After he went for the EUS combo which in my opinion is garbage. Too many counter options on EUS could ruin the game very quickly for you. Luckily his opponent called ahead to see what he was wearing so they could match. After Nauz picks 3/4 in EUS he then decides to double down on the area, cause if you have no balls then you might as well really dive in. The picks are safe but boring. This game, like the picks, leaves me wanting more.
krunx: 3/10
The decision to pick East China and Indonesia as #1 and #2 is fine. Is somewhat the question of speculating that no one picks SEA and swapping the two picks accordingly. I would have seen the probability of Phobos/Nauz picking SEA as low (he then loses 50% of the games immediately if both take EC as #1). I.e. the remaining picks should be mainly against the case that you split EC and Indonesia. Therefore already the first consideration, if you don't want to swap pick 2 and 3 (and I think yes, you do).
I therefore find the handling of picks 3 through 6 in particular problematic. First, the obvious: What do you want to do with pick 6? The pick makes quite little sense to me. Also the cluster 3-4-5 is risky, if the opponent knows about it, the game is practically over. And if the opponent gets CA, he doesn't even have to know about it and the game becomes very difficult as well. On top of that, East-Us has 3 counters, all of which the opponent can pick. Don't like it at all
Average rating: 4/10---
Phobos's picks:Ralph: 4/10
His 1-2-3-4 are the exact same as Nauz, so he opens up for counters-galore on both his 1-2 and his 3-4. The 5-6 doesn't make sense to me: A terrible warlord for Antartica and a counter makes little sense to me.
Everything that applied to Nauz applies to Phobos as well, but imo there is just no reason to pick Ant+South Africa like that. It removes guaranteed cover on US and brings very little value to the table.
Overall okay- picks. I know Phobos can do better, but playing veterans with picks like these will always be an uphill battle
Jeff: 3.5/10
So much to say that has already been said. Wake me up when Game 3 starts. Another huge yawn for these boring ass picks, BUT WAIT...Phobos had a different 5/6! This is exciting, he decided to make 5/6 a first turn bonus option in Ant. This is also boring as fuck but at least he didn't double down on EUS. I am trying to find something fun about these picks or this game in general but I just can't do it. I will give Phobos credit for being a rebel and not making the exact same picks as Nauz. We know it does not work out for him but at least he had more than two options. The loss doesn't matter and this game sucked.
krunx: 5/10
Pick 1 and 2 see Nauz. I think picks 3 through 6 are a bit better here. Especially since the picks already indicate that Phobos has realized that he will probably split EC and Indo. Again, you can easily swap picks 2 and 3. Further, you have to see if you really want West-Us if you don't get CA. And that's where the problem lies with this pick set as well. It all works only half as well if you don't get CA. West-Us must then always run there and you potentially lose a pick.
Average rating: 4.17/10---
It seems that this time, our experts are not in agreement. But two of them agree that Phobos's picks were better and thanks to that, Phobos manages to (barely) come on top.
The overall opinion seems to be that Nauz had weaker picks but got lucky with the pick outcome. As krunx puts it:
Phobos was unlucky: he loses CA (would have been an immediate win for him) and has no knowledge of West-Us. Nauz gets the one pick outcome his pick-set acutally works. Phobos is not doing too badly after the picks. He just doesn't know it and plays accordingly. And then the decisions he makes always look stupid after the fact because he lacks information. It bothers me a bit that he didn't clearly follow a thought in gameplay. If he lacks information, he has to make an assumption. Here it doesn't help to combine several things, he simply has to decide clearly without Intel and he doesn't do that. That's why I see a big mistake in the gameplay, independent of the missing information
Edited 6/29/2021 15:35:19
