vs. 
So since it seems that DoD is even more dead than before, I was asked to do a writeup on the 31st season of TPG. While DoD has gone through its ups and downs, twists and turns it has continued to thrive in this small community we continue to cultivate. While this game is competitively in its teenage years, the competition continues to thrive even while people are calling it “dead”.
This finals match has two longtime heavyweights going head to head. Each team knows how the other competes, with everyone on each roster at some point competitively playing with or against each-other at some point in competitive play. During this season they have faced off, early in the season, during the third competitive match, they battled on a relatively new map in the competitive rotation, dod_emmanuel. This match went the way of g.skiLL, squeaking out a win against a strong THUNDER team, 222-184. While this may have lead to people possibly beating them again, it seems THUNDER has had something to say about that.
This season is also different than others in that fact that the finals are best two out of three, and we are currently tied at one win a piece. The maps in the finals rotation are Harrington, a classic competitive map, and player favorite, Anzio, which has always been one of the maps for finals matchups, and lennon, a map not necessarily as popular as the other two, but can make for interesting upsets due to the fast pace. g.skiLL came out of the gate blazing, showing why they are in the finals, beating THUNDER 234-261. The map began very well for g.skiLL easily controlling the allied side of the map on the first half, and forcing THUNDER to come from behind. While it was a valiant effort, THUNDER was unable to beat out the odds and wound up losing the first map. The second map was a real shining spot for THUNDER, handidly beating g.skiLL 396-163. This map definitely played to THUNDER’s strong “wait and see” play, which allowed them to control the map and take the win. With the series tied at 1 we turn towards lennon to see who will win.
You can catch up on the current information for the series in Toxinators post here: http://nineteeneleven.org/forums/viewto ... =41&t=3913
From this strong team I was able to track down the ever popular jaGGoN, who managed to take some time out of his day to answer some questions.
Sp|dEr: Everyone is familiar with your roster, but could you please tell us a little bit about your starting line-up?
jaGGoN: well our lineup itself is a bit of a game of musical chairs but the general idea is to have frank kar garanding- frankie is one of the top 5 guys left in the game all around. absolutely explosive in every way in game, and the smarts to go along with it. i guess starting to play dod before the age of 10 and keeping at it for 9 years will do that for a guy.
at third rifle we have KO- scott brings experience from a lot of invite teams passed, using many many strategic gay areas to make his way through the map and get off important nades and double cap breaks, along with very good aim he fills out the 3rd rifle spot perfectly
Our first heavy would be the legendary jordan "cableguy" fenton- jordan has been at the top tier of dod since 2004. he's a perfect mixture of aggressive and passive, his aim and reaction time are elite. he's kind of a staple type of player. whatever team he's on seems to live and die by his performance and he's been great for us. the first two matches against thunder he seemed to be the one person who was really on his top game.
The other heavy, taylor "hxc" graf - taylor put a lot of time and effort into becoming one of the top 5 players in the game, if not top 3 (in my book top 3) he has unreal aim and reaction time, can push up your ass and destroy your whole team, or hang back and throw a perfectly timed grenade off a wall over a skybox. we're gonna need a huge effort from him if we want to come out on top against thunder's firepower.
Sniper - chuck "motive" d'angelo- another very old school player, chuck has been in invite basically since it's inception and this season has been one of his best to date. he's the last pure sniper of the generation and his aim and reaction time is insane to watch when i die and spectate him. i haven't seen a sniper go toe to toe with him this season and manage to come out on top very often. on a map like lennon, he'll need to tap into his aggressive side to really help us get it done but either way i have no doubt he'll do his job to a T.
Last guy- JaGGoN- its a far cry from 2007-2010 when i could run around and just shoot everything and throw a billion retarded grenades all over the map, but now my strength is really just balancing out the rest of the team and exploding out for a fast 4 or 5 kill streak at times to turn the map around. smarts, nades and still top tier aim and reactions, it was a rough couple seasons for me with 5.5 men frag wise but ive found my shit again this season and out of all the 30 championships ive won, the 3 lans, etc etc, this one match may be the most important to me so, that will either push me to a vintage jaggon push and frag dominant performance, or ill try so hard that i flop straight on my face and our well team is left 1v2 against 2 of the top 3 players in dod.
6 years of co captaining a team will really get the blood flowing when you play them in a best of 3 the season you leave.
Sp|dEr: How do you feel the first two matches in the series have gone, and what changes do you expect to make in order to pull out the win?
jaGGoN: Well they pretty much went as we (and probably most of the community) expected. we felt we had the beat on them on harrington and executed very well. anzio they have the team work and chemistry built up and tox and dorito shoved it up our asses. basically lennon is our best map. we've played them on it about 15 times in scrims, we've won 9 or 10 times. we really just need to have our lineup set the way it should be; the way i listed it above. if we do that, i think we have a small advantage and then its just a matter of everyone filling their roles and hitting the shots that need to be hit. if we use the setup we've been using in scrims, it'll be totally up in the air and we'll need our big guns to put up big numbers and hold down the tox's and dorito's and just hold the apartments as best as possible. lennon gets won or lost by heavy teams. long and well can help the big cap pushes, but the apartments is the X factor and if we win that battle, we win the match.
Sp|dEr: With this being a best of three series, how has that affected your teams playstyle as opposed to relying on one match and out?
jaGGoN: Haha well, with the immense level of trolling and shit talking going on out of game, it's been a pretty trying situation for us. there's been a lot of variables in play that have kinda worn us thin even before we got in the server for the first two matches. but that first night, after winning harrington we were flying high, then we got anally raped on anzio and by about 10 minutes into the second half of that match we were all dead and just wanted to get it over with and move on to the next one (as is the case with most anal rapes im sure) so having the week off i think gave our guys a chance to get back to being okay with dod and not being so infuriated. we loved the idea at its inception and would have been completely cool with it had we played at 9 est on default day and done all 3 matches that night, now its just about winning this one match, all bets are off, all debts erased, one match decides it all and I can tell you from being with gskiLL and being a mainstay of thunder for so long....this shit is personal.
Maybe its just personal to me, prolly, me and tox are going to have a dick measuring contest on the field of play basically
Sp|dEr: Can we expect more of the same from g.skILL next season?
jaGGoN: well to be honest i have no clue, we haven't spoken of it much. i would really like to think that we'll keep the team together regardless of the results tonight but i have no idea where the other guys stand. and if the team dies I’m either going to iwa so i can bait everyone for 12 weeks as a sniper or im playing with LaB since the umbilical cord to thunder has been permanently severed i think. but for right now i would say plan on gskiLL trying to either avenge a loss, or go for 2 in a row (4 in a row for me and taylor
).Sp|dEr: Thank you for taking the time. Any further comments, or shout-outs?
jaGGoN: Well, since no one else will do it, im reaching out to thunder for some good graces here and saying no bad blood, everything has been the heat of the battle and 6 years shouldnt be erased by one season. tox and i ran that team all those years, we were the core 2 together with ryan making it the big 3, whether it was thunder or 5.5 men we were inseparable and even when tox was gone i kept the team alive waiting for his ass to come back so, no love lost brother, keep it clean and lets hash this shit out at the well cap broseph harter. ummmm there should be movies of seveN and cass after all this shit is done. shoutout to SofterSin and grimm! my new favorite buddies (and soft being my good luck charm!). biggie, you're still the big guy. good luck to illuminati tonight you guys got this and i will try to shoutcast something for you milo! mike. coL. chaos. our love, our muse, we will never quit until we have reached the level of greatness known as the coL. Chaos. I want thanks for keeping me believing that I’m good at dod. If I gave out all the shoutouts i have this article would turn into a novel so, good luck have fun tonight thunder, its going to be one hell of a match. and thank you spider for always helping to keep my neediness at bay with these interviews. I love em and I love you buddy boy!
I mananged to get Tox to translate for seveN and ask a few questions for this upcoming match.
Sp|dEr : Everyone is familiar with your roster, but could you please tell us a little bit about your starting line-up?
seveN: It will be myself and the following;
seveN: TOXINATOR: tox is the heart and soul of thunder. absurdly talented. always fragging, always making great calls, gathers us all for scrims and matches.. i dont think there is thunder w/o tox.
HUDSON: pretty versatile guy, can rifle or snipe, can be so so at times but he can also dominate a game at times. pretty funny to have around and is a huge creed/chevelle fan.
DORITO: probably the best all around player to ever play this game. he is a master rifle as we all know but could EASILY be a top heavy if he wanted. by far the best overall teamate ive ever played with.
JULES: teamed up with jules in iwa (and unsuccessfully tried sliding him into our starting lineup) and have been playing with him ever since. This is our 4th season heavying together and it has been fun watching him progress into probably the most feared and most talked about player in tpg today extremely skilled and has been getting smarter and smarter every match and season.
PAT: pat snipes mostly and always surprises me. He tends to make you shake your head at times, and then comes through with 2 or 3 clutch kills when he's last or 2nd to last and we need a stop to win.
Sp|dEr: How do you feel the first two matches in the series have gone, and what changes do you expect to make in order to pull out the win?
seveN: I think they were 2 well played matches overall, with 2 high quality rosters that were actually practicing (somewhat) with a consistent 6. For the past 3-4 years, dod has just been pug teams that show up sundays and frag. This felt like one of those match ups from 2005 with 2 top invite teams that knew how to play. But as for the matches themselves, no discredit to gskill, but i feel like we gave up that match. we were fragging pretty hard, outfragging by a decent margin if i remember, but gave up a ninja cap in the last few seconds of the half. They did a good job of defending the full cap, and won in a close one. the anzio match felt pretty good for us with our communication, rotations, and teamwork. i think with our roster, we will always be fragging, but it is the other things i mentioned that will win or lose us matches. as for changes, i am not sure. we just plan to show up and play our game. but i know it will be nice to be able to warm up prior to this match, since i wont be walking in from work/cooking dinner at 7 and living it at 7:30 (pst)
Sp|dEr: With this being a best of three series, how has that affected your teams playstyle as opposed to relying on one match and out?
sevEN: Well, since we didnt get to finish last weekend, this final match is esentially that "one match and out" thing you are referring to. Being able to play 2 or 3 matches is nice because you get into a rhythm and you get a feel for how well the other team is playing at that moment. I am not sure how it effects our "playstyle" as a team per se.. it just lets us get more warmed, get into a rhythm, and lets us make adjustments easier between halves because we've been playing the same team for 2 matches.
Sp|dEr: Can we expect more of the same from THUNDER next season?
seveN: We don't plan on changing the roster much, unless people quit the game or the team. We are all on the same page though and hope to keep our roster intact. We are looking to upgrade our 7th but for the most part, we don't anticipate many changes
Sp|dEr: Thank you for taking the time. Any further comments, or shout-outs?
seveN: Ya i just wanted to say it's been a fun season and finals so far and i look forward to tonight. shout outs to taylor, frank, chuck, scott, corey, jordan.. and shout outs to my koalaz bros alex jarrod ben miller ryan, and to jared john ryan pat and bryan in thunder. and any other teamates i've played with in recent years. #gomi #dodealers #koalaz #thunder #socallan #CREED
