RECAP
Ok, where to start? How about a big old 'FUCK YEAH' that the grind and competition is over, and we did it. Our journey that started eleven months ago, with the goal of being amongst the best clans in the world ended with a rousing HUGE success. I'll be doing an end season recap post in a few days, but for now, I am just going to focus on THIS Clan Championship win.
DAYS BEFORE
This weekend was just a microcosm of the whole year.
We started out late to the gate in terms of getting feedback from our clan. By mid week last week, the StoneCold household was in a bit of panic in what appeared to be some heavy apathy from the clan. No one was getting back to me. But while we might have been a bit late in getting people to the start, I am very proud of everyone's efforts in ultimately stepping up. I can say by Sunday morning, I had talked to well over 60+ people in this clan who got back to me in some shape, manner or form about the War. Thank you. Thank all of you. I truly do mean that and appreciate your caring.
And that late push by clan members ultimately saved this Clan Championships for us. That is the 'theme' of this post, if I had to find one. A lot of people stepping up from all sorts of places to help us get the biggest 'W' of the Ghosts Clan War season, in the highest field of play.
SATURDAY - ROUND 1
The process started with Saturday's round 1. We fielded two squads but unfortunately disaster struck when the competitions saw a hacker knock out the entire worldwide CoD network. We were in 2nd place at the 80 min mark, but it was disheartening. Words cannot explain how soul-sucking it is on one's mental state to prepare for an event of this magnitude, and then have it get shut down, and have to wait until round 2 the next day. Props to those who showed up to help just on Saturday. A number of vets like Forrest cancelling plans with his wife to be there. Bluntz coming around. Haku showing up from nowhere. Newer clan guys like StingierKyle, iGradiated. Thank you and props. Even though the event crashed Saturday, you kept us alive. You kept us in the game, which allowed to win on Sunday. THANK YOU!
Then it came down to Sunday. One day. One moment. One four hour battle amongst SEVEN clans ranked in the top 35. All in one bracket. As I mentioned, it was mentally hard to regroup after Saturday's shutdown. But regroup we did. I put out a huge call for help and the clan responded in a HUGE WAY in the 20 hours we had before Sunday's start. Calls, texts and emails came flying in all night. I don't think people will ever understand what we did in that time frame. We literally replaced half our of squad and put in replacements for Sunday. That's where 'depth' comes in and our clan had it. Props.
SUNDAY - 'PRE-GAME'
...and let me say this. I was proud of those who showed up Sunday too. We had a number of long time vets/older bros who changed their schedules to help. MalGato, Swain, SnipingmyJayz. Then some long time vets who had been gone awhile, just flying in ready to battle, like Edog, Saggy, Coronaman. Can't forget GladiusThrust, he was there both days! . Plus some new guys who hadn't had much Clan War experience, but responded like champs, people like MonstahOne and zzHaXZz. And of course, Aroc and EliteWarrior....these two, where to start? I could write a whole post about these two, but that will come in a few days in final recap post. They will have their turn. Stay tuned.
HaXZz, Gladius, Stone, Aroc, Elite, ....the five of us played both days. And be elow is a snapshot for the ages, the twelve of us who got us there!
ROUND TWO START
This was clan wars at it's finest. Back and forth. High drama. We opted to go down to the '12-person' bracket for this Championship, so the pressure was on our two squads to win. Each squad was probably going to have to play around 28 to 30 CoD games in the four hour time limit. What game modes? We wouldn't know until seconds before we played them. We would have to pretty much win every game we played. And yes, while it was public lobbies with random opponents at times, both squads would probably being playing at least half their games against other full partied clans. That's pressure. I know my squad had eight games against just other Champion Bracket clans alone. We went 6-2 against them. THAT is clutching it. Overall, my squad went like 28-2. Our other squad went around 31-0. But more impressive yet, many of those wins came in game modes we do not play, like HC TDM. Great job! But even with those winning results, sometimes that's not enough. Every clan that made it this far, are simply studs. ALL of them tested. And that's where the Clan War tactics come in.......
....and on the tactics front, we clutched it. Right from the start we made a tough call. All twelve of us, pre-match, agreed to use a very VERY risky tactic right from the Clan War start. Go big. We attacked one of the longest time-consuming nodes. Domination. Dom was the longest game to play in our bracket, getting the wins required. This would put us behind the other clans early in the war. But IF the other clans didn't respond in kind to our attack, let us go, controlling this node point would enable us to control it later in the game, as the four hour window might not allow a counterattack. And we got it. We snuck right in and grabbed Dom in lightning fast fashion. My squad won three of its Dom games 200-12, 200-35 and 200-73. Time counts in Clan Wars. Rather than needing say 32 minutes to get our wins, we got the 'Ws' in 22 minutes. Our other squad did the same and our fast wins didn't allow any other clans to notice or counter. We controlled Dom and got the 44pts.
MIDDLE OF THE CLAN WAR
The rest of the Clan War? Back and forth. For the entire time. We took the lead around the 2 hour mark, quickly adapting and changing our plans on the fly. We used tactics that we learned during the past year to help guide us. And guide us they did. We used a maneuver from Diamond War 12 to help us during the third hour. Our experience helped us recognize the pattern on the map, and we exploited it to help us cap HC TDM. Many times this happened during the war. And it wasn't until around the 3 hour & 48 min mark, with our lead only 12 pts, that when we won the KC node (+23pts), putting us up 193 to 160. Cheers all around!
What an experience. Honestly say the weekend was one of the most rewarding CoD playing experiences I have ever had. To be able to actually use your CoD skills in a way that actually meant something. And what was also so rewarding about it all was the friends. My squad? Lots of vets. And it showed during the play. An outsider would have been just confused as fvck at what appeared to be a foreign language being spoken. "One shot at the dumpster", "Two tags mid map", "D-bag 2-story C", ...no one even discussed this stuff pre-war. It just happened naturally. Everyone on the same page. Everyone working as a TEAM. I guess the years of playing this together, just had us ready. And no words out there can explain how rewarding that felt, long time bros (and a newer guy) just playing to our max potential. The other squad, echoed those same feelings too.
POST CHAMPIONSHIP
Throw in the bonus points at the end for controlling nodes end game, we ended up winning 1st with 299 pts, beating the SOW clan. What a ride. What a journey. A year long in the making. Where will this have us end up? Final rankings are due out in a few days. While a typical Diamond Clan War win nets a clan between 95 to 120 pts, those clans who qualified for the Championship brackets stand to get almost double to triple the points, especially if you win it. This big Win may very well get us into the top 15 in the world. That is rewarding, to be able to start something a year ago, and then make it happen.
But what was also even more rewarding, as much or if not more, has been all the people met along the way. New friends. New competitors. Seeing long time bros who hadn't played much step up and do well. And meet tons of new players in other clans. Speaking for myself, I have gotten to know the leaders of most of the top clans in the world. In fact, our clan spent about an hour last night post war hanging out with the guys from the 2nd place finishing British SOW clan. Great people there. Incredible CoD players. Incredible clan. This Euro clan had probably even a tougher rode to the Championships than us and as recent as 6 weeks ago, beat one of the other bracket winners this weekend... a French team, 'Zach Team Elite', who ended up winning the other half of the bracket. THAT is how competitive and tough this sh1t was, which in turn makes it all that more rewarding when it ended.
Oh yeah, I should also add. From what I can gather, our clan won a bunch of SWAG stuff for CoD Advance Warfare. But better yet, our clan is going to be one of only seven clans (in the entire freaking world) that will get a special exoskeleton suit for CoD Advanced Warfare. THAT is really cool.
So that's it. One more post about the whole experience as a whole coming up later this week. That's going to be my final CoD Ghost Clan War season farewell post. Give me a few days to collect my thoughts. And after that? it's R&R time, catch up with my family, and join some friends on Destiny! We have a few months off before CoD-AW, but I can assure you, some of us are already doing some pre-planning with that game. We might have some big announcements coming down the road.
Peace!
