Mercenaries Cup 7: Lower Bracket Semi-Finals

 

After the exciting (yet slightly disappointing) battle between Club Penguin Crusaders and Cute Beast, the latter has been knocked down to the Lower Bracket Finals where they will face off against the Korean team, Kusoyotech.

 

It really seems like a replay of Mercenaries Cup 6, except that instead of fighting for the Championship, the Koreans and Chinese are fighting for another shot at taking down the dominant Club Penguin Crusaders…

 

Let’s dive right into the teams!

 

 

We’ve really said all that needed to be said about Cute Beast in the Semi-Final write up. Cute Beast has three star players, Fury, 10 and Flower, who are renowned for their DM ability, and the team relies on these three to be performing in order to win matches against their opponents.

 

However, the previous match revealed that the team was less stellar than predicted. While Flower was able to keep (and maybe promote further) his reputation for being one of Asia’s best Snipers, 10 was somewhat unable to live up to his reputation in the two maps, never hitting above 250 dpm, something that he needs to be doing at the least to continue as the core of Cute Beast.

 

With such heavy reliance on a DM-centric playstyle and its players, it’s inevitable that when Cute Beast fall apart, they do it almost completely, dropping players left and right and becoming wholly uncoordinated. Thrown up against the solid machine of Club Penguin Crusaders, it appeared that the team couldn’t cope.

 

But they shouldn’t be underestimated because of one match. They were the most dominant team in the previous season, and the lack of scrims to help keep teamwork in sync may have been the factor that led to their poor team play and eventual downfall. With such a roster full of talent, they definitely stand a chance, and a Cute Beast on both feet could be more than a match for Kusoyotech and Club Penguin Crusaders.

 

 

This team’s roster is strong, but the real question is, is it strong enough?

 

Kusoyotech's players are all big names within the Korean community: Friez, the flashy Demoman who has more experience than other Demos in the league; Janus, whose surfs and style of Medic brought Mihaly’s Flow to victory in AFC 9; Larkyy, a well-known Scout with excellent DM; Babel, a legendary Pocket within AsiaFortress who has multiple championships under his belt. Finally, you have Daylight, who has proven himself in the given time that he can play with the best Korea has to offer.

 

But I saved the most newsworthy piece for last: Pine. Pine and Flower form the Ying and Yang of the godly Snipers in Korea, and it seems that they’re poised to clash in this match (at least, we hope considering the turbulence of rosters in Asia).

 

Despite all this, Kusoyotech haven’t been as dominant as predicted. Perhaps it’s the turbulent roster, but even with strong players and the lack of a language barrier, the team lost to a significantly different (and arguably weaker) Club Penguin Crusaders, and even dropped a map to upstarts Team Intermediate.

 

This team definitely has the potential to be a solid and consistent super team, but it appears that their performance is temperamental and unstable. With such a strong roster, there’s no question about who will win this one if both teams are in their prime. 

 

It’s a faceoff of runner-ups, and if I had to give anyone the edge here, I’d give it to Cute Beast simply because they’ve performed better during the season as compared to their opponents. But it’s completely unfair to count Kusoyotech out of the running simply because of that. The same thing was said about Cute Beast VS Emi Dizziness in AFC 9, but those two put on the greatest show AsiaFortress had ever seen, which ended with Emi coming out on top by the slightest margin.

 

Something the audience definitely needs to watch for however, is the intense rivalry between Flower and Pine, who will undoubtedly be off-classing at the same time sometime during the match. It’s going to be fun to watch!

 

Tune in to TFLive at 9:00 PM GMT+8 on Sunday, April 3rd 2016 to catch the action!