Hidden Cup 4 Decider | Villese vs LaaaaaN (Best of 7)

all right let's do it so in the blue we have velez and velez is playing as the chinese as if we've seen a lot on arabia and then in the red we have land and lan is playing as the malians uh chinese in my eyes are incredible civilization for arabia they're not quite as strong on some of the water maps so you seem to see the uh you seem to see them picked here and then malians are a bit more flexible for other maps what do you think about land using malians for game one yeah i think you probably didn't have the greatest arabia sieves the mammalians like you said they're really flexible yeah so i think they can still compete with chinese the chinese have the eco bonus like you said so it's gonna be interesting what it does okay yeah i'm looking at the maps here i mean we haven't really had any real big problems with the maps right uh arabia's looked pretty good overall it's gonna be pretty open i would say the only concern you tend to have with chinese is just getting some walls down uh before we we talked too much about this game we didn't have time before the set what do you think about this set here do you think that land's going to get back to hidden cup or velez is going to get back to hidden cup i think actually these players are quite similar in style they're like pretty good macro like standard players though veliz has been in greater shape lately so i would give the advantage to him okay yeah it's really fascinating with valez because the set against classic pro might have made some people think that velez wasn't performing very well because classic pro almost beat him and that went to five games classic pro being exceeded 36. but i actually left that set thinking that classic pro just played out of his mind and that velez didn't play bad um so i'm with you i think i give the slight edge to velez but i also know that lan has been training a lot and he's he's been talking on social media and whatnot about how happy he is to have so many people supporting him and i think he's been grinding so it wouldn't surprise me to see it go either way but i would say velez 4-3 yeah that's true and also with hidden cut maps the boars are in the back so with chinese you're quite safe because in the past it could be could be quite tricky if you lose your board but yeah that's a lot more difficult nowadays yeah fellaize already starting to wallow up i think we'll see a lot of chinese it's interesting how so the players have a global ban and we're seeing a lot of aztecs and mayans globally banned and then after all the sieves are picked you then have a uh snipe so you're eliminating a sieve from someone's draft we haven't seen chinese snipes too frequently we're seeing other civs like vikings sniped a lot lithuanians sniped a lot do you think our cha that chinese are so good that they should be sniped or do you think that they they have their weaknesses and players can can try and get wins against them i think it depends a bit on what uh sieves your opponent speaks like for example if you have islands and you see that your opponent has like maybe one or two good water sieves yeah then i guess it would make more sense to ban those but yeah if you can snipe chinese obviously they're a great sieve okay go for it yeah it's complicated complicated what's what's fun about this hidden cup is we have changed the settings a bit so the player says fellez is going for some early walls man this is he's not even trying to wall in his gold so i guess this is for scouts later but um yeah in the previous hidden cups it was free pick no repeat so we had a lot of mirror matchups and it was relatively predictable sometimes where sims might be picked but here with the draft scenario you might have what's seen as the better civ one map but that's probably because someone else is going to have a slightly better sieve for another you really have to take your advantages when they come yeah yeah true adds a bit more strategy to the game yeah the drafting yeah initially yeah i think feliz is going to go for scouts and then probably make a switch into skirms depending what line is going for and dropping the barracks so he's most likely opening metadarns into archers great men at arms i feel like you're seeing a lot of men at arms in ranks play right now on arabia which is what most people are playing valiant's pretty flexible sieve it is interesting though lan went forward he scouted out the walls and now he's coming back home to push in his deer so he has great scouting intel to see what velez is up to and that should actually tell him that valez is almost always going to be going for something like scouts because velez isn't trying to wall in the gold so he will know what's coming yeah true i'm not sure if lan is going to be able to do any damage with those mana arms yeah it's always tough when you invest into the barracks and the militia and then you don't even know if you should get the upgrade but this this brings us back to the chinese cheaper technologies and it's pretty much how you have to open up with chinese display very passive and it's very hard to stop the sieve also the fact that chinese get loom at the start or they typically research it with pro builds anyways means that if you try and attack villagers with a drush villagers probably won't die it's just a sieve feels so smooth if you can stay safe yeah that's true and i think lan will probably go for the man in arms and then go for the instant range to to pile on some pressure what do you think otherwise wouldn't make much sense also mods if we could have the title changed on the stream if if people are out there but what do you think about a range opening here for velez you think like just starting to go to open up with skirmishers would be an option or should you still go stable um no i wouldn't go for skirms because then you don't really have any like map presence then it's quite easy for lamb to just um either boom a bit or add a stable okay react in that way interesting decision here so this is sometimes the best move always velez comes out with a spearmint land that hurts but uh yeah if you attack the stable you can at least force them to repair that but that's you attack anywhere else they're just gonna have house walls so no question over how valez wants to play this series very safe start and demanded arms are doing something at least for land yeah and now with the weak scouts i think land is doing the smart move he's just gonna explore a bit of the size of the map yep so that he will have some awareness late game so that's good move by him yeah good move by him really needs to focus on getting the walls down last year at hidden cup three it was easier to full well your base there have been many wall nerves since then i think dark age walls are weaker now uh it takes longer to wall now though it's important for land maybe pull a second villager here there's nothing worse than having the enemy be full walled and then you're not but good hit in the middle here two archers and a spearman running forward land really wants to make sure that velez cannot repair that stable yeah true it's a it's a good move and i think we're gonna see that lan is gonna stick with one range so that way he can go up to castle edge a little bit faster okay so you said these players are similar in what ways do you think they're meta players do you think they just have similar preferences yeah i think they're they're meta players they're not the kind of players that would go for any crazy strategies okay well blez saw the fact that there was just one spearman there and killed the spearman and now tries to get the archer and gets the archer well played velez and also gets the scalp and now velez will have the archery range to make a few skirmishers les won't get into land's base but um i think overall velez will be very happy with how this game has started off yeah exactly if that spear and those archers were there he could have been annoying though he did earlier range so he probably would have dealt with it but now feliz has a bit of map control with the with the scouts though he won't find any damage in the base of land since it's going to be fully world yeah fun fact for for viewers here he since has made the change but about two years ago at a lan event ecl um there was a training room for the teams that were not currently playing the event and so that's where i would chill out and i'd just be sitting back there eating some doritos and drinking a beer and i'd watch the players play and so it was reuben stock the max and velez and they were all playing uh games and i look over and velez was actually using his pointer finger for his left and right click and at the time velez was pretty much as good as he is now i think he's improved but like the fact that he was top 15 top 20 doing that with one finger is just insane man i like i i wish i had video of it it was insane how quick he was able to be with that so yeah that's crazy i mean it's good he made the change maybe maybe it was everyone being confused and he's like wait a second this isn't how you use the mouse it's like i didn't even know that you're supposed to use it like this and he's since made the change and now he's defending again i have to say what's good about land's position is he hasn't invested a ton into this push um and he's still able to get in and force some reactions from velez yeah exactly he just played one range um a bit of archers bit of spears a bit of everything but he's he's keeping the aggression on elise's base and probably would just want to to force velez and as many upgrades as possible velez even getting armor for the skirms right now as he gets the top of the hill big fight these are malian men at arms though so you last a little bit longer against skirms out there in the end i think that both players will end up being happy with that i'm just i have to question the skirm armor because i feel like at this point land's just going to try and go castle agent into knights yeah yeah i do agree philly's invested a lot of food but he's chinese so he has great equal yeah i think the up times will probably be similar yep malians can make camels and knights just like chinese uh velez adding a second range so he's actually gonna go skirmishers and archers i like that mix that gold is still exposed but there's no real attack coming out for lane and i don't think there will be i think lance is going to stay at home um he's showing the fact he's he's making a stable sometimes players will hide that so that's something that velez will see that might also give less an idea that land might be to castle age faster it seemed for a second like he was going for a second stable but he's just dropping a farm there yeah interesting spot for a farm his eco is looking really good though look at this up time he's going to click up here he's on the way already velez is pressuring though that's the difference and since he's mixing an archers with the scouts here and might need to eject his own ranged units it's not easy to use archers to defend from what's coming in because there's a mix of skirms for velez so i think lan will have a faster cast late he'll probably end up defending this but velez will be very happy with his position because he's forcing some reaction yeah and in this position some players like to add scouts what lan is just uh doing now to try and clean up those skirmishers and then they eject the archers clean the scouts and then deal with the feudal army yeah that's more common now but it also is something that mbl would do all the time back in 2017-2018 is is add a few scouts before castling i like that move because les could easily lose all these skirmishers in that archer in just a moment yep do you show yourself here yep you do and wow nice little pounds here lane could also hop up for the with the archers but it does give velez an opportunity to kill them good micro yeah really liking the micro from lan and do you think lan goes for a second stable do you think he goes for rangers now he's kind of got two choices honestly i'm not sure i can't tell all right yeah well it's it's also kind of tough for vlez to know what to expect too because he's just seen the scouts the scouts are armored and getting bloodlines so he'll know that those upgrades are coming in but also now that there's less skirmishers on the field lane could also just go for two ranges too so it's a good spot for land to be in as he hits castle h and now needs to run away oh no oh that's real that's really good for release dang man because he was also dropping a tower on his front gold because he was fearing that uh there would be crossbows but yeah now he's gonna clean up this entire army this is so good for felice that that shouldn't happen right you just hit castleage and you lose all your archers was that six or seven there and now he's getting bodkin still doesn't have crossbow and kind of a tilting spot to be in because i think that was land's chance to get a bit of a lead in this game uh the strength of the chinese can definitely start to pay off now yeah and since well i would say since feliz is already invested in the tower and he can't instantly drop the tc i think we will see him make quite a lot of army now yeah though he did just get 100 uh 100 stones so he will drop the tc to the side do you think players should do that more frequently because that's twice i've seen velez do this in the last week where you just you just drop a mining camp with two villagers ahead of time and tower your exposed gold you end up making up for the lost stone pretty soon for the second tc and then you can still have military protection on the gold yeah i think that's a that's a good move yeah it's not that much of a of an investment and you can still get your eco rolling yeah especially with chinese i think and the thought process with chinese is just stay alive and gotta say i think land realizes now that he's kind of screwed he did get bod canero uh the archers were just here to distract we we see one archer remaining after the wolf fight but i guess lan after falling behind said well let's be greedy and he's gone three tc's now and he knows the pressure's in coming from velez yeah he did make the switch into knights he does have plus two soon but only five nights so if elise is able to find find some damage i'm not sure if lana is gonna be able to respond with the army that he has currently it's an interesting moment because while velez does have range units with vodka and armor he's got five skerms in that mix and he doesn't have a lot of knight upgrades so in theory lan well that's pretty close but if he can get a few night numbers out or a few more night numbers out he could engage with the superior upgrades and maybe now just trying to get blez away from his base and and running away yeah i would probably like to see felice adam monastery in this spot since you know that lan is most likely going full nights now so yeah that could make a lot of sense it's true and he also doesn't have ranged units out so he can't really snipe the monks i see land taking the fight he does have the hill uh should be fairly even though no it's not fairly even velez wrecking and vlad's wrecking big time does land not have husbandry here it almost looks like he's lacking husbandry oh he's getting it right now he's just getting it yeah yeah that hurts man you can't run away if the enemy is going to be faster so velez has got superior knight numbers velez has the crossbowman les economically is in a pretty even spot and it's full military control for him and and cruise control from here on out you can do anything with chinese and trying to make it home hits the range units and runs away again tough spot yeah uh i don't think those uh four knights are gonna make it home safely yeah probably not feels bad so what do you do if you're in land's position you're obviously behind things have snowballed a little bit what more can you do to try and get back into this well lan is responding with the third stable so i think full nights it is for him yep yep i think it's a good play full nights maybe think twice about making camels because there's still cross moment get the night number up but you know it's five versus 15 right now and if you're in velez's shoes you need to realize that that's the comeback condition for land there's the monastery project belgium and he's still pumping out knights great pressure from velez yeah and if he lesser loops to the side he can camp his crossbows right onto that main goal of land but he's um focusing on the stable right now which is also a good play this is also a great place attacking the stable land is housed and he's gonna lose the stable and so now he needs an additional stable at least his cheaper with malians i guess but the pressure is on man and look at the military this is insane play from velez 36 against nine and he's got similar economy now he's on the gold looking tough for land yeah feliz is completely in the driver's seat he could even um like send a bill forward to build some siege to take down buildings even faster it's really tough for lam you know that your only option is knights but you're just behind in every in every way so yeah it's tough for him this is this is competitive age of empires right a few small moments and he just gets snowballed and land probably feels like he's dead at this point the only way he's not dead is that bellez makes a big mistake but velez is producing out of every single town center he's producing out of every single production building it feels like could even get all the relics on the map this is crazy from from velez yeah and veles realizes this is the situation the lion is going full camel so he's uh full night so he's adding camels of his own so i like this a lot yeah it's it's so fun to watch players play the game near perfect right i mean it's and then you get into the game and you think oh okay i'm going to do the same i'm just going to play like velez does and then that doesn't happen oh and that hill is going to be so annoying he's just going to camp the main goal now chain boarding on the way now for velez so his camels and knights will be even stronger this is reaching a point where it's do or die for land he's behind he's waiting for a moment but every time he feels like he needs to fight he just looks at the army on the hill and says it's not possible so i see him maybe maybe one option could be just to rate great release now yeah because you know you can't fight this army and you have a big ball of knights but you can't use them at home so it's it's yeah you've got to use them somehow so rating could be an option gcs also have bod canero if the time comes and velez wants to dive underneath tc's you have bob canero which was kind of wasted on the crossbowmen earlier so here goes land he's doing exactly what you said he's going out for the raid let's see if fellez can react to this look at the town watch upgrade coming in he wants to see it and he quick wall okay stone gate well at the very least he knows it's here and he's sending his camels back now to deal with this oh and lana instantly running back oh they're they're passing each other land's like okay i got you away from my base now but i also like how valestine send everything now he still kept some presents here and so lan maybe he's gonna swoop in here to take this fight he really needs to clear this look at the resources for velez he's about to go imperial and big fight incoming land's last attempt have a chance in game one the camels are not with the group but they will arrive now okay oh this is looking great for him yeah not that if the camel's engaged i feel like with the upgrades that lan has he could win against the camels with these numbers right and yeah look at that velez backing away and this is an awkward moment look at the food he has he still hasn't clicked imperial there he goes lan great defense he's still possibly behind because the enemy's on the way to the imperial age but he's giving himself a chance yeah exactly it's definitely not over llam didn't lose that much eco he's actually ahead in villagers but yeah feliz now he knows i just gotta pump out uh camels with still imperial aged and uh get the tech advantage yeah and defensive castle and the golds i think land needs to do exactly what he did a moment ago and just try and raid get some area of velez's eco on lock for now um and does he know about the castle belgium he doesn't so he's running forward trying to get some damage in probably realizing velez might be on the way to imp seize the camels yeah this is just not a fight he can take yeah exactly and we'll just see feliz spamming a lot more camels because he knows my opponent is probably gonna play a full castle edge so the only way i can throw this is under make army yep yep like landed a good move to to get the pressure off himself but unfortunately les was playing too good i do like the fact that land is pretty heavy on stone right now maybe it's too many on stone for my liking but he could prep his own defensive castles he seized the castle there for velez bless sitting pretty with two relics at home and those were two exposed relics in the middle of the map there's two very close to his base land now adding barracks in the middle and i guess he's just gonna go pikeman now yeah i think so too and feliz almost has the zone for a second castle so if he just places it on the right side of his base he's gonna be completely safe yep and you see him heading over there now with some bills he might do that uh interesting sneaky move for velez he knows he's not really investing in the knights anymore so he just sends them forward and he's gonna find some reward for that what a tiny move that you can do to get a lead for yourself that's sick yeah good awareness now he knows that lan is at home so his mass that that's currently playing defensive could maybe think offensively we have chew canoe on the field we also have heavy camel and fleet barting on the way plan out to click imp dropping a castle thinking of pikeman but velez has so much going for him right now yeah and lana he actually had the resource resource for a while but he didn't have the buildings he dropped the university and the monastery like to the right side of his base well for now the pikeman could get a few hits in lane does have a neutral gold over on the right side and he also is thinking about raiding but just like you said belgium the castle's there for velez already velez is playing this so good defensively and now he's gonna castle the middle we'll see more two canoe upgrades and more camels coming out it can be really tough for malians to do with that or any sieve to deal with that comp yeah this is a really strong combination did you maybe go like i suppose malians have a slight chance for champion to work maybe yeah i guess champion is probably one of the better options that you have i mean if it was because yeah or cavalier that just gets countered so i mean i see supplies coming in he's getting supplies he's getting man at arms he's thinking about champion but it is really going to be a struggle to get a mass going the barracks on the front are going down now i see again velez with a few units spreading out here a few units on the stone braiding with camels reminds me of jordan earlier now a few units on the wood line um just uh and feliz spotted that castle so he's instantly producing trebuchets to take it down oh man here he is i mean how i really can't find words to describe how how good velez has played except by saying near perfect this game everything has been smooth the transition to castle age the military control the castle positions the fact he's have four relics already land must be really worried man because if velez continues to play like this throughout the series it's going to be very tough to beat him yeah and he already has the shukunu with rocketry so yes you can have your extra pierce armor but those rocketry shoulders will just shoot right through it yep get that and maybe a switch to like have as it's incoming could could just finish off the game here lan he probably knows he's dead or he's near dead but he's going to give his one last shot try and use the high pierce armor malian infantry and what i was thinking was in theory if you go for a lot of pikes and champs camels aren't great against champ pike and then the cross up sorry not the cross bomb the chew canoe also are not fantastic i mean okay they are still good but it's high pierced armored champions so they might struggle a bit more than any other civ's champs this is probably what glenn is thinking it's his last attempt but he might not even be able to get the champion at this point this castle is about to go down i guess even onager could be good for land but malians they don't have siege engineers as far as i know rats honestly i have no clue yeah i don't think they have it i the only time you're going to see onager from aliens is probably in some weird arena match-ups and can't say i've seen too many of those so i honestly have no clue if they get siege engineers but here comes velez with the light caps he'll try and raid he doesn't really need to do that but doing every small thing he can grow in his position atlanta's somehow a 200 pop how is lane at 200 pop he's getting champion project belgium what i mean he's i still feel like he's dead but he's done such a great job to survive yeah it's crazy we do we do see villa's also um raiding a bit on the side with some light caps yeah yeah so he's definitely thinking about that yeah good that's damage once this castle falls feliz is gonna bite and then we're gonna see if the if the champions will be enough to hold he doesn't have final upgrades yet but i mean it's still champion still a lot of pierce armor all right i mean does velez need to force a fight here or can he just continue to expand feels like the way he's approaching this is he just sees all the stones and golds on the map and he's just gonna wait until land runs out of resources yeah he could also play that but you don't want to give your opponent the chance to come back and do the game true yeah yeah go for the kill when you can in this case he feels like the killer's just taking out production buildings and maybe the castle on the right side he's shifting his army to another hill 3 000 food 2 000 gold for the lens he's at 200 population he has full camel upgrades he is full of chufa new upgrades and he could do anything else he wanted to really with chinese tc goes down for land i'm just wondering if lan it's gonna fight now that the final armor upgrades in i'm surprised that uh police is not moving forward a bit more with his cheat moves because he can just run forward snipe some units and then run backwards yeah all right here's the moment of truth man lee chooking to a sick unit of a melee champion's also pretty sick there's also four trebs to protect here for velez he's backed away there dude i can't even call fights with malian champions because it's just not normal it's not normal it should not be like this and it looks like the juvenile and the treads are going down everything is going down and now you see velez he clicks man at arms so he wants to go for his own champions but that's going to take some time and maybe that's something he should have thought of earlier lynn isn't dead yet this is crazy oh my god and dude the crazy thing is is he hasn't been able to take this golden stone on the left because it was denied for so long and now he can take that so it's not like he's going to run out of res right now yeah and he also has an extra gold on the side so yeah he can spam those gold units for a little bit longer that's for sure can he can it be convincing enough right he's got to take out the castles blez has done a lot to to make sure that if that happened that he would still be fine he's sending more to canoe forward and he also used the camels to snipe the trip that was huge ah that's so good for him yeah yeah just buys time for valez the relics are kicking in the extra gold's kicking in and of course he can text which the champion he has the barracks right here very tough to and very easy i guess for us to say but i think maybe lan could try and raid himself with some light cap somewhere because if he continues to react it's going to be an uphill battle yeah i quickly checked the top of eliza's base and he did stonewall there so he doesn't want to allow felice to raid a lantern later yeah he really has played it safe i mean this is this is as good as it gets for late game scouting i'm trying to switch to his point of view zoom out for the viewers here i mean this is full control maybe a few more castles on the left side or a few stone walls on the left side but the lands making a castle defend himself right now and he is slowly running out of control and slowly running out of gold is velez is even going to castle the south that's ballsy man that's confidence yeah meanwhile he's running it with some light after raids yep he's just allow he's just letting lan react everywhere on to up on the map so there was that hype moment a moment ago where we saw malian champions are strong but i don't think they're going to be strong enough to do this since valez will have control over the map uh looks like land's going to try and deny this castle i don't think that will be denied oh but at the same time castle gets denied oh man i think clan is just gonna send the champions and kill the castle i guess that's true yeah he has arson so he could he could just do it that's kind of stupid but look at how much he's losing his own castle's denied at 97. it's 97.1 the meme lives for the first time i was saying i'd say that for years belgium and finally it's 97.1 percent but um anyways this game was just a master class from velez lant almost gave him a shot uh gave himself a shot to come back but fellas doing all the right things yeah i think it just comes down to that moment in early castle age where lan lost his crossbows and yeah it's not it's just snowballed from there and and if someone isn't playing perfect you can have an opportunity to come back but velez played that as you should three town center eco knights and crossbowmen i mean he was constantly pressuring constantly booming and hidden cup four is only going to have the best of the best you cannot slip up like that it was a massive mistake from land bod canero is not very uh it's not cheap it's 200 food it's 100 gold and then he invested into that to lose all of his archers his real bummer and then he even was losing night numbers but i'll show the statistics here les with more of every resource and of course that would have continued if the game went on so i i was surprised when the champions cleared up that one force but then quickly i think we both realized that velez was always still going to win that yeah exactly okay so what a game let's uh speculate a little bit we think they're both meta players and since the qualifier has seven maps it's i feel as though the home map thing is a bit deceiving because you have to play every single one if it goes to seven games so land did pick islands first which would make us think that he prefers it and if we're going to see islands next with thoughts on the civ drafts um well we do have for the keys for release which is probably the most obvious pick okay and then for lan well he has italians though they are also great on bay but i don't really see him having any other great islands live so i think it's probably going to be pretty easy against italians okay um that is if that ends up being the map i actually see it will be slopes so there's so much for i mean he goes for the final map this is kind of my point with the home maps he will go slopes game too and let's dive in all right so game number two capture rage help me out here thank you very much and sorry belgium uh we're into the game and a map that i've really enjoyed watching this one right here uh we saw a game earlier where the max had indians against jordan and went really aggressive for the resources on the sides and then in that game jordan he went for more passive play and went for archers and stayed at home so i don't think there's really a a best way to play this map i think it more comes down to if you're scouting properly and if you're able to take your advantages uh but what do you think about having to tars in this situation i do i when i did some practice games i also liked him on this map because you could try to go for an fc on this map okay car feel quite good because of the mobility that is quite useful on this map and well the ca are feeling amazing so the only downside could be if if you try to go for a drudge of c on this map and your opponent opens with mana arms then it could snowball quite badly out of control okay yeah that's true it's so risky man like i remember doing practice games with a few players who were playing in the qualifiers and i would leave each game with a different opinion on how it should be played like sometimes i'd say men at arms was king because they'd punish walling then other times the walls would pay off other times the risk to take the resources would pay off i think i'm like we put a lot of work into testing the maps and making sure that it would produce good games and i'm really really happy that this map and a few others has diversity of strategy so um but the thing about indians that made them so strong in the past was they have a villager on shore fish bonus and we had five or six of them there and players would just wallow in their villagers and they could just freely collect that food and made indians very strong here you've got two shorefish which regardless of what's if you have disappears pretty quickly and then the deer also the same on both sides you have to see if the enemy's even taking it and which side they're on and it's even more difficult to wall them in so it's definitely more risky this year to play with indians yeah and meanwhile lan even pushed in a deer right from the right from the top of the map oh yeah so that's quite a nice move yeah it's true yeah i um i did training games with dragon star because dragon star was really determined to try and beat vivi and uh on this map our takeaway personally was that up against vivi who's probably gonna scout rush him it might be wise to just push in a deer or two and then wall up to play safe so that might be an indicator that land has no interest in doing anything oh my god and look at lance lumber camp his villagers weren't working for a really long time because of that borah was blocking oh man and how do you think is that going to happen again here i noticed that she was just stuck because she's trying to run away in the boars there i think maybe with one villager it won't happen and yeah lan lan he's going for a rush and the reason why i think he wants to drive is because obviously his opponent is indian so he wants to go on to the sherfish uh really early and that's why he probably wants to send a drush there okay right let's see which we do see if it is doing i feel like we are going to see velez go for uh various strats that max might have tried to go for earlier i mean not that indians picking not that picking indians for this map is necessarily like revolutionary or surprising but it is telling that they both have gone for chinese game one and uh indians on slopes so so far some consistency there they also picked both big lithuanians as their first sieve so i mean it's quite obvious that they are training partners so they have similar ideas it's gonna be weird i mean spoilers at this point but like this year it's not as if all the training partners are going to be in the event so uh yeah we'll see what happens in the future but yeah land sending out the militia he did just scout the fact that the villagers are over there on the shore fish so that's probably his target yeah and felice going for the dredge of his own he did also scout the barracks for land so maybe he's just gonna go defensively to make sure that his wheels are safe okay yeah they're passing each other did he i swear he spots it that he knew that this was coming because the scalp it seemed okay yeah he spots that militia not sure belgium but it almost seemed like he was coming over here to play defense before he saw that militia now lan thinks better of it interesting huh well what do you think about this we have velez who's currently on the side not losing villagers and then land who's not taking advantage of the fast food and he's not losing any votes yeah elise is just in a much better spot yeah i mean regardless whether he was at a indians or not he just has a short fish which is really great food income yeah and they won't have it yeah obviously he has the the sheep from the tar so that's that's something but it's not the same as uh having some short vision some deer good micro for land the difference is velez has a near full hp scout so i'm curious how this will pan out because yes you have two militia that are in full hp but it's probably more important to have this scout in the mid game what lan could do with the militia though is just take out the ibex and should just shoot them down with villagers so you can eat them later oh boy honestly with good micro you could maybe find a ville pick here hmm i mean feliz has loomed so yeah it's it's going to be really difficult a good player probably would not lose a villager to this good move from velez to shoot the deer before it's killed by the militia and what what's the deal here with velez is he going he's still creating villagers it looks like this might be fast castle on the back of this and he switched over to the other side too he's taking the other resources yeah i think it's gonna be fast castle from both and then i would say i probably like feliz's position more if he goes camels and then forward siege and how important was that to scout the drush from land and then play it this way because if he would have tried to go fast feudal he probably would have lost some villagers just scouting it reacting to it and then having the presence of mind to switch to the other side is a pretty big deal and land is just not taking any risks he could of course go out to his side but he's not doing it using to stay at home rely on farms which work better long term so in total there's uh 200 well there's 400 fish on each side because it's 200 200 and then it's 140 times four we did the math earlier 960. not thank you project belgium yes finally a co-caster who can do math sorry nilly sorry dave sorry anyone else who would join me but uh so we got the exact amount on each side and then the farm it feels like a smoother transition but it just isn't quite as quick and you can clearly see this with the fast feudal time and the resources will have yeah exactly feliz is gonna oh he's actually going for ranges interesting okay so forgetting about camels and wants to go into crossbow i mean i know velez is really comfortable going brush fc but you are also taking a fight to tatars where tatars are going to have thumb ring and i'd say when it goes range students long-term tatars is the superior sieve yeah i was going to say either he's really confident in playing uh crossbow or ca against satorus or he's going for skirmishers but since he added a second range i think we can safely say he's not going for skirmisher so i think they will probably oh he's adding our i was gonna say he's probably gonna go ca but i'm wrong he's going archers okay all right so two ranges dude i'm just like i'm sitting here so impressed with how palez has played this game he defended perfectly he's going to be in castle age at 16 30. he's going to have two ranges pumping archers what lane is doing here is not it's not a bad build at all you know he's playing safe into ranges as well it's just that velez has been a little bit faster and the 45 second difference when you're doing the same thing and in particular crossbowman with that gold forward could be really rough for lan yeah exactly one thing to point out is for example if you're indians or mongols and you rely a lot on sherfish or hunt and you don't place farms like fast enough you could fall behind but we do civilians adding two firms so he's making sure that his eco is still gonna be gonna be smooth you know that's a fair point though because it's only two farms so keep an eye on that he still has the berries remaining still gonna wall up a bit yeah i found that transition to be very difficult for players to nail down and that's not really that's not really a build order thing build order is what you do for the first you know 20 pop but that's more of an adjustment thing and experience i think training would pay off but for now still has food in the north as abandoning that with some bills and here come the archers he can't afford everything belgium he can't get his wood upgrade he can't get bodkin but he is getting crossbow lance for eco is looking looking similar so yeah we won't see a tech advantage for anyone in the early game at least yeah just maybe maybe some momentum um i like how velez and lan have both been using their scouts all game like right now he's using the scalp he spotted the ranges were there he knew if he got close to the ranges that land could pop out now he sees that land is in the next stage and how he might actually need to send the scout into the range to see if the units are still in there he seems to be a little worried atlanta's hit the next stage yeah look at that that might confuse him yeah look at him he's like wait a second where did he go he doesn't know that lane is actually behind his archery ranges i love those and he even used his militia to kill the deer at his side on the on the left why would you do that he's like if i can't have him you can't have him either that's funny i mean he could easily take that later on in the game so that bothers me but again velez with his scouting he now sees that the crossbow won't surprise him and both players have a bodkin the difference here is that one person has thumb ring yeah and feliz is just building his university so he wants to get ballistics right a little bit so it's uh so islam so it's gonna be even now let's see i mean this is just the same strategy well the same build up i guess they're both building up towards expo but who's gonna execute better indians do have the cheaper villagers which can be helpful if you try and boom guitars have the hill bonus thumb ring if they add tcs then they get sheep i mean you and i mentioned it i feel like with this particular match up going into crossbows you would probably favor the tatars yeah exactly and lan is also going to be up with ballistics a little bit faster so if you can get some good engagements especially with thumb ring that's going to be helpful you might be able to snowball the game really quickly yeah it's it's it's really crazy how close this is man it you almost would would assume that games like this would be scripted because high level play is so specific down to every second every decision and just these guys like you said or meta players and big moment here oh great micro from velez honestly that was disgusting micro from both of them and now ballistics is in for land though he has a big 15 seconds to work with i think he's going to clean everything killing crossbows killing crossbows killing more crossbows velez will try and get value now but veles has to run away and land able to defend velez as he runs will click elite skirmisher but no second tc for velez no second cc for land so control for the spaniard yeah and in this position it would be even great for alan to drop a forward size workshop and if he then places a manganal on that little hill in front of the rangers he could take down those ranges really quickly i agree it should be on the hill i agree it should be on the hill land's going to build at the bottom of the hill but i'm with you project belgium and atlan is now in velez's base kicking off the skirmishers here velez accidentally sent some forward so he deleted the house to save them it's still very close game but if it becomes siege with crossbowman elite skirm is very difficult thing to defend with yeah and felice was able to sneak out some villagers so he's probably gonna town center the right side of uh of the hill near that gold so that's gonna be great for him that's a good moment too because while he does have back gold at home a couple of those golds are forward but no velez is moving out here with confidence right now he did just get the second armor upgrade on the skirms and skirms can tank so many shots if you get full armor is that with the attack and land having to back away and how disappointing is that you get in a good position and then five units can counter your whole army yeah and feliz is also moving to the left side of the map with six crossbows but maybe he will find that one villager which is idle near the house but yeah without he'll find anything more than that land seems pretty intent on just keeping this aggressive in the middle i think land making houses there is expecting it now you have velez making a siege workshop this level is just it i i'm mesmerized right now by how even this is but velez will need some siege at home and i think maybe land's gonna find some value with his crossbows he's looking and he's making a loop around to the left side it's something that velez won't be able to see yeah and he's also pressuring those uh two archery ranges and with that our hill bonus they're gonna go down a little bit faster yeah so that's great for him i think that he should be attack grounding between the ranges so it damages both of them but being extra particular here as land moves in and oh my god he's going to lose so many crossbows he used to get out of here that was not his best play yeah and if elise can chase that he might be able to intercept with his crossbows coming from the from the top true i mean oh the skirmisher's got held up behind his walls yeah now he might not want to chase that land might take that fight but man velez getting two more pick offs but now he's down in archery range both players with two tc's seems like valez was faster to it though is he on three he's actually on three tc's that was wrong he's faster to the town centers faster to the eco still feel like magano crossbow is a bit stronger than magnus skirm depending on how it plays out yeah and if if lan can get his eco setup a little bit better we might see him make the switch into night soon since feliz only has a handful of crossbows and mostly skirmisher manganese so that would be great oh man big moment here so velez was trying to address the hill magnel and now you have crossbowmen and i also got the weirdest case of deja vu right now oh my god i have mega deja vu like i've seen this all before somehow i promise i haven't but i wish i had because i'd want to experience this twice amazing play from velez defense on the hill defense on the right side and let's see if he can take off the magnel oh he takes out the magnolia as well and now all that remains for lan is crossbows land has well he's down by 10 villagers and he has no control brutal yeah that's a there's a problem if you don't have anything else besides crossbows then those elite skirms are so deadly and big magnel here velez does get hit by a shot but able to run away and now he has the hill we mentioned it before i think the siege workshop should have been on the hill it would have been a better position but more than anything velez is just out executing again with his economy and the micro and all the small details you need to pay attention to so do you switch into something else if you're velez because you're kind of ahead right now and while lead skirm is fine with indians long term crossbow is not the best choice so do you do you think about switching into camel possibly or do you just continue doing what you're doing for a while i would still stick with uh crossbow crossbow skirmishes for now okay maybe you could even consider going ca in uh impurity because indians they still have great ca either ca or or camels could be great yeah i'm thinking maybe the food count isn't there for camels but it's an idea in the future just like land not having the food eco for all big shots that's just sick micro from velez micros both magnets away and he kills the repair villager ends up taking a loss nice shot from land and now crossbows and skirmishers over here yeah anyways there's just this is so utterly complicated right now i don't think either player could afford a tech switch at the same time maybe just give it a couple minutes yeah feliz is adding his first stable so that's probably a tell that he wants to make a switch into camels okay yeah ammos would if nothing else just be important to snipe the magnets if you take the magnols out of the picture your skirmishers can clear up all the crossbows 106 pop for velez and 87 for lan who has not had a bad game oh big shot in the center manganese oh amazing shots and i jinxed him no no my god he lost everything at least he kills two magnels for it still i mean you've got oh big shot again yeah oh but the less micro just again and let's see if he goes back again oh my god well velez somehow gets out of there and lan seconds after i said everything was was going fine for him not so much man and i'm worried for him now with the amount of resources that velez has banked he could drop a castle soon in the middle or the side he could switch into camels and and push the middle or the side really tough for land no military control siege workshop in the middle is gone had to rebuild one and uh look at felice's stone count if he gets a couple of camels i won't be surprised if he goes for a really forward castle yeah that's true like i'm thinking on this tc over here because you kind of have it boxed out and if you can deal with this magnel just send a bunch of villagers forward okay good micro also like how he's switching to the other side just to make sure lan isn't expanding it's another game where velez is controlling the game and he's happy to lose a few units here there as long as he has that control uh castle in the middle though belgium at least they see the foundation that's also a wise move yeah he's just going for a safe castle he has if he knows he's ahead he just clicks up to imp and wow that's disgusting that's seriously disgusting the amount of micro he's had to do but then the macro like that also i think that's the power of cheap indian villagers so while it might not be ideal to go crossbow like your villas are so cheap you can afford to go up to imp if you get a small lead and then make a switch into something else oh and those crossbows they're gonna find some damage on the other side a good call man just five crossbowmen killing villagers and idling 20 and lan now who's trying to get control over the game will have to send something over here to deal with this this is perfect play from valez he is playing out of his minds today feliz he could just make whatever he wants in imp he just has he's just so far ahead that he could go for bracer uh skirm arbless he could go for heavy camels anything is is uh great in this sport stable's already up he's going for leica uh hussar opening would actually be quite good here see land with a mass migration to the right side land might need to start dropping some castles castle on the right castle in the middle castle on the left control the game see camels and some outposts on the left as velez is trying to control that side i guess it's more so the north um but velez seeing that expecting it will protect the villagers that's a really weird town center but he's probably too busy to focus on the exact positioning yeah so we are going to see uh heavy camels for release soon at least he's getting the the defense upgrades a lot of stables so yeah that makes sense also did research like have and i think mixing in some light cavs is great going for hussar would be good and at this point land seems extremely open raids unless he starts to shore up his defense with castles um land over here with a small counter army buying himself some time right now three minutes away from imp but at least a lot of that military is not going to be heading towards his base it's going to be heading to the back of liz's base and uh lan he's going to place a castle in the middle i was going to say i'm not sure why he's doing that but he hasn't scouted felicia's castle oh he doesn't know yeah and does velez know about that he also doesn't know so it's important that he send the camel's forward if he spots this instantly adding trebuchets would be a potentially game-winning move he probably had the feeling that there would be some something there yeah but now he sees yeah for sure sometimes i'll just make a trip in this position that way i can i could see the front of the base you know the very least you could trap down a few houses barracks stables anything like that and can he deny that no i can't deny it but this might even be better than denied if you can take it out and this is going to be shocking for land who is behind by 25 pop it's been a theme this game and now he doesn't have military momentum and he could lose his castle and the treb actually has the hill so that helps out doing a bit more damage there i just loving all the small things belgium the camel's patrolling on the left side the expansion to both sides of his base les is playing really great map awareness yeah if i'm not sure what lan can go for i see him going for um probably albert here in imperial yeah but tatars they only have the first defense upgrade for infantry so they are not the strongest wait they don't get the second one either no no no they don't they have the reverse infantry in the game i've never been a champion i have never tried to go pikeman with guitars before so i've never really had that experience i'll admit it but uh fun facts with belgium here i think the problem too is as the pikeman actually trade pretty well it's so easy for velez to raid and pikemen are very slow to react to that and you see that in the south then the main thing being is if liz if he sees that can just make more skirmishers because skirmishers have been working well this game and skirmishers can counter cav archers and pikemen so easily big problems for land who will lose this castle it's very hard to come back from these situations do they get two-handed swordsmen uh tatars yeah yeah they do have to end the swordsman all right not that you should ever smoke champion yeah okay not that you should ever see them but i was just since you seemed to know i figured i'd ask crazy man and now feliz he has four trebuchets and lan he just doesn't have any answer against him yeah yeah he calls it lan calls it scores 2-0 and if you ever had any questions over over les's performance in round one round two of this qualifier you cannot question anything that he has done so far his macro has been on point his micro has been on point the defensive drush into fc was good here but we also have to talk about how this played out lan had a good cleanup in early castle age and then nothing resulted from it so what went wrong here man like he had ballistics he had thumb ring he had a hill he had magnels and then somehow velez was able to win i think there was that one fight where um land lost the manganese and then feliz was able to clean up a lot of the crossbows with the skirmishers yeah yep and then well you also have to consider feliz is indian so he has the cheaper wheels so it's a little bit easier for him to macro his way up to to a good eco i also and i just thought of this and not think of it in the moment i also feel as though after that initial fight in castle age blez was immediately put into a defensive position and land just kept attacking areas that velez was already defending and expecting i think that what could have been good for land is if he tried to control the sides a bit more like one or two crossbows patrolling on the right side would have denied a tc uh any any type of map presence on the left side imagine even making a few cav archers and patrolling up there if you deny velez from expanding and suddenly maybe his macro is not going to be as stellar as it was in this game but just small things and we're we're looking for small minute details that could have been tweaked because land did not have a bad game yet again velez exactly i think that's sort of the difference that we see between those two players we see felice he's much more aware of the map we see him often going to the sides a lot more than than lan and yeah yeah that's a bit of the difference someone in twitch chat says my wife likes small things well thank you for that thank you for that very important information um all right uh 14 000 food collected 15 000 wood collected and just more of every resource for velez two games in a row that he has just stomped and now we have to speculate what will land go for next he's got islands and he's got cross um i mean initially we speculated over islands and then he ended up choosing slopes so it's 50 50 chance i see that it is islands and it will be what we said portuguese versus italians for game three out was talking to me an awful lot about islands earlier did you happen to catch that about the landings and stuff like that well just like the sieves and how he appeal feels people play islands did you hear his thoughts on how passive people play nowadays yeah true one thing i also know is that vikings they don't do well against porigis yeah that is well now del was one of the first players i mean he wasn't the first player to do it but he was one of the first in ranked games anyways who was toying around with carabils i remember a game where dowd had portuguese up against hera and harold was vikings and hair had like 3 000 score lead and dowd just played extremely defensive made the faetorius and ended up somehow winning that game uh fortunately berlin even though he's up against portuguese he does have italians which is top tier they have cheaper fishing ships it's cheaper for them to advance to the next age and also i think lan is is probably the more comfortable water player of the year so i do like italians against portuguese but more and more i'm kind of falling in line with doubt that maybe since players are so good at playing the late game portuguese and the number one water sieve yeah i also i also tend to agree with that i think it's probably pretty close but if you can drag it out to late game there is no sif that can compete with portuguese do you remember your games against winchester when winchester paused after making it to castle age yes i do when he paused did you know why he was pausing there um i think the second time he said it that it was for his hotkey okay so i think it might have had in defense of the players here uh agent of umpires2de is notorious for updating and then breaking someone's hot keys or something important i think it's possible that maybe fire and winchester had an issue with the hotkey but that happened twice in the qualifier where players would have to pause after reaching castle age because the caravals wouldn't create and winchester said that he was upset that that happened because then you knew what he was probably going for so actually like i think i read that he typed it he was going for carefuls but because i was so focused i didn't like he didn't even realize yeah i realized that he was going for that like process the information he was saying that's pretty funny well winchester made a funny joke he was like next time i'm gonna pause at the start of castle age when i'm going fires can you imagine like when you pause the game enemy goes into a few demos to counter the fires and then whoop it's all carabell it'd be funny or you know like do the old switcheroo there uh but talk to us about dock positions on islands uh because sometimes people go front side or back dock what's the difference between the two so if you go for a bag dock it's either um for a fast castle or if it's sort of like to the side slash back you are going for galleys because if you're front dock and you want to go for galleys and your opponent also fronts though front docks and he goes fires well then it happens what we saw with jordan against the max yeah though with islands it can be sometimes a coin flip because let's say like in this spot if it is front docked and uh land back dog and police goes for galleys then he can then it can again pay off for him that's true a little bit of a gamble sometimes yeah you go front dock typically if it's front v front you'd want to be going fires but if you end up mixing in galleys sooner rather than later since you're not going to be pressured by land velez could be in a fine position now we happen to know that velez's teammate max earlier on islands played with italians and he opened with oh actually wait the sips are flip-flopped yeah anyways but regardless he opened with galleys um now i'm curious what land's going to be going for here because this is so far back and it almost makes me think that it could be a classic strategy that tattoo would go for where he would go five or six fishing ships delayed feudal age into some type of a fast castle front dock and then try and win the water with fires but i think i'm wrong on that uh right after i say it he's on his way to feudal and he just wants to be safe like that yeah so he's going he's also going a few little water but he wants to play a bit more eco approach that's why we see he has five fishing ships yep while um feliz only has three okay if lane ends up making it into hidden cup i recall confusing him with a few other players like lan and velez actually i think i was guessing various times wasn't sure who was who but dogal he's also a huge meta player who is very good on water maps i remember him beating viper in that semi-final so um i'm not a massive fan of hal lan well actually that dock position is pretty good normally that would suck i was going to say i wasn't a fan of how late this stock was going to be this should be fine and he seems confident to go into galleys and we'll look to velez now les is going to open with fires and this is the trouble on island you could scout with a fishing ship to find out if the dock's on the front but if you don't do that you're opening with fires and it might take you a long time to find the enemy yeah exactly and we will see lan going for the oh actually he's opening with a fire really interesting what yeah i'm not sure you're so far away i saw that his opponent was like 30 seconds faster so still you could all go for the galleys i mean maybe he's just going for defensive fires and into a fish boom then because he's added a six fishing ship here so you just might want to gain an eco lead in that way there's a nice little spot for him to fish right now this is a beautiful spot to have three docks yeah and maybe also like a little bit of a nerd detail but um galleys they create five seconds faster than fire galleys so it's a bit easier to mask them yep nerd detailed nerds come on come on there's no nerds here these how dare you insult my audience watching a 21 year old game nerd well it's it is weird to me the lack of production but he finally has his three docs producing and lan is just scouting both sides to find the docks now and he will end up seeing uh this fire and he'll end up being outnumbered and will have to run away i did notice that velez still pumping out fires he didn't make any type of a switch so for lan i'd say the extra fish boom was paid off he's got quite a bit of food it is weird to me how he could have had galleys here and probably could have defended as well but it happens and also a clever move from land was that he was patrolling his scout on the other side of the island so he did uh see that feliz was looping around with one fiery galley yeah just lost three hp there and reacted right away i see that so now he should send his own fires over and his fish again that is as safe as it gets for fishing ships this does not happen on all these generations so he's going to be very happy there and this passive play is going to be great for land because he has extra fishing ships and he also has a cheaper up time so we will see him advance through the castle age a little bit faster look at the way that vlez's house fall on his face he's really worried about a landing or something that looks so if you like this base no offense to land would be seen on tuesdays on this stream from low eagle legend action man this little house wall this looks so cute so cozy well fishing ships need to be relocated in the south they're on shore fish right now that's easy enough to do here comes velez who's now getting fletching tells me he's probably switching into galleys then or has archers somewhere which i don't see so uh here come the galleys land is on the way up to the next stage i mean this has been a very casual opening for him and oh he got some big hits the pathing there for velez they regrouped yeah lane's just going to chill out also the demo stuck between a couple of fishing ships but he didn't need it in the end yeah that's good yeah i was a bit worried when i saw the galleys coming in i mean there is there's a bit of time here for velez to push but it really feels like the fishing chips have paid off oh good hits oh yeah solid hit there and certainly not enough now for velez to push velez much like max earlier just not looking knows what to do on islands and if land will have his upgrades in about 70 seconds les hasn't even clicked up yet that could be brutal yeah and lan he still has great numbers it's going to be a provider soon and once he has those fire ships and i think we might even see him go for the careening to get the instant defense okay yep we'll have to research uh fire galley or not fire galley uh war galley which upgrades the fires and the demos and allows you to create those units okay twitch chat type a one if when you came back to the game or you know the expansions came out and whatnot it was confusing for you that you would have to research war galley or to upgrade your fire ships this is something that bothers me belgium i feel as though it should not be locked behind the war galley upgrade because so many people do not realize that it benefits other things it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense i feel like it should be either two separate technologies or its own technology to upgrade the fires and demos i honestly think it's fine it is fine but just come on come on just just no i i won't give in ah damn it's all right you don't give in my viewers don't give in no one gives in everyone's like pants pants pants when it's clearly bae we'll talk more about that um i'll get your opinions later but here come the fire ships gill nets right away for maximum efficiency for the fishing ships and zlan is producing so much that he's actually housed at the moment but good spot to be in belez needs to run away he is really in a rough spot right now i feel like two or three docks could go down before he's even in castle age that's a lot of fire ships yeah it's probably too tempting for lam to not uh to not go for the army yeah some great demos but oh my god there's so many demos in here in blast oh my god oh my god how do you get away from this the micro from lane as well and he's gonna catch the fires out at least oh my goodness that was huge and you're right land should be going for the navy here uh velez stuck with uh just a clump of galleys and not too many fires now yeah honestly that could have been wavers or released one of those demos reached those uh galleys yep and in the end he was probably going to just use the galleys so i'm with you on that but fishing ships do have the sail away to the corner that hurts now at this point lan he's he's a boomer we've got two tc's uh starting to switch into farming eco but project belgium it's that fun little spot where portuguese are slightly behind but you know that portuguese can win if they drag the game out a very long time so i think lan he's gonna have to extend his lead even further in this game yeah yeah true if you don't finish off portuguese then with the victoria's yep you're just going to be like why did i not do a landing or did i not play a bit better interesting positions for some of these golds i'm looking at land's second gold and that could be ranged by galleys and then also the second gold for velez could be arranged by galdi's so water control is really going to be huge here also land while he says he has 11 military one is a scalp one's a demo and then a bunch of the fires are patrolling elsewhere in the water so uh kind of concerned that he's continued with fires he's got a large mass outside of his docks right now and it's it's actually possible for less to possibly uh overwhelm him there yeah true land still has uh the fishing ships alive in the back so that's great for him and i think he's gonna send those fire ships home to defend his base yeah it could be a sandwich situation soon as he is chasing these um actually he might just cut off reinforcements that's not a bad idea either a demo what the what the that shouldn't have happened at all uh there's three weak ones in there now and actually what was funny about that was it looked like the war galleys were confused themselves they just kind of turned around in the circle like wait what just happened anyways land is kind of running out of fish with these docks so he needs to redock for more efficient fishing he's doing that in the right corner as i say it yeah i like how land has played this it seems like he's just going to defend until he makes it to imperial age and then try and flood the map with fast fire ship yeah and i think he's most likely just gonna stick with two dc's with uh italians you can't do that with a cheaper imp okay and cheaper dock decks go for that really fast fast fire still concerns me though he took the lead and then he's now kind of losing control here he's lost one doc at this rate he's gonna lose the second one it's not like he's clicked up the imp already so i'm a little confused by this like there's definitely a chance that velez could at least even out this game then maybe start to think about long-term castles on the shoreline anything that drag the game out and then oh look at velez he's found the fishing ships he knows they're not on the other side and he immediately swooped in and what a big swing that's going to be and so now lan is struggling with numbers but he also doesn't have a fish boom yeah exactly that was a really great move the thing why i believe lan is so passive is once your opponent has like a certain amount of wire galleys it can be tricky to to fight them yeah but oh this can be a really great sandwich i'll curse the commentator project belgium it's not just me yeah they're great when you get a mass of them but not if the fire is surround and let's see if velez can get out of here oh man both players losing navy but oh man the fire ships are owning and if land can just cut them off a bit more he can also get some kills oh this is perfect play from land beautiful stuff just stop stop and fight okay i prefer his position again he's on the way to the imperial age three minutes away from that while velez has 200 food if valez is nowhere close yeah and he's even uh re-looking at the front of his base so yep he must be loving life yeah so that was just the i was questioning the decision to sit back but he realized like if i can just hold on long enough i'm always going to be an imperial age faster and maybe i can get some type of a trap in there and that was the first time that he had brought in those three or four fires from the left side seemed like he was checking the back too if you look at his scouting he really is making sure that velez was not fishing back there so i i really like how both players have done that the same thing for velez to find the fish a moment ago but talk talk me through what land should be thinking through the next five to ten minutes here as he's about to be an m i do see a line going for fletching so we might see him make the switch into galley so i i mean for sure he's going to open fast fire ships yeah and then once you have the map control you can go for those galleons because they will be able to range your opponent's islands from the sides and if you then still have great um water control you can't go for the conditio landing yeah so that's probably like the three steps we're gonna see okay yeah i think that typically you see fast fire and then you take control with fast fire and own everything and then you switch into galleons to range with lions and golds and whatnot now in this situation it's it's different because you're going to need fast fire galleons and then if you get a lead and portuguese start sitting back you've got to get cannon galleons out there and get it out quick to not allow portuguese to make the victoria which gives them the trickle of res that said i think fellez is going to struggle to even take some of his stones and golds if galion comes in he could lose his docks once fast fire comes in the land looking very comfortable in this game yeah and that's why i also think landing could be a great option because you do have those conditions which are really great rating units yeah so that could also be an option yeah but also if you wanted to play the late game just transport a monk to the middle island take that relic so it's three to two long term but i'd like to see land maybe focus on taking out some docks right now he does seem to be sailing around the sides to make sure he can find any navy and stop any back docking but while you're at it keep some fire ships on the docks and there he finally goes making out some docks and working his way around the back he knows he knows that velez's only chance to be back docks yeah really great awareness by him do you happen to see oh sorry sorry we do see a transporter from lan at the front so i think he wants to drop some barracks oh you're right now the scout's there but the scout can't do much about five villagers and also infantry armor with infantry armor means we might see those condo tierros the scout's attacking the transport ship what is that and yeah there's the first barracks so now valez he doesn't really have defense for this he might need to wall up for now and even if lane is able to control this gold for long enough it could be tough for valez to really get back on water without the gold yeah and feliz he does have the he does have the stone that he's mining so he has to choose do i drop a defensive castle at the front or do i drop one at the back so i can safely re-lock through yeah condo tierra rating is interesting because i do feel as though sometimes prioritizing water text might be the better play now velez it's got an awkward woodland and there's a whole bunch is there a hole yeah oh my god and does he have that he might not see it actually like that's such a weird woodline generation that he won't see it and yeah the condos will come but he has the cube c90 he should see it that's true he's using the cube mod how how dare i forget that that's true why do you use where's your cube mod now oh god castle on the shoreline for velez he's gonna try and re-dock he's getting galleons military count and population has this being a pretty close game right now where is land's water control um i do see a couple of uh galleons from him but honestly not that many yeah i mean now venice is just re-talking to the sides yeah i now i am clearly not the most experienced islands player but in all the games that i've seen and some that i've played feel as though landings are a little bit risky in this case i feel it's particularly risky against portuguese who may be able to go for victoria's later um like i remember nearly played uh islands and he was just all about making sure that you you take every advantage on water but i'll tell you what i can't argue with the condo tier is getting through and and still the other side being kind of awkwardly boxed out it's not bad just gotta focus on water too because if you against portuguese don't prioritize water they're devastating with their caravals and demos whatever else but i have seen a lot of docs go down for velez this is dock number three on the front that'll go down a lot to work on right now yeah and feliz he did have like a bunch of fire ships left but portuguese actually don't get fast fires that's something i learned the hard way in the practice game practice game against human i ask against daniel oh man well if daniel doesn't do too well against accm it's your fault because clearly the practice partner wasn't informed kappa yeah it's funny because uh daniel and i in training for the 2b2 world cup both agreed that you know he's like we both suck at islands and then we thought it'd be a good idea to pick islands as a home map and that didn't work out too well so how is velez still alive in this game it does feel like maybe lane could have snowballed this more on water but then again he has done a lot in taking out docs i just think that prioritizing completely dominating water then maybe mixing in a few cannon galleons could be good see more docks along the front now for him and does have three relics to two right now just has not been able to kill off the portuguese yet yeah and i honestly think that land could have just made another landing in the front of um felice's base where there are maybe uh dogs yeah you know what i like to what i think is a great thing that people never do in land situation is transporting the trebs over to their island not just the middle the middle is good but if you transport trebs and just protect them with your navy you can trap down all their eco and all their buildings there so that's not a bad play yeah that's a good move and we might even see that because there are almost there's almost second trip and the transporter oh okay yeah that'd be a good move and a great fight for land but the score is a lie right now uh greater eco for land greater military control for land i'm not actually seeing all velez's navy uh oh but wait a second could be a sandwich here that's where the navy is it was inside the docks and suddenly while there are fast fires it feels like land will lose a lot of galleons oh man it is going to be the case isn't it feliz giving himself a chance i called it yes i'm so proud here come the trebs not scripted confirmed and so while lan is gonna take some losses he should have reinforcements and at least he'll start trebbing down that castle that's a good move and uh t90 feliz only has one gold tire left he doesn't have control of these other goals you still need gold and stone to make victorias you know people act like it's a cheap building 250 gold and 250 stone is not cheap and even if land loses these villagers he's mining as much gold as possible there so a castle in the middle now for land and he's going to secure that even further if that castle goes up i don't see a great way for velez to be able to group up to the middle area and he'll just continue to lose the rest of his base we even see additional trebuchets coming over now yeah and the one castle is placed so perfectly that feliz can't go to the center without taking a lot of shots what a response from land because game one and game two he played well and fellez finally calls the gg but it just wasn't good enough and valez seemed to outmaneuver him to every single tiny area and decision here though land went for the somewhat greedy eco approach and mandated payoff the faster castle age the faster imperial age and clinical decision making velez falls behind well it doesn't fall behind excuse me but he finally loses the game and we have ourselves a series belgium yes we do i'm gonna just quickly show the statistics here i i also think that the two town center approach is really strong there because if you try and go for three town centers that's an additional tc you're pumping villagers into and that will delay your imperial time and yeah you had more of every resource here the condo tierros did find some reward the trebuchets the galleons the fires it was enough for land to starve out portuguese after seeing that game does it change your thoughts on what the water met is like do you think that maybe players should be back talking and adding the fishing ships more frequently there's actually an approach which i which i really like but i mean islands it's so tricky there are so many options that you can go for okay like we didn't even talk about landings that game but they are also if you don't expect the landing you could just instantly die i can't wait to watch licks for sneak off man because i just have a feeling that lakes is gonna have some crazy island strategy prepared it'll probably be landing right back doc transport that's also meta don't forget about that people nobody expects the indians landing on islands i still can't believe he did that for miguel i don't know if miguel is out there but what a way to lose man all right chat well uh for the first time we will see valez play on one of his home maps he has gold rush bay and hideouts um since the qualifier only has seven maps i can't say that these are necessarily his huge preferences but picking gold rush early is rare i think you see a lot of other maps pick first so he's probably got a strap prepared there um also hard to speculate on sieves because there's so many of them but i could see aztecs being used for gold rusher hideout i don't think they'd be great for the other maps that are there um yeah true to true they're probably like on on gold rush we saw it with i think it was kazva against was it licks as the licks or it was it was casva and cl that's what it was oh yeah yeah cl where we saw the the dominance of aztecs what that what in the world is happening jeez guys this is a qualifier not the main event thank you but calm it down be dodd uh again that's insane 100 more people have emotes now 100 more subs i don't know what to say to that it's extremely awkward belgium please help me with awkwardness i i will also say thank you okay that helps a little bit um yeah a good time to bring up i guess that uh that main event prize pool continues to rise with everyone who subs or gift subs like that um and the main event will be in a couple weeks so if you like sub now with prime or whatever the sub last up until then and um we're fighting to see who will find out or we're fighting to see who will find out sorry we are going to find out who will win this best of seven and move on to the main event the top eight from hidden cup three already in of course we did have the result between jordan and what the [ __ ] there's so many other ways there's so many other ways you could spend your money my friend hey project belgium um just on a side note i think i'm going to up your hourly wage for the co-cast today is it going to be the same as robo for an hour no no no no for robo's for an hour for you it started at two it's gonna go up to six hours an hour how's that sound oh boy am i excited [Music] that was a perfect reaction because you're so chill you're so chilled normally so it actually sounded excited all right man well um waiting to hear what the situation is all right game number four yeah we should be able to get in game number four in just a second um belgium i'm gonna uh send you the the info if you need it and um uh game number four i think also it's it's kind of funny how we have these two flexing right now because bdot is gifted 301 and lower the legend is gifted only 300. what a way to win but um you know i feel as though since the level's been so good for velez on these land maps that land cannot lose this next game going down three to one when the level's this close i feel like it's almost impossible to come back so very important for lan and his tournament hopes he wants to qualify he's gotta win here in my opinion do you have the game uh yeah i'm about to hop in here uh maybe just pause like 10 seconds so we can coordinate our time it looks like it'll be all bae uh and i do have a question to ask as we load in um i'm actually running and live into the game let's go and project belgium what is this map called bay yes thank you thank you that's two co-casters who have stuck with bae i like it it was funny we announced some of the main event maps and uh go ahead i i did see uh some of the new um ones and i would say um pokeball glasses and duck were my okay the duck one was a stretch chat we announced the new maps everyone was trying to come up with different names pokeball i could see we actually talked about that internally but duck really i don't know about that but uh i do know that valez is clearly practiced with the max because when the max played up against jordan earlier he picked persians here and he did this exact strategy urchins start with plus 50 wood and plus 50 food bullets is skipping a lumber camp he's even lessening the amount he has on food at the start and he is going to go out here to go for a very fast fishing ship i like the build it also might be a tell if we see a player in the main event do this and velez ends up going in after winning today so on the other side you've got land lane has gone for the mongols and mongols historically are a sick civilization on bay due to the fast hunting with the normal resources and the fact that there's deer and ibex elsewhere makes them strong to contest for water and it all becomes down it all comes down excuse me to the mid game belgium if players are going to switch for control on land if they're going to prioritize booming it's a very fun map to watch if you ask me yeah exactly interestingly lan already going for the boar so he wants to make sure he's up as soon as possible to the feudal ledge yeah okay saving some sheep maybe and taking advantage of the the hunt speed there uh scouts have found each other but i think lan has gone forward let's see if he scouted that dock he did not go forward yet he's actually going to protect his own villager as the villager will come out the dock here in a second i mean he probably assumes that it's already way too late for him to deny the dog so he just wants to go for a safe play and defend that villager is he assuming that though because i don't think i saw a single other player in the qualifier dock this early with persians they would just send villagers to wood first like a bit earlier you know what i mean so i don't know if it's necessarily something that land would expect maybe it's amongst the players here on the deciders maybe that's known i could be wrong oh this is so sloppy from land he actually had the pigs scouted he had scouted the pigs with his own pigs but never brought it in and now velez is going to find them and take them to the corner i guess think land probably is going to be able to find them but yeah that's a little bit of nuisance let's see mongol scouting bonus pigs don't want to be here i know pig yeah okay we'll find him uh and of course he knew that the scout would be over there so his villager would be protected see what what the the up times end up being like belgium did you happen to see the hidden cup 4 main event hero list um i did but honestly don't ask me a single name because i didn't remember okay i was going to ask you what your favorite was if you had one uh twitch chat if you saw the list what would you say is your favorite i've got a few i'm rooting for uh we have i think one of my favorite ones is littlejohn littlejohn is a spearman and i don't even know why it's listed as a hero in the game because it's just a basic spearman but i'm kind of rooting for little john i think it'd be really funny to see something like little john and cobra car in the finals like cheat code versus weak units so ubercar is very popular apparently and we are going to have uh similar up times and both are also going to be on three fishing ships wow pretty even game yeah seriously right i mean i guess you could argue nah i mean it's not even worth splitting hairs at this point to see who's gonna be ahead uh lan just now finishing that third fishing ship and a fourth now for velez i seem to recall max only going with three but we'll probably see players send villagers out to dock both players have their scouts on the enemy shoreline i take that back actually i think land spotted that les was around so now he's sending his scout home to be safe as we see the second dock yeah so it's just going to be a water bar and then i would say since they're both going to be up at similar time i would give the slight edge to versions just because of the production speed yup slight edge to persians with the production speed of the docks plus the hp on the docks let's probably give the edge yeah look at the four foreign villages forward filters for release what oh my dear everything we've seen in this game so far has told us that it will be two docks for velez and lan is looking and does not see anything on the shoreline scouting is so important here will he notice that there's something out here looking you're kidding me oh my you're oh my goodness that is i mean can't really say it's unfortunate when he's staying so close in the water he's still looking still confused like wait what does he have the second duck to the right side that's what i'd be checking maybe he snuck it to the right that wouldn't make sense hey now he doesn't see it now he's got a double back i wonder if he knows now that something funky must be going on yeah if land can get the wall up oh look at the stable a stable okay it's an archery range he must have misclicked his hot keys that makes more sense and now land can see it and land was trying to wall hoe over the scout from velez is here to pounce so a lot going on right now i feel like maybe velez could send his own bills through oh i lied never mind he runs away and the land has the wall stones but you know what he can't do his mongols is take the hunt that's out there so that's that's kind of sucks but on the bright side uh while velez hasn't lost his fishing ships they all are all idle right now so i'm not loving the strategy for velez just yet yeah and the probably the one good thing about or not one good thing but a good thing about going forward on this map is if um if your opponent counter towers he won't have access to stone because your stone is always going to be forward that's true yeah and that's a big thing with mongols and maybe part of the thought process here for velez knows how dangerous it can be if mongols get the stone i'm still really shocked he didn't even make a demo or anything here but velez hasn't cleared up his fishing ships yet so he's able to bring in food and that's something uh or land's got to clear up feliz's fishing ships excuse me and the pressure's on so you deny the hunt and the stone for mongols but give them the water i thought this would almost go the other way around that persians would win water and mongols would take hunt lan is doing a smart move he's sending out two villagers probably to go to the store so he hasn't scouted any safe zone just yet yeah if you go towards i hate to say this but if you go towards the belt normally there's some stone out there i guess like the ridge the mountain but here comes velez he's got two archers and a spearman just behind the wood line right now which is a concern for land he does not have a very safe back wood line the way he's walled is use the wood lines but pretty soon all of his wood lines could be towered yeah exactly so lan though he has the water he can't play passive on land because otherwise he will just follow without any wood lines yeah and i do see felice moving forward with two villagers so he's probably gonna tower that uh that one would line yeah he's yep moving forward with two villagers sorry just trying to keep an eye on things what is land doing here is he gonna try and sneak villagers into the back of lez's base because he's he's not taking stone he hasn't scouted any stone i guess but this is really peculiar what an epic play would be if he snuck into the back of the list is based with archery ranges yeah i thought they would be for like two stone miners but he could honestly go for a sneak i don't know if it's worth it to travel that far does he see he does see now that that wood line's getting towered so he will back away and that means that velez is probably going to break in this palisade wall and what are the villas doing chopping a tree no you never want to chop the tree well it's not scalded but if velez had that area scouted he could actually see the tree chopped in the fog of war so that would give him an idea if he was paying attention archer range huh it feels like it was very late yeah yeah because he already saw the elise was swallowing by the time it ranges up you might have one archer out but then veliz is already gonna be uh fully well i feel like it's so much more effective to scout the stone send a few villagers to the stone or even sneak out and take the hunt there uh right now he has house waltz i also would maybe like to see him go up to five fishing ships five or six fishing ships feels about right when someone gives up water there is a fire ship inside velez's dock but he doesn't have anything more than that but he's okay i lied making a second one now and now you see a tower for land that's his first tower and is that something velez could deny here i mean he should more than deny that what on earth is happening here for land where am i wrong yeah i think he could deny it his army is coming over but it could be a little bit late ah maybe okay he's going to get the thousand and he does lose one bill loses the second bill but then again he might be able to get a mining camp on stone maybe that was calculated and maybe that was worth the risk there weird moment though i have to say man i mean at the end of the day he's got skirms with armor here so we can defend from the archers and velez has had a lot of villager idol time because of the forward villagers he can take stone as mongols he'll have forward archers and there's actually a hole in valeza's base if libs doesn't lock that down what a weird game that's all i have to say is just very weird and messy stuff yeah exactly it seems like it's going to be working out for him after all he's also dropping a mill with those four reveals so yeah good decision in the end yeah and now he could easily just just walk through and take that hunt on his side does have to worry about that one week scout for velez the scout is really doing a lot of damage against the skirms he garrisons his tower velez micros what great micro there amazing value from that sky how is the eco looking feliz he does have 13 farms so he does have solid land eco well only only six so i would say a little bit better for felice land why do you have why do you have pigs behind the wood line man that would show up on the mini-map for velez imagine him he's like wait what why is the pigs are showing the hole in the wood line and now velez is just gonna that was so weird les is just gonna drop a house there as he should if he notices that uh but yeah i think we'll see both players on the way to cass laden shortly but lan with the benefiting from water benefiting from some of the hunt we'll have the faster up time he's now dropping a stable which will probably tell velez that land is clicked up if it even goes up actually um yeah and the archers from land probably will still find some damage maybe even a villager yeah true is is able to pressure delay the stable and uh the archers from land i was actually talking about the archers for velez because it's not normal to have two attacks like this and yeah they don't get any damage in but it still could pressure and castle yeah exactly if you can keep those archers alive and with those two fields he could even go for like monastery siege workshop so that's a good place to pile on some pressure and great job from velez still denying the stable he knows it'll probably complete but delaying it as much as possible velez probably needs to wall at home this is a fun game man this is i don't know where this is gonna go from here it feels like with crossbowmen and bod canary lane could do a lot of damage but at the same time it's it's the most unique game that probably seen today in terms of breaking the meta and what we typically see yeah i think so but that faster up time could be all the difference here land will have a night out in about five seconds or he'll start creating it anyways and velez he doesn't know if these archers came from land space or if there's a sneaky building here he doesn't have a way of scouting that he also does not have very good economy but then again he's persians and what he could do with persians is go for a few nights and persian knights have extra attack against archers so i feel like there's potential do something and alan is switching into some ca so he's not even going for the crossbow upgrade forward cav archers they made one um what do you think about going cav archers here do you think it's good do you think it's bad do you think it depends i actually like it quite a lot especially since these mongols they fire a bit faster okay i think it's a good decision all right well we'll see if he commits to it uh here we have lan adding a tc i love the fact there's hunt there you can still take with mongols knights and camels are here to clear up those skirms and he also was able to keep his other units alive so he's clearing up velez's units keeping his units active and now adding the second tc this is looking good for land to possibly tie up this series project belgium this is a quality series right here yeah and feliz actually managed to find that archery range and lan was able to escape right the last second yeah it does not have any scouting out here so let's see if he's able to find it knights do not have the best line of sight the army very weird army and then the two villagers are all splitting up doesn't look like they'll be spotted for now or if they are the camels and knights could deal with them so land good macro approach here to have the second tc going uh still able to fish with what's left on water though velez probably could have cleared that and if you're booming long term i do really like the mongols if they can secure the stone which land was able to do and he might even have a castle soon yeah he already has 400 stone in banks so i think he's probably gonna get a castle within like two or three minutes so yeah let's look that looks great for him feeling good now with persians you probably want to look towards paladin i think and even before that i think pushing mongols before they can get to mangudai is good though velez maybe a bit confused on what to make right now because land has archers which could prompt siege to work and there's the sea torch shop but also there's camels so now camels countering knights means you need a bit more velez really falling behind right now he's down by 13 villagers the siege workshop's denied land has has got it together now belgium if you didn't at the start of the series he's together now yeah he's in a really he's in a really good spot he's also picking up some relics so he's thinking about the late game also still creating cav archers from that one range and even just the presence of the mill and range there is going to be annoying for velez he constantly has to worry about cav archers coming in or if he patrols over there he'll attack the building that's no fun yeah exactly it's a little bit of vision that can be useful inversion incoming velez gets out of there okay gets a few archers not like land is really going to worry about losing a few archers when he hasn't upgraded them but looks like this is going to be just camel for now for land and uh he needs to get upgraded then he does have armor bloodlines is not in though and you look at the upgrades for liz he's got bloodlines he also has armor and he also has a monk here to get a conversion and also kill a monk nice little moment here for velez and maybe alan was feeling comfortable like okay i will have a castle in the sick i'm not gonna invest that much into the camels yep yeah another night converted there uh but velez at the end of the day i don't think has enough to really push so maybe land will decide to make the castle it does seem like he's being patient right now i'd like it to the left of the tc actually pretty much where his army is right now would be a perfect spot yeah yeah true worth pointing out he's got a four tile gold in the back of his base the tower kind of ranges that so that will be annoying long term uh he's also going to ram down some of these buildings let's get an update on valessa's eco les with two tc's persian tc's do work a bit faster and it seems like a smooth two-town center economy he's now adding a third but still 20 villagers behind yeah i had to laugh because lance two forward villagers they went to the top built some houses and they're now happily farming away oh the happy couple oh it's so sweet and hey if you're ever going to settle down and farm somewhere with your mate you'd want to be a place that has uh nice elevation if you ever want to go for a hike you're far away from the city you know and you got some good views off the edge of the earth this is perfect that's funny man and yeah that anyways back to the actual fight uh well there wasn't much of a fight there that's unlucky yeah i didn't zero conversions didn't see how long the conversions were coming in there belgium but it did seem like two or three monks went down and land he he really needs to get a few more camel numbers out so you gotta be careful with how many camels you create because they're not as good long term maybe he's just happy to be patient and sit back and wait for mangady numbers as relic number three is on the way not bad who and there was a knight from feliz patrolling to the top where lan was taking stone but he went away or maybe he's coming back coming back sees it oh wow okay that looks intentional to click it over there just a double check a lot of mix a lot of knights and camels now but yeah they have to move back i think so frequently what you're going to see on this map is a as a player in velez's position try and go in faster drop a castle in the middle and then try and treb down the castles from land whereas land is just going to sit back and try and mass manga die and feel very comfortable if it gets there let's see velez just saw the castle he probably knows this is not a good sign for him if mongols have that he might see the next castle this should be fall for him to maybe idle as he sees and go for a middle castle [Music] conversion oh please really can't push in here with all of the camels no can't push in the castle fire is going to help out you look at land ziko and the way he's been able to balance this remember he was forwarded he initially couldn't take hunt or stone with mongols but that one tower gave him access now he has two castles he's on his way to imp and blez he of course doesn't know that lane's clicked up so i think he's going to come forward and here come the villagers he's going to do exactly what i said it might not end up being enough mongols will have multiple castles mangadai and could just trap that right back unless you have some expansion from land plus you have the fact that he's got three relics and great vision the other golds and stones that one knight was able to kill all of the all of the stone miners so that was great for police yeah i i looked away from that thanks for the reminder but there were five or six bills there so in fact you look at the game on how it's played out it's pretty telling valez is able to kill 10 villagers make that eleven and lana's only killed five and that would include the starting fishing trip so it's really just been the fact that land was able to get to tc's faster and boom not necessarily the amount of bill kills here hmm i think uh feliz has to be really careful where he places his castle okay i like that yeah very pleased because if he places it too forward and lances it he just instantly goes for uh traps and maybe even heavy camel to uh potentially fend off any like cavalier snipes rubbishes yep i like how valez has been able to get a tc on the belt region there's stone and there's gold there and i think how quickly it takes land to spot the fact that there's a castle there will possibly decide the game because if he goes for conscription and elite mangudai and just keeps producing his units obviously that's great for his units but then the enemy could show up with four trebs and he might not have his units in position so there is a risk for lan if he doesn't see that castle that he could no longer make mega die in this game i see him buying another castle though and he's probably feeling really good this is almost impossible to deal with right now i will see uh blez takes the fight this is before elite manga comes in and this is also before armor or cavalier comes in for blez so i think that's a good trade for land he didn't really want to make camels anymore in this game yeah exactly and he's going to be able to save all of his mangudai and wait for the upgrades he's getting elite magnetize so they are going to be powerful yep and here he finds out so he now sees the castle you look at how he's been doing this with the castles he's got the magnetic coming out now we should maybe think about a few trebs then again is there a real worry that velez could get his trebs in a position where he could snipe the castles comfortably it almost feels like anywhere the trebs would show up could be sniped by the mangudai yeah exactly because i think they could maybe reach it behind that wood line but then lan just runs forward snipes it and happily moves back so yeah and this is just unfortunately persians are not a very flexible sieve from here they do not have great skirmishers they do have crossbowmen that only cost wood but it's still crossbowmen so i don't i mean if you had a lead in this game you could raid with paladins but cavaliers just completed and elite manga has already been pumping out of a few castles atlanta's in a great position to tie the series up yeah and lan is honestly not that scared of the castle he's just focusing on mangudai production because he knows once have a big enough ball of elite mangadai he honestly can't do anything yeah because if he tries to fight me i will just kill all of his army and then i can snipe any traps he has on the field yeah the only worrying thing right now is that he is pretty far away from his production so if he were to lose his mangady and then not have defense to to take out the trebs that would be a worrying sign but here he comes confidence with this unit just got ballistics by the way a little late with that upgrade but chemistry armor i think he is parthian and i know he has thumb rings so oh no he doesn't have parking oh you're right yeah he does not have parthian yet so i think parthian will be the only upgrade he's missing but point being there's a lot of upgrades you need to get on these units and it takes some time and atlanta has been able to have the time and he's just going to run in here with the manga die okay i wasn't expecting that there's a lot of farmers back here there's a lot of everything on the front now belgium he doesn't have the mangudai numbers it all in one big ball but he doesn't need it he sees the trebs that's a good decision from velez to try and do this because the manga dyer split up he actually killed a lot of mangadai but every single trebuchet goes down and that was an expensive loss an expensive loss but it's honestly worth it because novelis can't push castles and land can happily reproduce his uh his lost numbers yeah and i actually i think llan would have would have preferred that right so oh my god that's so annoying eleven manga die on two tiles and you just can't group around them oh man what a tilter right there and now the cavalier run forward and the mangady are shredding this is insane how do you counter mangudai i still can't believe that there was a time where these were stronger and then people complained about it when they were nerfed it's such a strong unit people were like what what'd you do to mangudai meg and i suck now i used to see that all over the forums these units are insane machine guns back in the day yeah seriously i think early kip checks for people who've only been around for a year or two but but magnetized stats it's it's looking rough now for valez i mean only thing he could try and do he's gonna do now and try and raid a little bit but the way lana's played this is he has outposts everywhere he has vision he can see it and while he loses that group in space there's no way velez can ever sneak through do anything this unit is just it's too strong and there's no way to take out castles when they're out there and since you need mega dad to create the uh more castles to create the mega dye you're just kind of screwed yeah and especially because feliz doesn't have paladin if maybe the paladin they would do well they would do slightly better against those mangudai but with cavalier their pure summer is just too low i would say yeah farmers are peaceful over there for the people who wanted the updates three relics again for land 133 villagers for land 30 villager lead these villagers all melt not so peaceful farming here yeah i'm with you i think paladin would really be velez's only chance and i'm not sure he's going to have the time and plan now even clicking camels so it's not gonna give him any chances to to try and make a comeback yeah i think it's good move for valez to try it with paladin uh the problem is it takes three minutes to complete paladin i'm not sure how many cavaliers you're gonna have remaining so here he goes you could consider this a little risky but i think that lana is going to go right back to that woodline yeah he's going right back to that spot he heard about that spot and velez won't even let it happen velez taps out and the score was 2-0 earlier on in the day now what is 2-2 and for those that are saying it was going to be a sweep by velez i think he spoke a little bit too soon game five's upcoming of course both players fighting for a spot in the main event of hidden uh uh hidden cup four and remember both of them participated in previous hidden cups ah man belgium i was so worried after the first two games that this was going to be a sweep what a set this is man but what made the difference here in in this game we had less going forward just maybe didn't have the execution um yeah like his forward didn't really accomplish much and then early castle age lan instantly dropped two extra tc's and didn't get punished for it yeah he he also while he didn't do a ton of damage with the sneak villagers he found some reward with the hunt out there and that's something velez should have maybe tried to stop um the annoyance factor that came in from that maybe allowed land to boom up i also not that forwarding is bad on this map but i feel like with a persian dock maybe you should be a bit more competitive on water you've got one dock that has 3 600 hp maybe make a few demos and fires to hit lands fishing ships but then again land didn't even fish all that much it's very hard to say except that land played this well had better balance and then had the better late game civilization oh boy we get to really speculate now all right so um velez has two home maps remaining his hideout and he is gold rush he could go for either one let's just assume it's gonna be gold rush uh what civilizations would you be expecting so feliz he has aztecs which could be probably his best pick for that one yeah and then for lan probably berbers okay herbers makes sense oh no commerce yeah probably berbers or maybe even slavs what if you're expecting britain's on gold rush and you pick goths is that too crazy yeah the gods one is i think it's it's a counterpick obviously but also a bit of a mind game yeah okay well um we'll we'll see uh next game we'll be starting in just a moment um i just want to say thanks to booty snake for stopping by booty snake great name by the way has subbed for 45 months and says i'm so happy you invited me to play in hidden cup unfortunately i'll have to decline this time and wait for hidden cup 69 to make my debut yeah no worries um it was the same with project belgium he he declined to join the main event i knew he'd have the skills for it isn't that right belgium yeah that's exactly how it happens yep exactly which is why you played the qualifier makes sense right it was it was the hidden hidden um id by me i wonder how like i wonder how upset people would be if i just all of a sudden invited someone who lost in the qualifier it's not like anyone's gonna boycott a seventy thousand dollar tournament it's not like viper's gonna be like i'm not gonna play i'm gonna stand up for this this atrocity just saying well they would only find out after the event because the names are hidden that's true we just debate the whole community like hey by the way uh by the way that guy was project belgium yep point someone had the idea that and we can hop in here to game number five we'll be on gold rush uh somebody had the idea that i just have huang play uh up against the top eight for the entire tournament like and the community doesn't find out until after the fact i don't think it'd be a very popular move because people would say you know people get angry and i would never actually do that but it's a funny thought um all right well the scores two to two could go either way at this point and we have lan in the red lan is playing as the slavs a sieve that i have missed but i'll talk more about that in a bit belgium in the blue we have velez velez is playing as the aztecs seeing as the focus on this map is aggression in castle age how do you feel aztecs fare on gold rush yeah so essex have a couple of nice bonuses they obviously have great monks but mainly their eagles are their strength because of their production speed though in this matchup slavs i feel like are let's say a great counter i wouldn't particularly call them a counter but as if that can fare well against aztecs because they have such a great infantry they also have great putting costs so if the asic player goes for monks you could easily make some light calf if they go eagles you could go for a long sword yeah and and having supplies for free is sick because sometimes like that makes the difference between if you're going to go for long swords to counter pikemen eagle or not um i find that slavs on this map feel a bit stronger or at least have more options than uh khmer and we have seen khmer and might see khmer in other positions too but hidden cup three qualifiers many people were going for those very civilizations we would see khmer and we would see slavs uh sometimes they would face up against each other but here i do you know i actually struggle to say which civilization i'd prefer to play with i think that aztecs played to their full potential should be the better sieve here maybe 55 win rate but i could definitely see this turning into a situation where you have light caving knights and long swords and in the mid game aztecs really cannot deal with that um so we'll see but players have seven tiles of gold to work with at their base you'll see the four here and the three here for velez that's easily walled in for lan it honestly sucks uh that his goal is further forward but a wall is also possible for him also could just go for an aggressive fuel-aged strategy so uh we will see eventually the middle is filled with gold and there's even some wolves out there if players want to use them for their attack um yeah and i think uh i like lance opening he's probably going for scouts and with slavs even if your opponent goes uh let's say fc you just make one or two scouts to deal with the rush and then you can still have a great uh castle each time due to that 10 faster farming bonus yeah yeah it's true man i remember uh the max velez's teammate going for builds where he would fullball his base he'd go fast feudal and then he would just get the farming upgrades with slavs and then still have a 18 minute castle age um then you arrive to cass lake with a stronger food eco than you'd normally have i think that could remain competitive but that does mean you need to wall up it also means you need to scout the fact that velez is going for what he's going for and valez adding the barracks i think we'll see some militia yeah and also the fact that llan his goal is forward so it would be it would it wouldn't be the wisest move for him to not play but or to not make any army this game or at least early yeah it's an awkward spot because you feel forced to make military and sometimes when you go scouts and the enemy goes for walls you feel like it's a little useless why is there a goat there why is he leaving the goat next to his gold that was weird it's just like a freebie if the enemy is going to scout your face probably forgot about that and that's 100 food going home for velez he offered it to the aztec guts there you go they're going to take that home and slaughter that thing now clearly both players have practiced but here i can see that velez understands the map because he's running through the middle area to avoid the wolves uh we we purposely placed the wolves there that way it would not discourage aggression uh if there's 20 wolves in the middle sometimes players will never go for anything in dark age or feudal age so he avoids them he's sending militia in and if i check land scouting lan is just now arriving and seeing walls lan jay could be really frustrated in a few moments because he's so close to walling up the front surprise this is trouble yeah might lose a villager here might have to abandon the berries didn't even try to quick well in the berries which surprises me and already the militia are paying off oh oh my god but that was really bad for velez oh my god his eagle is weak his other militia is weak and he lost one so honestly land might be very happy with this situation now yeah and the good thing for land was that was that loom came in at like a really clutch moment yeah otherwise yeah i mean i'm surprised that velez was getting so close to the town center there oh lynn is housed he's housed he he puts the house down right where a farm should be later on ouch but i think the josh might have paid off a little bit then at least with the harassment and like i like what lan is doing he knows my opponent is most likely going george fc so i'm just gonna go fc as well because i know he's driving is quite weak so i shouldn't uh invest anything into army yeah that's true and if you go if you late in this position to try and do that build i mentioned earlier you've been harassed so much that it probably wouldn't be the cleanest switch so i i agree with you there uh did he kill a villager he did he killed that wall villager with his scalp i think he did because it says his scout's weak and it says that he killed the villagers so yeah i actually believe and i apologize for not looking for it viewers that he killed that villager who was walling i recall velez getting loom right when that scout showed up so it looked like it was close yeah and lan also already on the way to uh feudal age okay probably feliz making one or two reveals and then it will be probably well i'm not sure scouts slash knights into against eels what do you think about this eco balance for velez he's got 10 on wood right now and he just switched to lumberjack over to goats i feel like he sent too much to wood yeah i think so too he does not have the resources where he already has enough food to click up yeah this is you never want to idle your town center okay there he goes i mean it's manageable but rather weird to me that the balance was not that great there because look at land man i mean he was the one who was under pressure he was the one who killed the villager he was the one who defended and will be in castle age faster now most likely anyways yeah and the good thing for land was that he also kept his uh scout alive onto hp so that can be crucial and and suddenly you have one person walled and that person has the quote-unquote better map but they're in the worst position very important that you're that you play the game maps matter they'll always be different in age and happy to see land who really has stepped it up i can't tell if lana's stepped it up or velez has maybe dropped off the last two games or maybe both really impressed with how lan was able to not lose any villagers there and yet find a villager pick of his own and get up to castle fast yeah and you you talked about the eco balance for feliz look at his wood count he has 500 woods and 500 food the only thing that i can think of with this eco is go blacksmith market sell your wood and buy some food and then just go into pikeman and eagle and monks because then at that point you're not going to be punished that badly for this eco balance because you already have the barracks yeah blacksmith market i mean feels a little sketch but he'll still click up and he's probably only going to need the barracks for military anyways yeah and phil is also instantly clicking one eagle so he can start his production yep yep exactly so not too bad um could have been better and blez is going to lose the militia now i don't know never mind he's being annoying but i also like how lan is added some scouts he knows the danger of playing against aztecs is that they have monks eagles pikemen so much against uh civ who's opening up with the table i would kind of like to add to see either player add a spearman and round up the wolves and send it to the enemy base yeah and i think uh lan also made the scout because he knew that affiliate still had a weak eagle and maybe was trying to find it oh yeah did he save that thing i'm trying to see yep it's still out there that's a good point so we see second barracks for release so it will probably be a mix of uh spears and eagles okay let's check land scouting land's got a weak scout out there of course he has not scouted the front of lez's base in fact he hasn't scouted much at all he probably should get over here to see what the enemy is up to blindly going into uh like kev upgrade wouldn't be too bad here we're seeing a monastery early that's a good move fill up any units and maybe get the relics away from the aztecs aztecs super dangerous if they're able to get some relics in 33 more gold per relic plus you're gonna have monks anyways so six spot to be in wow did you see that so he scouts the spearman eagle and instantly clicked man at arms oh that's really smart yeah so the tough thing is is that long swords kind of pricey you have to decide between like have or like a knight or two or long sword and then you need to create the units but i think getting a head start with production could be really strong here yeah yeah i would agree and it definitely pays off more if your opponent also um puts in more into military because if release now booms booms a bit more then the then long sword can sometimes feel a bit useless you've got to be kidding me that militia was still alive it just died let me see what it scouted you've got to be kidding it scouted the monastery and the stable how do you let that militia scout the monastery and the stable not that it's not expected but like still the militia of all things here comes uh velez forward to the middle and he's going to drop a town center this does remind me of how max played against jordan earlier in the day and that first best of seven second tc in the middle uh whereas a lot of other players would build the second pc at home and then eventually control the middle and build the third tc out there but i i made comparisons or not comparisons but i talked about why i didn't like certain approach in the max and jordan set i don't want to spoil too much here for people who didn't see it but in this case it makes sense to have a ton of villagers on gold with aztecs so i think having the second pc in the middle with aztecs makes a lot of sense you will need the gold yeah i do agree with es6 you want monks you want eagles so the more on gold the merrier unless this is a spec bug oh it's not okay never mind i was incorrect so allez was not able to see that the barracks had units inside when he scouted with the militia he did see that the monastery had some units inside there and land scouting out this is i mean such a big important set for these players and their careers and both players playing extremely safe that could be great because if elise can bring out his monks forward and let's say lan releases the long swords and he gets like two three conversions then so all of a sudden it can snowball really badly against uh long swords could could pounce right now you know the monks are out of position do you show the long sword choice now or do you wait hmm the problem is slow it's freaky because now feliz knows but if he releases them eagles are faster so he can just run away yeah he actually ejects the monks to try and get conversions the eagles fly away anyways why am i nervous right now people watching are you nervous i'm like oh man this set is so high level now it's so close uh all the smart moves coming in from both of them it's um you know one mistake could really change the game and there's a small one that scout goes down this is one scouts struggle is just affording everything with slavs uh i mean it's easier to make the long swordsman but to go like cav and also long swordsman and also villagers out of pcs it's so much food it's so much easier to just just toss villagers on the gold and spam units with aztecs but the potential is there lan already added the dirty c so he obviously needs more farms to keep his own eco rolling yeah both players have some monks here yeah he could have picked them off because they were a bit out of position there he comes i mean there's only two pikemen in there and it feels like velez has to go for conversions he does go for conversions the scouts should be kept alive here in my opinion don't toss the scouts you need them later ah that was a poor move if you ask me and now the eagles are in so long swordsman need to go back but i think velez is going to run out of here is he he's still diving in at the end of the day the monks still go down and velez is underneath the town center right now what in the world is this can't tell if this is worth it or not it's a lot of idol time for land and no control in the middle like all things consider lan is still in a good position yeah it's just annoying right he still doesn't have long swords back in his base and now he's got one he was able to house walls 60 villagers versus 54. now 18 military versus 10. so you have lan i think he'll be happy to lose a few villagers and have idol time to be able to take out that mass that velez was shooting for and oh boy atlanta's feeling confident here he comes kissing these workshops oh that's so cute well next valentine's day has already passed but if you guys are wondering what you can get your it's your person for the next valentine's day just just get them a siege workshop there you go and finally a conversion there for velez but velez has scorpions well as his monks this siege workshop might not go up and scorpion monk pikeman is pretty good right now and land's even getting redemption on his monks yeah feliz is really getting into that the dirty dirty essex uh composition with the siege and then the super strong monks and samir from premixed i think it's a good engagement for land to take though you don't want this to snowball get any worse you just gotta make sure you close out the monks man these conversions oh my god that could be three converts all the monk micro convert them back nba would love to be casting this with me right now i convert one long sword i convert it back i convert one long sword i converted back uh mbl's favorite now redemption being in does make this a little messy because that means that land could convert enemy siege but did velez get atonement nope it's on the way with atonement you can convert enemy monks this is getting really problematic if you're land now i don't think log sword is gonna cut it you'd need like long sword in five or six light caps yep yep sorry i interrupted but we said the same thing so lan also sending like two three wheels onto stone because yeah he he should really need to get a castle uh somewhere soon less intent on killing his own units at the siege workshop but redemption will be in for him as well aztec monks received plus five hp for every monk technology at this point these monks have 65 hp the long swords they have 60 hp so these old men are stronger than the longswords and now these buildings could get converted and land is kind of falling apart right now he just doesn't know where to send his military because he knows it'll he'll just donate it to the enemy and it looks like he he wants to counter attack i do see him getting arson so he's going to try and eat up those buildings oh interesting now you could use the monks to convert bills there and just deny that house is behind getting villager conversions would be kind of funny too because you could just you know make some buildings in there the monastery is going to go down how many long swords do you need to take out of town center that still seems like a difficult task yeah this is actually a really good move by land because he's going to force felice to send all of his monks back and he has a better eco and that will give him time to mess up some light cats i'm just laughing because meanwhile velez is is converting barracks and houses and he also used the monks this is so high level or sorry not the monks he used the eagles to scout the stables so now he knows that light cav is going to come in from the enemy and now the monks for velez aztecs should always win here right even if it's even if it's poor conversions for velez aztec should always win because you give yourself so much time and that's exactly what happens look at the monks heal each other now i think like three months and like everything yeah and of course his own monks are going to go down i don't know though this one long sword let's see what's faster a long sword or a monk healing another monk well clearly monks very powerful uh in the middle of the map sorry for the zoom we have the light cav coming out we actually got a castle up for velez he's on his way to imperial age and lan is just he's invested so much here to take out the monks but now he finds himself without a lot of middle control that said on this version of gold rush you can still be in the middle he has a tc there on gold so snipes the magnel we'll snipe a monk there we'll snipe another monk there he's got 41 on food this game is more than winnable for land yeah exactly this is going to be a really great game because we're going to have imperial age against full castle age i don't know he's clicked up he's clicked up to him but but the point is uh the point that i agree with is this is going to be a very good game and this just feels like this could be the game of the deciders so far with the aztec player finding success with their monks and their eagles and their golds but the slab player able to hold on and maybe go for hussar and champion long term there is a castle velez will scout that with his monks and immediately make trebs so that's top tier stuff as he like cab for land snipe a monk and run away from the pikeman that's top tier stuff beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful age of empires oh my god forward oh that's forward i i guess if you feel like you you're gonna struggle against the mobility you just try and deny the gold and end this game fast if you're velez he's getting more monk upgrades he probably should just continue to make pikeman and monk from here another castle from lane but his villager won't get off the foundation he's going to drop it move people wow does that go up i guess it does if elise knows about the monk trick he could like spam click all of the villagers to make them idle yeah true he doesn't seem to be doing that he's happy to just trev it down which isn't bad either meanwhile the light cavs still can't really find an area to push and less might be behind by 30 villagers but [ __ ] denied it 62 percent and now land might need to reposition honestly not many areas he can take gold velez is town centering the left now to stop that this is 16 on food eco for velez and land had 40 farms at one point and now he's had to idle some because of a few eagles trailing in oh but the light cover into velez's base and there's no protection here what in the world is this game project belgium this is sick man i i don't know who should win this game i feel like fellas should because of the gold and the monks but at the same time land has more villagers and he's still going to mine a little bit of gold here there yeah i i think if if lion can get hussar that could be great against the monks yeah really good what he also could do is try to uh take felice's secondary gold but obviously he doesn't know that he can take that bro some of the best gold rush games i've ever seen he actually yeah he would have to look at that but some of the best gold rush games i've ever seen have been games where someone takes the gold but then doesn't have the wooden food and that is exactly what we're seeing right here this is what makes good gold rush games great and lan he swoops in with light cav he'll be upset to see the tc is there but he can continue to use mobility and honestly what if he drops a castle behind valeza's woodline here on the right side right where that siege workshop is he could take gold and he could have an easy pathway into velez's eco yeah and it like uh land made two trips and he's even moving them over there so i think he just wants to kill the ego from release and and he's adding barracks now could maybe go for two-handed swordsmen there i mean you can't defend with pikeman if that's the case land without gold control on gold rush 160 villagers velez with 133 it's only fitting that the best game of this series would come when the side the score is 2-2 oh man i think velez could die to this in a moment yeah i think so too land's just repairing that castle keeping it alive that way blez can't use those trebuchets elsewhere um he's still repairing bringing the trebs over now might have going down that hurts i feel like we could see a mac like a crazy base rate in a second where land takes out valeza's eco and then valez takes out lands eco at his base but here come the long swords and soon two-handed swordsmen and yeah who needs traps but there's an over chopper what do you do now velez where's your god now run oh man they're running to the middle oh my god so land just lost the castle he's gonna start losing his base i don't think you call the gg yet if you're velez i think you continue to fight because you've got the freaking gold and just make monks but uh and you also got a raid what in the world i think felice could even make some um how are they called a jaguar warriors which is doing now yeah jaguar warriors and some monks can help monks of course are much stronger and him now 75 hp also he could honestly just run into land's base in a second and steal his farms like send 20 villagers forward and steal lance farms because land's not going to have farmers who's winning say it right now who's winning is it lynn or is it blizz uh i i don't know tonight i don't know either i feel like llan is slightly winning but he could lose his base everywhere ah and and look at this land is going to try and trip the middle but he doesn't have enough just yet and velez is pulling trips for treb defense he also has the monk there to maybe convert the treb what is this game not even the game of the set maybe the game of all the qualifiers lin has a 180 pop but he's leaving his base he doesn't have a base anymore he's losing the villagers to bike man oh my god dude i can't believe that blez is still in this i can't believe that land is still in this this is ridiculous right now a dive in the center he does have the champions yep i see it castle fire will help a little bit but still a lot of champions in there if he can take out those trebs then he could maybe take out the castle then he could stay on gold does not have the stone for any additional town centers but he's repairing that one the idle time is off the charts for both of them is this it has it just swung maybe the food ecos paid off here belgium it looks like the castle will go down i think this is what lan needed to win the game wow oh my goodness beautiful he's gonna come over here with villagers to take that gold he actually has had enough gold income he still has 37 farms and despite the fact that belize could maybe try and trip down some tc's i don't know if he has the military anymore [Music] damn dude i what an amazing game here loving loving the fact that land has been able to get a win in this fashion he goes for the next castle which may or may not go down seems like it will yeah that's like the last thing felicia's going for him i think once that position crumbles he's gonna call it how does land still have 150 villagers i feel like the natural number here would be something like 80. amazing victory for lan who just beat aztecs in extraordinary fashion velez had two town centers in the middle securing the gold velez had had monks with 80 hp had supersonic arnold schwarzenegger terminator monks and still land with that crazy counter-attack decision was able to get the victory i mean the light cav running around the map the the decision to come forward with these buildings the decision to then swing that into a push in the middle all of that was top tier age of empires all of that was worthy of making it to the main event of hidden cup four and after losing the first two games in this series lane is up 3-2 what's an amazing game jesus christ belgium can you sound a little bit more hyped come on give me that give me that caster energy let's go what an amazing game yes oh man i'm so hyped for the next game now thank you i needed that all right let's look at the statistics and see uh we've got i imagine it's going to be a lot of gold for velez and yes that is the case land with more food more wood and more stone and velez had the gold and it was the farming eco that was able to win the game we brought up how good slabs can be because of that we saw free supplies pay off the farms pay off and we're good casters project belgium we kind of knew which way this would go but i did not expect that crazy swing near the end there um velez has lost three straight and now we will see the final home map for velez and funnily enough aztecs are also top tier on hideout so he lost with aztecs now has britons japanese and huns now this is where this gets crazy because if you look at the way the sieves will play out if it goes to game seven velez would probably use japanese or huns on cross so he would save britain's for hideout now if you pick britain's on hideout that's a great hideout sieve look at land's draft land has goths there so now you're like on one hand if you go if you're expecting land to pick goths to counter you and you go japanese land could go byzantines too um yeah like or or maybe like something like berbers i this is a complete mind game situation i don't know what i would do in velez's shoes what about you would you stick with britons here and and potentially face up against goths or would you pick another civilization i think in the end i would still go for britain's and even if you end up against gods britons they do have the um fully upgraded champions with supplies yep yep so i think that would still be fine okay and it's it's also for the mind game would be would be a mistake okay and like if you fall for the mind game then you'd be using it's not like britain's are going to be very useful on the final map if it gets there so yes i can agree with that logic oh man guys thank you for showing up today thank you for the support everyone this is just to qualify for the main event of hidden cup i appreciate you all i cannot say thank you to each and every one of you but if you're lurking out there have this on your tv maybe maybe you know you're hosting this on your your myspace page or something thank you appreciate you guys uh to the prime subs and the resubs one dollar from every single uh sub goes into the main event prize pool which updates live on your screen belgium i'm ready for game number six it looks like the players are ready you ready to dive in oh yes i am well do you see the sieves because i see the sieves and it looks as though it's possible velez might have fallen for the mind game and land didn't pick goth so land goes for berbers and then in the blue we have velez who is gone for the japanese now initially i'm thinking this might have been a massive debate maybe lan wanted to scare velez off of britain's but which civilization would you prefer here do you think japanese have a chance against berbers it's tricky i i still think that uh japanese are fine like if you get too late imp and you can go for something like alba deer yep and onager and some of the keeps but if berbers i mean if if berbers if they can snowball with something like camel archers and surveys it can be really tricky look at the neutral golds in this map jen this is like this is poor dude okay so the way it it works is you've got five tile gold and then two four tiles right there's going to be neutral stones and neutral golds around the map there's four neutrals and those neutrals are three tiles three tiles three tiles and then northern corner three tiles three tiles they're not freebies for land if velez takes a bit of control then he's got those control those neutrals but if we were to just stonewall the sides of the map right now heavy heavy advantage for the spaniard so that is something that that velez does not know right now he'll have to scout but lan maybe a bit of map hacks here he'll be loving life here and i'm curious now what you go for as berbers on a map like hideout we've seen berbers on gold rush and on gold rush we've seen a lot of knight spam i don't think knights are going to be the ideal play against japanese when japanese have monks and when japanese have their pikemen so you maybe go fast castle camel archers yeah that could be an option i think either you go fc camel archer or fc knights and if i'm japanese i honestly would just go for a feudal age metadam yep archer regression yeah that's exactly what i was going to say i think that this is a call for feudal age aggression on this map he doesn't know it yet because he's at home pushing in deer he's actually pretty close as well it wouldn't take too long to run over there with man-at-arm archers uh also the resources within your walls tend to be close to the walls so you can see a tower here can deny some of the berries tower here the stone tower here's some of the gold so i agree and i also like your opponents sorry especially if your opponent is going for fc yep you have the weaker feudal age palisades and then add in the japanese menaderms that's a really dangerous cocktail yep i agree yep i think that's a good call that's what i'd like to see for velez here we have seen few late aggression work out on this map like how he's utilizing the flexibility of japanese the cheaper mining camps and lumber camps and mills two lumber camps for ultra efficiency and dark age not too bad uh so far pushing in a lot of deer i think if he's going for what we're saying belgium he probably needs to have his um he probably needs to have his scout going forward after this one yeah and if he goes to the left then he's instantly instantly going to find la yep yep what i'm thinking right there you go so land perhaps with some draft mind games i'm looking now and if velez goes back for this final deer maybe this is fast castle for him after all and if that's the case i'm still questioning what does land go fast castle into i still feel as though going to stone on a map with palisade walls to try and get to camel archer is still risky even against crossbowmen so maybe can you go your own crossbowman maybe and just switch later on in felicia spot or in landspot well lance position right because i feel like camel archers is too risky and so knights would be then i would just go for nights i don't think yeah i i wouldn't i wouldn't like crossbows then in that position okay and maybe going like night siege as opposed to just night right so velez has not clicked up yet uh we'll click up the feudal at 22 pop fascinating so this could be a man in arm build but he doesn't have a barracks yet so i'm still rather confused by this is this a really fast castle age or just archers maybe honestly i also don't know what he's going for it doesn't make any sense it feels too fast to be in fc okay what if he goes market blacksmith sells the stone goes up really fast and then goes for um like a forward monk siege push yeah oh yeah i could see that working cause the way this is shaping up he's got solid food balance solid wood balance for his two buildings he's got three on golds i think that's it i think he goes market blacksmith and just goes complete yolo and hopes that the japanese monks work better than the aztec monks did the previous game yeah yeah by the way uh people talking about the map listen i i don't think it's ideal the neutral golds at all but the reality is you've got you've got three tiles or three gold spots to work with and you have to play the game right so i the way this is shaping up i feel like the golds are not really going to play a factor or play a role here and if they do the the aggressive player will definitely have control of them and just magically control every single gold tier what's that because of that lyrics you said you agree or disagree so are you cut out there yeah i said no i now i'm really confused because of that barracks no he goes he'll go market he'll sell i think he's going to go market right not archery range surely it's a market here market but then why do you build a barracks first well for spearman when you go forward that's what i was thinking like if it was an arena player they'd probably want a few spearmen um with the builds like that you would be up so much faster that you can just like send two wheels forward with your scouts that's true yeah now he's going crossbows so it's just a well i mean at the end of the day it's not too bad but the the build order he might as well have just stayed in dark age a bit longer and it may be crossbows he was trying to mind game lan thinking that he would go for like a feudal play yeah that's on a thing i can think of at this point at the end of the day their builds are going to be similar i also find it interesting is getting loom right now because if you're not gonna leave your base you'd normally see players skip loom but lance build order a lot cleaner and land gets his buildings and then land will just be on his way to castle h and also bringing his scout over he knows that vlez is over here and here he comes so similar up times just one additional villager for land because land did not research loom yet hmm so horse collar on the way for velez it seems like a one range crossbow play are you still confused i feel like i might commit to two ranges if i'm going crossbows i i think the one range is fine because if you don't do any damage then your opponent is going to have a really large equal lead sure i think um well let me ask you this and twitch that as well how many times over the last six months have you seen japanese on high down zero zero exactly yep this time zero people saying f you'll just have to refresh i drop no frames on my side it must be a twitch issue some scouts coming out for land maybe prepping for or taking some map control to maybe go forward here and land running home with the villager i think what lan wanted to do is take map control and go for a forward siege workshop but velez is going to deny that and look how vulnerable these bases look when military comes up i mean crossbow play with a few spearmen could be very strong here yeah yeah that's a really good move to add like one one or two spearmen in this position there you go now what you could do is pick off reinforcements land looking for them this is also a very good move high quality stuff from both players here good build order for valet well i still would have liked to have seen uh two ranges personally but maybe he'll follow it up with a monastery and there it is and then land says nope i'm just gonna pick off that archer thank you for the free kill and now adds the defensive siege workshop i do feel like berbers can struggle against japanese if japanese are able to get oh wow confident micro i think berbers struggle against japanese if a lot of hellbears come out in some situations in late game but i can't help but remember that berbers have the insane unit in the camel archer something like camel archer genitor bombard cannon can give japanese some real problems in lake game so i think i would prefer berber slightly and so i would i would want to have control if i was japanese yeah sure yeah i think it's i think it's pretty even maybe even in early imp a slight advantage of the japanese because they can just go our blessed horribly healthy that could be strong but then yeah look how uh important this left side is going to be there's a four tile gold there for land there's there's gold here for velez i mean gonna need to control here and with the way velez has opened up he's got four crossbows and a spearman and a monk low numbers with this build i just not loving the spot however using the monk tries to go for conversion it gets it that could be huge what a fast conversion and that night would have made all the difference there to take out a scorpion so whatever you do don't open up the gate what are you no what are you doing man and now okay i was really hoping the gate could be held open there i thought the scorpions could even roll into town what about you belgium yeah i i felt like he could have just taken out one scorpion and then uh the knight would have died but that would have been way better than what he's doing now sorry this is stressed me out man you got to stop opening your gate here velez but he wants that scorpion and he's going in for it here and should poke it down and he could use the knight after it's been healed oh the bolt gets oh what the conversion comes in the power of god again that knight should kill the scorpion hello hello bless that was weird i don't understand that that's a free kill with the scorpion right there and could have been way worse off for velez i suppose but at this point they're in game number six the nerves are there i'm sure their palms are sweaty mom's spaghetti so you can't expect everything to be perfect uh who are we kidding we're casting of course we can expect of course we can expect perfection we're casters man but uh you know it is very very difficult but just a boom approach for valez i guess and what i'm seeing as this game goes on is maybe boom up get into pikeman crossbow drop a forward castle and start off imp with a bunch of trebuchets yeah yeah i'll do a griso i see both of them getting their 30c now so yeah game is pretty much even at this point yep and also three tcs on um the third tc being on the stone so both probably thinking about a castle long term it looks like since velez doesn't have anything else around here he might in theory have a bit more stone long term but he's even pulling stone miners to farm for now and i love that scout activity from lan i love the fact that lan was able to come back here after being down two games to zero yeah really great really great comeback by him like you said he's still using that scouts trying to pick off any monks for every game but feliz he's keeping the the monks closes crossbows and pike redemption on the way so with redemption he could convert the siege look at land yep land sees it's coming forward now land won't know redemptions on the way so he's going to think the siege will work got his own monks there but three conversions could change the rest of this game maybe velez even bring a villager forward maybe follow this up with a siege push a scout goes down redemption in for velez here he comes big moment yeah and he also has uh sanctity so he can even tank those manganal shirts yeah okay yeah if lam doesn't expect the redemption it could he could lose all of his siege and then a forward castle like if he loses the front of his base forward castle could come up but it does all depend on the conversion i think ideally you convert at least magnel oh scorpions getting some shots in and redemption is in scorpions one monk down two and now these scorpions are going to go after the other monks and it's only fair the two die here no okay well that was uh awkward to say the least in the end uh monk went down and two scorpions were eliminated so i'd say that's pretty pretty good for velez but not the end of the world for land and uh landed pause the game here we go um i i guess twitch servers are having issues but guys just to clarify on my ends i have absolutely no dropped frames and it feels like a few people are having issues there there um i know recently twitch made some changes people have adblock so it might also just be people typing f if their ad block isn't working anymore i don't know the situation but i just want to say if you can hear me that everything should be running smoothly let's keep it going here and see if les can come back and you can make it here we don't see the janitor no way janitor it's a mounted skirmisher i feel like there's there's a few people out there including myself that feels like this unit is is op in some situations let's see genitores are also um mobile which is something that land has lacked the last couple moments and i see the monks going after the siege oh my god this conversion could be huge redemption get it oh he fires and deletes the magnel good good decision there but land under pressure now backed all the way into his base and should lose a decent amount you'd think my goodness how do you even like i can't even cast this how do you even micro this what on earth the janitor is paying off the genitor's paying off the power of the genitore think about it i think simply because feliz didn't have any siege of his own there yeah he was hoping to convert it and the janitors just run away from this now and they're fast they're speedy they could take out the monk in theory you mass enough genitors i mean if it's a skirmisher unit it should counter the pikeman should also counter the crossbow i almost can't believe the position we're in right now the fact that llan has not lost a single game ever since going down two games i mean the mental fortitude you need and then also the fact that we might be looking at velez who could crash out if les has been part of so many big events and uh in his most recent big event red bull wololo he knocked out the viper this is insane and both players actually have the stone to drop a castle right now big moment too because i think is about to go forward with that um though actually i take that back he's not going to go forward with that i don't know i'm too hyped i'm sorry belgium and we still didn't see i think a single relic being picked off yeah i already speak one lan is uh scouting the other side placing some outposts around the map he'll be very happy to see those gold positions but yeah this is the castle i was hoping for and i mentioned in early castle i think trying to snowball push is the best way to win this if you're japanese we will see velez click up to imperial soon if that castle completes it could be trebuchets habiteers arbalest samurai maybe but then again the janitors are here i've never seen janitors deny a castle before we're witnessing history that actually they won't deny it never mind feels bad what do you go for if you're velez are you worried about the genitores or do you think maybe the genitores are too expensive to justify i think if you have a couple of siege units like some scorpions i i wouldn't be too worried about it okay but they're still taking great fights they do have eight pierce armor with full upgrades so great time for people on the stream to have some issues the janitors were exciting but at the end of the day look what land's doing land immediately bails on the idea of janitor he's like no this unit's trash give me elite skirmisher and he's tucking into a lead skirm that's funny okay well good position for velez to be in to be competitive for some of these golds if you look at his scouting he does not see any gold to the right side sees most of it to the left look at land scouting land sees the gold to the left but not have control of it right now okay yeah and feliz was also able to get a slight eco lead because he did at 40c while on is still on three okay so i'm thinking trips treb's trash build here honestly because it's not like burbers are going to open up with champion just go halvadir skirmisher trebs maybe then save your gold for samurai does that sound does that sound realistic here or do you need to have more gold units mixed in with your uh with your trebuchets if i see a lot of skirmishers i would even go for honor jersey if i'm japanese oh okay um yeah i mean we're seeing camel archers now so it looks like it'll be camel archer skirm i'd say the lack of bomber cannon can give japanese some problems but trebuchets are certainly pretty impressive and look at this here fellaini really wants to control the map stonewalls for velez and oh man the monk could have gone down okay velez will get relic number two yeah like you said lan he's going for the camel archers but currently he's only on bank castle building his seconds yep and see if he's going to be able to have enough masses to be effective with him you've got to be a little hesitant to spend your gold on making our blessed if you're in velez's position i think skerm al-badir just go full japanese trash is the way to open this and then for lan he's probably going to eventually want to make lombard cannons bomber cannons could be really good and here he goes getting some kills yeah there's the lead scrim there's bracer there's chemistry we're gonna see pretty much what i said interesting patience from from uh velez to not drop the next castle forward i think that having the castles before you really commit is important if you were to drop a castle forward right now it could easily be trapped down so i like this position i know we talked about the neutral gold there's plenty of gold to go around right now velez could take control of two piles in the front one of which is supposed to be land so while the push needs to come in as we see a few samurai go down les with the lead in population and technology and a little random right now but i'd also prefer his military yeah yeah same thing especially once he can get like elite samurai and a whole bunch of skirmishers then it can become really dangerous yep uh the monk also went down on the other side by the way the hmong trying to get that relic died sorry sorry little guy um i see more monk upgrades on the way for velez worth reminding people that japanese do get fantastic monk upgrades so they could actually go for conversions on palmer cannons if it comes in and land possibly struggling with what to make right now do you think he's need he needs to switch in anything against this it's it's tricky to know what to what to go against that army yeah and i like the move from veliz i'm going for some watchtowers i can hear spirit of the law just bragasming right now spirits out there shout out to you a shout out to japanese man we've got alba deer coming in fastest attacking halberdiers at the monks we've got the towers i know tatsu would appreciate this and this push is slow but strong for velez plan is committing to crazy camel archer numbers he's getting uh he just got this unique tech and here he comes but can you approach this if there's gonna be fortifications guard towers in the camel archers need to back away yeah you honestly can't like a good addition for land would be some some light gaps hussar but he doesn't really have the eco forest at the moment and japanese already have halved here tucked into so it's really perfect and look at the camel archers go down he's gonna go cav you see the upgrades coming in but he's losing so much of his base unbelievable it's almost as if the the golds on the left side don't make a difference so we didn't need to call an admin read belgium it's almost as if lighting is important here i think a big thing now for velez is he's got to be careful if he were to place additional forward castles because land has the fortifications he has to keep an eye on any potential bombard cannons because they could come out soon for land he did finish chemistry i think if i'm in police spots i don't add any more castles i would just add more forward towers because they will uh secure my trebuchets and then i can start tripping down the position of land yep i see elite samurai what a finish that could be to this game he's got two castles here good thing about elite samurai is they produce fairly quickly uh compared to other unique units i'd like to see land get some buildings and i see a dot here i'd like to see him pressure the right side but oh man velez actually castled there maybe realizing a raid could come in that's impressive there's so many castles and even a castle in the middle here for land liz has got to push them somehow i'm really curious how this develops now because the lack of bomber cannon is one of the weaknesses did i say doc did i say i didn't i didn't mean to say okay anyways one of the weaknesses of japanese is that they do not have bombard cannons but felice already has a counter for it he has uh block printing on his monk so he could technically convert those uh bbc from lan yeah and the tower is also very helpful and let's see samurai just yet there's a bombard cannon that shows up and much like the magnel could get converted the treb will be repaired the bombard cannon is not enough to take that out but now the monk is chasing that bomber cannon all the way back there needs to be something else to take the next one out here come the hussars here come the samurai so awkward position for the gate and the palisade walls but the monks converting a bomber cannon the samurai and the halvadirs going in for the bomber cannon here that castle is going to drop and if velez is able to continue this he could take us to a game seven yeah and land he had to panic by storm because he's completely out of it if he loses the castle what a series and this is just the qualifier i i think at some point you've got to clear out some of the palisades so you can engage better yeah there you go i didn't think lan was going to do it actually i thought velez would do it with the siege a hussar camel archer strong comp but is it going to be strong enough here against the samurai skirm halberdier combo he's holding with us uh samurai and also a bit more to the right uh lan is trapping or i mean feliz is trapping that castle from land which he lives on the wood line that was a yeah in hindsight that was a really dumb castle so easily get trapped there i honestly if if that castle would have been elsewhere you'd have three castles as berbers you'd still have plenty of gold in the north you'd have three relics so i feel like while it'd be an absolute nightmare to push velez back it would be doable i really do like camel archer and hussar long term over what is making but valez has just he's been able to creep all around the map and gain so much control that now as atlanta's getting pushed back further and further you just think canopy stop yeah exactly feliz is even getting keep so pushing that position is going to be really tough for him all the tower upgrades arrow slits the asama all the way to keep ballistics of course oh man good engagement here for land this could be a good moment to pounce trebuchets are in there too to take one trebuchet 33 on gold for land 25 on gold for velez and wow man japanese you're sick i really expected the camel archer hustler combo to work better there yeah those samurai they just eat every unit it's crazy and then all velez is waiting for is a moment to pounce on the next castle and the next and the next and the next and the next they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming here come the towers yeah that's that's perfect patience man just wait with the trips get the towers up even getting masonry now and that castle goes down land might lose hope and we might see the game seven still feels as though this is the position land can hold but his units are melting so quickly it's unreal and he also doesn't have elite camel archers wow and oh i thought he had elite this whole time that's a big oopsie and that trebuchet will probably go down no it won't but the castle could go down belgium he doesn't have stone to mine reinforcements are constant for velez the towers are owning as well skirmisher halberdier mix of samurai mix of treps this could be the end for lane in this game he's coming in he's got the reinforcements but can he save that castle yeah he's helping just insane castle is down wow man uh the population looks good for for land but the position is just getting worse and worse and worse and worse i think the only way that land wins this now if this were to continue to go this way would be the right side and he's gonna have rams over there imagine 40 hussars changing this game after that gate is rammed down that could honestly do it for lane if he can hold so uh he still has to hold he's still losing a lot of camel archers losing a lot of gold units look at the gold count for blizz but that's the chance if land can just ram that down and have the production somehow he's got three stables there and velez did not have that scouted the the good thing is that he does have a castle there so he could um pump out some samurai to deal with it yep yeah um samurai to deal with that maybe fortified wall would be good as well 175 pop there's 175 pop and the eco and military split is pretty much even look at the farm count 54 55. has been spending less gold though and big moment for him now and now we're seeing what happens when the castles are done no more camouflages and then the samurai they just dominate yeah against three units they eat trash dressings and there's nothing else you can really do as berbers you could consider going for camel art or not camilar duh um hand cannons but i don't think hand cannons are strong enough too expensive samurai are just everywhere this push from land on the other side needs to happen sooner rather than later velez just growing in confidence he's he's got the two neutrals that he is mining on the left side also this four tile which should be lance he's had more share of the gold than spending less now the pop for land is dropping it's 150 belgium and llan is he going to be spotted on the other side velez spotted him that's not going to work out this game is over then what a series there was his only hope to try and make some sort of a comeback but yeah now he hasn't doesn't have any options left and then that means the series will probably end on cross where both players will have solid civilizations but i can just i i just can't believe how well this series has delivered here people like i had people calling both ends of the spectrums i had people saying 4-0 for velez and resident sleeper this is going to be a sweep after game two um i i going into this i said 4-3 for velez but i didn't think it would honestly go to the seventh game after velez's game one in game two lan turned it on got ahead velez you could argue if the game would have gone differently could have kind of been screwed by some aspects of this map but he played the game he went for the early push he's used all the sibs bonuses too and that that extends back to dark age lumber camps even i mean this guy has shown you how to play japanese don't expect land to quit yet but i expect him to to be killed off there's just no space for him he can only relocate eco for so long and the composition just won't cut it against the japanese yeah sure he still has good pop and with berbers you have the cheaper hussar he's obviously going for trash uh army so he can still spam a bit but technically he doesn't have an answer to what feliz is making did you happen to see uh the new map bypass uh yes yes yes i did yeah thoughts on that at all because it's got its similarities to hide up but the games tend to play out a lot differently well i haven't seen it played out yet so okay i'm not sure what i think about it gotcha so uh i'll i'll play that video after this series for viewers who want to see those new maps and get it up on youtube but it's one of the five maps that will join the map for the main event got some sick ones out there and and for now it's just hussar hussar hussar i feel like if this was hidden cup people would be like era because the farms are expanding into the north of the map and it's constant hussar spam might be some people guessing that this is hera here um i wonder how offended players get like when they like let's say someone guesses viper because of a quick micro move in hidden cup and then viper's just sitting at home like did you see his his dark apes like what on earth is that yeah like hero right now he's like need 80 farms only 43 exactly but the thing is when there's thousands of people some people are bound to say names and players are going to be like really don't insult me man good pounds for the hustlers though almost like talking about herrera makes us are stronger what changes here over the next couple minutes i mean at what point does land penny change the game and and yeah okay there's my question no other follow-up can he change the game or is he stuck here yeah he he's just dragging out the game yeah i guess the only thing he has in mind is i have three relics that's probably the only positive he has going on yeah yeah i mean unfortunately the monasteries right there that that's gonna end soon he does have 2 000 gold and he's got 190 pops so truthfully you should always play on in this scenario knocking on the door is velez on the other side he's got pointy boys he's got extra pointy boys with the samurai and yeah i mean this this precious farming eco is going to get destroyed even onager now for velez i think that's a good move there's a lot of skirms out there for land now manager would mop that up yeah i think feliz is like waiting for honor and then he's gonna do one final push clean up the army and then dan is probably gonna call it belgium thank you for for joining for this game by the way uh it's been a pleasure and i i've enjoyed it so much i don't think you probably expected it to go on for this long so apologies if you had any uh any plans for your evening but who would want to be anywhere else right yeah sure i don't have to do the dishes anymore so i don't have any plans tonight perfect hey as long as i can help you avoid doing the dishes fine i do the same thing sorry to get gotta cast some games here come the trebs this might be it either the trebs on the monastery will be a big help the trebs on the castle concern for valesa's castles are really far away so the samurai are producing but unfortunately it's just not fast enough reinforcement let's see how this fight goes anitra gets some big hits this could be the final fight for land it could send us to game seven surely this takes us to game seven look at everything get destroyed lands falling back they'll have to buy stone soon to repair that castle he's made knights it's probably a miss click i guess he's got the gold for it and one treb down yeah that captain should fall yeah i think he maybe even champion at this stage of your velez but wow the game ends it will come down to the final game what a series this has been the best series of the qualifiers so far it just has to be man what a comeback from lan and what a response from velez it goes down to the final game and we do know what the civilizations could be it's narrowed down to the final game we know it's going to be on cross but before we get there belgium let's just sum this up and look back at uh at the statistics here because i'm really curious on the gold count it feels like those camel archers are so costly and weren't worth it at all for lan whereas for he might have even been buying stone in that game yeah you know what in the end they mined all their stone and vlad still had more of every resource more food more wood more stone more gold could land have done anything differently in that game hmm maybe maybe he could have tried to go for like a full a full castle age push and like sneak some stables and see workshop from the other side yeah but honestly it's really tricky i i don't um any of them played it played it bad in castle age yeah you could honestly say the same for every single game in this in this set right like every win someone has had is it's not as if the loser played it poorly it's just the winner played it great and maybe we mentioned mind games i think maybe velez looked at the draft for the enemy and said if he goes he probably expected either berbers or goths there and figured japanese would be good against both for the final game velez will have britons and huns and land will have byzantines and goths sorry goth fans out there uh i don't think goths would be a great move here so it's probably byzantines for land and sorry britain fans but i think it's gotta be huns for velez unless you disagree on that outlook project belgium no i i do agree yeah it just deceives more flexible should overall be a bit stronger um people are freaking out about 3153 yeah that it's just the stone that was left on the the map i suppose like there are situations and it's rare where everyone minds through all the stone and if they mined equal amount of course that final number is going to look like that uh but 3153 a little random indeed no spoilers for what happened earlier in the day between jordan and max please everybody but uh that was an amazing set this one even better project belgium are you ready for the final game i'm definitely ready all right game seven and hop in now it is on cross it is huns it is byzantines as we predicted and it all comes down to this i see heras out there watching there might be some other big names from the top eight watching this set right now they are already in the main event and they're here watching to see who is going to join them in the main event come march 18th through the 21st players will be playing with hidden identities let's see what happens here um thoughts on the way everything is um is playing out here you've got velez's huns and you've got atlantis byzantines and they're really close together yeah i think if either of them go for like a a metadata arm opening it could work out perfectly since they're so close by the way i just want to touch on this since people in chat are bringing it up i asked the capture age team about this yesterday capture age occasionally shows chat from previous games which is why it showed gg from land gg from velez and then good luck have fun i guess land had uh typed that here so um that was something that was a concern of mine with chad being important and all that but yeah um you know back to your point would you do you feel like any civ here is going to play it a certain way that stands out or do you still think it's going to be your your average cross game where you see a lot of fighting for the pawns i think once they realize that they're so close to each other we might see like more of a land focus compared to like a sneaking dock and uh go for the water focus especially like on this version of cross there's a little bit of a little bit less fish so i think land is a little bit more important than uh focus on water so a land focus is that what you mean ah don't start i mean it's probably a bad time to start indeed yeah i'm with you i think scouting the map is going to be important here and then that might mean that maybe taking the pond in the east is a problem it's got some prime subs because of that man i can make another one right now i mean if everyone already thinks so poorly of me i can make even worse jokes um but yeah we'll save that for later on project belgium uh if you were to choose i apologize if you already brought this up uh but if you had to choose which sieve would you like to play with here i would like hans until minute 50 and then after minute 50 i like byzantines okay yeah uh i i'm with you on that i do feel as though since they're so close and byzantines have so many bonuses with cheap units that maybe just a faster castle just gonna matter a lot here what i'm thinking is what do huns end up doing if byzantines get early camel elite storm you know cheap camels cheap to make the skirms plus players are pretty close together we'll find out but i'm looking at the scouting now land he's just protecting his villager in the north and you look at velez velez which are already protected in the south and he's off he's off to find the enemy and i think lan will also scout this direction it is going to take players some time to figure out how close they really are yeah and unfortunately for lan he was trying to look for a short fish but he he didn't find one so he's like okay i'll just uh drop down madok uh actually oh lan excuse me okay has there is a short fish there is a shore fish there there's three shore fish there yeah that does suck okay well he gets the dock down anyways yeah that is super unfortunate actually because he was one tile off on either side fishing ships are important to get out though and that changes how ross has played a little bit now whereas velez is dropping off food at the dock so i'd prefer that over land's current position do you think it would have been better to wait a bit longer i mean he did scout he scouted a lot of the shoreline but yeah i i would have uh like walked till i found a found a sherfish okay yeah but maybe it was like okay i'm not gonna find one so i'll try to place my dog a little bit in the center of the of the lake okay so the way neutral golds work on this version is there is four two tile neutrals they've got the main gold and then the the four tile second third goal and i'll show you that at the leisure space viewers and then this is a two tile neutral this is a two tile neutral neutral and there's actually a neutral pretty close to land over here and basically what i figured after watching a lot of different versions of this map is that you would have two three tile neutrals and occasionally because of how wacky the spawns can be one person would have those those neutrals on more favorable positions so we basically just spread them out everywhere and players have more reason to fight for map control this wood line though for velez very nice if he wants to wall up yeah exactly and both of them are gonna find each other really late like when you're almost halfway to a feudalish uh found um a bit earlier he might have gone for like a forward byzantine trash just found him crazy all right then you look over here velez uh of course i've just looked at the wrong person excuse me lan has seen the berries but nothing else but he's gotta know it's to the left side now and uh the struggle here is not only do you not find the enemy but you don't see if they've opened up with the barracks or stable or what military force they're going to go for so you really start to have to keep an eye on things and quickly in your villagers if the going gets rough ooh and interestingly um alan is going on to gold so maybe he wants to go for a range opening instead of a stable okay yeah his main goal doesn't look too hot but the goals behind his base look pretty good and if he walls the left then suddenly he's got a good wall off too both players having their berries exposed in both places with their scouts now and i mean this is the only advantage i can really talk about right now is that land in the north he's got six fishing ships whereas it's four in the south for velez so let's still thinking maybe he'll dock me and and fishing to the right side so he would scout it but i don't think that game is really going to happen here i think this is going to be a change of strategy oh but fellas checking the left side and land with the quick walls but not quick enough so far let's see if if the micro nerd and land can save this villager no dead yeah he tried about three separate times and velez blocked it every single time so maybe i was wrong maybe the ponds will end up being very important in particular this one is right next to both players yeah and feliz also has a villager out on the other side exactly i'm making a dog there wow so that's great for him he's everywhere then he's checking the south with the fishing on the sides you check the left side andy has a villager to the right that is very good cross play it'll end up being important too because i think i see a villager from land yep and walton over there i end up docking a scout opening for velez i actually see a range so maybe a few archers too and we've just had spearman so far for land who's also making a range but everything seems very vulnerable for both of them near the front of their base right now yeah exactly especially if elise can keep those uh scouts alive and then has a couple of archers and skirmishes good damage this is a big moment we'll land wall in that villager land will wall in the villager les is checking sees it now he should attack the palisade and land has to react instantly okay miss click [Music] oh they've been playing all day okay they've been playing all day uh well land should finish no he's keeping him honest here velez but lance should finish the palisade land should fit no plan will the dock go up the dock going up would be important okay at least the dock goes up because now he could at least contest for the pond it's not like the scouts are going to stay there but yeah a bit sloppy could have been way worse the big thing is just getting that dock down as land is now walling that is two villagers lost for land bless the scouts had paid off yeah and now feliz is also going instantly for a fire galley while lan he's going for a fishing ship that feliz is also there oh man he just doesn't have the scouting man doesn't have the scouting les has just been faster to every single decision and you add the fishing ship here you can lose that here you have the scouts from valles still on the prowl and he gets walled out but he does have an archer switch incoming i see a market now for him both players probably thinking about castle h if their economies are going to three times lance dokie is going to get the knight look at on the left side no way with a spearman and an archer you're kidding me look at all the palisades he's tried to drop in this game oh i feel so bad for land man so many things are going wrong this is going to hurt man both of these players are so good they both deserve to be in hidden cup four now you have land trying to wall but the archers will show up there and land is just falling apart right now so much reacting whereas the economy so much stronger for velez and that villager goes down which means the scouts could uh uh uh okay villagers alive but means the scouts could break in here belgium and and land we'll have to quick wall and get some units out to defend yeah and he's he's just getting fletching i think when feliz sees the arches with fletching he probably will right away yeah yeah did he just he just missed clicked his whole eco i think or at least part of it there because i saw villagers moving all around this has got to be where the frustration and the exhaustion is setting in for land he is doing the right thing though the house wall and to then wall that side and yeah he should be able to re-wall well but you know you've got six villas cued in your tc you got to cancel a few of those use the market possibly if you're land to get up and just a moment ago velez showed up attacked on the left side and then ran away and he's really keeping land on the back foot this is the power of huns man the fact that you don't have to build houses you produce out of the faster producing stables and then maybe the threat of cav archers is always there too yeah and now feliz also going out to the pond on the left to make a dog there so he's gonna have potentially three or three legs control yep and i like how after getting a lead here les figures let's just let's just chill out a little bit we don't need to run into the scouts and take any massive risks let's just surround him control the game we are ahead and let's just make sure that we snowball that lead in the castle in a proper way and the micro there is velez was really in a rough position the archers could have killed scouts they could have killed the archers from from velez as well but land was too slow and velez too quick and too attentive to everything that's going on yeah there's really really solid play by felice and obviously the flexibility of hans helping him out getting the lead yep in the uh east we've got four fire galleys versus two something that velez should be actually you know what a lot of his are weak in here so he's pulling back three out of the four in here are very weak and now the repair villager i mean come on dude like fail in one area for me please make me feel like this is somewhat achievable for myself thank you thank you i needed that and so did the viewers but still not allowing the fish there is a pretty big deal all right belgium so lan is behind when it comes to pond control but what should he focus on here in the mid game he's clearly going for a few nights looks like he's going for crossbowmen as well is there anything else he could mix in here to stay alive i honestly don't think so and felice like you said he has a lead on the water but he also has the lead on the land so i think we're just gonna see lan reacting for uh for the for like the beginning of castle age yeah make sense right you had the siege for yeah university state workshop for laning defense so maybe if he gets a good uh if he gets good magnus shot he could stabilize the game i don't think that land was expecting velez to have this many crossbowmen because he out of the stable possibly thinking of going camels and then all of a sudden velez shows up with a lot more than just four or five archers remember a moment ago where i think he had three or four and then lan spotted it and then land spotted two lana's probably expecting stable units to work but all of a sudden there's all these crossbowmen and ballistics is on the way armor's on the way velez knows he's ahead and velez might even be tempted to run away from here now yeah true because if elise sticks with those crossbows then the camels from lan are just going to be useless and then a good players are going to add town centers behind this velez clearly a good player and good pick offs the micro from velez they've been playing for four hours great micro there continuing to ask questions of lan and for lan he's got to start to feel the heartbreak now i think he knows that since the level's this close velez in this position should always close it out and velez with the micro goes after the repair villager immediately and back to the hill this is just a crazy play and at this point as a magnet hits and is hoping velez will make mistakes les is not making many of those i mean can you argue that velez deserves to be in hidden cup four because based on the way he's playing this right now this guy could dominate some of the top eight on his day out bikering two magnels still getting through don't tell me there's an overchop there's not an overchop the idle time for lane and finally finally land clears that and on the left side land was just able to get the tc up in the nick of time the oh no i would say the problem for land would be that he's running out of gold but he he does still have a another uh secondary gold in the back of his base actually i think he's over fished a little bit if you look he's got 10 fishing ships in the north and he's almost completely out of food he has six on food otherwise whereas you look at the way velez has approached it he's still got food to work with in each pond and he also has farms to work with so is this crossbowman's still getting some value i say that before he dies you know the pop isn't as bad as i thought it would be i really thought that velez would have a 20 or 30 population lead but it is still about 15-ish and lane is still just reacting yeah yeah true all things consider is not looking that bad for uh for lamb and that's that's like the scary thing with byzantines if they can get up to imp and they can get their composition out it can be tricky for hunts to to counter it and what did you say you said the 50th minute i think that's a pretty good spot is when skirm help starts running out puns they are known for struggling against byzantines with that trash because hun's one of the few civilizations that cannot get uh champion and they they do not get great upgrades on their two-handed swordsman either and of how a deer and skirmisher comes out huns can struggle big time where's the follow-up for fellas should he have had more okay here go the cav archers he snipes a ville maybe he should i think maybe some forward siege could have been great for him yeah it's true enemies only defending with siege so make sense to maybe do that yourself or like add in one two knights to snipe the sniper manganese okay i mean i'm beginning to believe for lane again he's adding fish traps with what he can mixing in forms byzantines if they can stay in this always have a chance big moment though on the front lane needs a big shot that's a lot of cav archers wow one split another dodge from velez and he takes out that magnel no problem he's taking out the camel's no problem he'll take out the monks oh man perfect near perfect at least and now that main gold could be castled there's a lot of stone in the bank for blez he could send villagers forward right now uh there's also a scalp from land that sniped a villager at the same time so just just something to point out there it's still there there we go now fellas react to it and i think feliz might even idle his eco a little bit because he's looking close to go up to imperial age okay i could definitely see that whereas in land land needs to do the opposite produce out of every tc produce out of every stable get a conversion that's good hopefully the magnel shot lands oh that's a good one and bliss okay micro is away he's gonna click up to imp i'm expecting some type of a forward castle maybe maybe it's too risky defensive castle could also do for velez i guess uh yeah he could do he could do like a castle in sort of in the center on those hills that could be like a safe safe and still yeah during some map control yeah and then maybe make your second castle more offensive if you get imp upgrades to control the game i mean two minutes away from imp land's gonna have to take some pretty big fights and just look at how this game has played out 16 eco killed versus one loss and the only one lost for velez was that scout who's actually back at it lana is going to micro this scout to come back let's go you can do it buddy here maganel goes down here these units run away the scout's still at it sorry for this one forward castle but he changed his mind he's going to the hill a bit more to the back hey scout got two kills but it goes down uh f's in chat or respect emotes if you've got it guys one minute away from the imperial ages land is still in that fight back forever mode has 90 villagers it's not bad the eco upgrades also not awful but horrible position to be in and and not much control right now maybe the scorpions can change something yeah not enough right now project belgium i'm waiting for velez to get imp upgrades i feel like even with bracer and chemistry and no additional upgrades for the cav archers this game might be over yeah i believe so too especially having like one two traps behind killing the thesis and then he can run in and snipe all of the eco is that a castle from lan oh maybe now he's gonna change his minds and not drop it over there ah he's not going to drop it because he just sees that valesis in him yeah that's good i i'm honestly sad right now i've seen some some feels bad mans and bible thumps in chat i'm honestly so sad because if the score lines four one or four two you can say all right this person really deserved to go through but if scoreline ends up being 4-3 both players were so close and both of these names they're such big names in our community and they're so good for lan especially to go down two games and then get up 3-2 and then to only just lose it all in the final game it hurts but he is on the way to the imperial age he is behind but velez going for some map control all over the right side right now i'm just gonna drag this out controlling those stones um the mtc for those wondering is the tc in the back for land so it there's no risk that he will lose that but tc's will go down and cav archers is still going to be tough to deal with yeah also that casual one villager uh castle i like it yeah i know right just control the map probably a few more villagers going over there but there's absolutely nothing land can do about it plan doesn't see it right now what will land go for i think you almost have to pick one unit and just max that one upgrades do you go for camels or do you go for elite skirm uh well it's going for a lead skirm so you have your answer how is he yep okay i see some ranges i think both of them a little rough here because you see velez thinking ahead by adding some stables to go for light cav or hussar to counter that really sucks to lose your tcs when you're already behind an eco plus you don't have room to expand i could make a long list of things that are not good for land right now pc will definitely go down it's 160 pop for blizz we've got heavy cav archer now we'll take out the second tc oh and look uh felice one lan wants to expand to the side but the castle just came up in time no it's the perfect spot for a castle if there's not one already there man and that just goes to show you how important that spot is right and then the foresight from velez to lock that area down and not allow a single room for uh or or any room for the comeback guys it is not looking good for land despite everything that we've said about him today with crazy games i still think that gold rush game might have been the game of the day it looks like this is the end for him he's just got accepted at this point and we've all well we haven't all been there actually a lot of people watching don't even play this game but the gg is called and that ladies and gentlemen means les look at those games it's perfectly symmetrical that means velez joins the main event of hidden cuff 4 he will be one of the many hidden identities he'll be back to show what he's made of and land unfortunately will not um i my heart is broken for lan uh if he's watching people say all the kind words you can for him but i'm also overjoyed for velez who had many sets in the qualifier which were very close actually uh round two he he won three two this year he was able to win for three but i think in the qualifiers he showed his quality and his consistent strategy over the course of long sets and also not something i would normally uh attribute to velez his stamina dude he had to play full best of five a full best of seven if these best of fives and best of sevens in the main event go long he could give people some problems yeah i do agree he kept playing sharp despite it being really long games so that's a good uh attribute to have i'm gonna just bring up the fact that he was down to was he not down two games against classic pro chat can you remind me of that fact i think he also damn it i forget i know he lost game one to classic pro maybe it went 1-1 anyways he's fallen behind frequently and then come back with some crazy strats and yeah amazing play in this game i mean the scouting was so evident scouting the left scouting the right scouting the south scouting the north he was everywhere that's exactly how that map should be played and more of every resource for him to win that set project belgium it was a marathon of a cast my friend uh don't think either of us expected it to go this long i actually got my prediction correct i think i said 4-3 when we started but i could be wrong on that um i guess closing thoughts on on the two sets today don't spoil jordan versus max please if you can avoid it and hidden cup four i would say this one definitely was a roller coaster and then the first set was well i i mean it was also a great set honestly like all the players are that are in the final round are just amazing players and the winners showed why they deserve to be in the main event yep yeah i was i was blown away today and you could you could clearly tell everyone was training and putting their heart and soul into it so it's not gonna feel good to hear this if you're land but honestly land just keep training man like he's such a good player he will be able to participate and do well in future tournaments it's just that hidden cup four will not be it so uh belgium i know you typically hang out with all the meme lords in chat i appreciate you man thanks for taking the time to cast and share your insights having played in the qualifier and training as well so i was beastly having you and i'm sure we'll do it again at some point all right yeah i enjoyed it as well and i'm i'm looking forward to uh to see the next games uh tomorrow and sunday so have a good one all right project belgium later man well people salute the man please whether it's the t90 salute the budget salute or whatever you've got um thank you belgium yeah it's cool to have a player who's competed in the qualifiers hop in and give his insights and um he obviously understands the strategy understands the maps and puts his heart and soul into this game like so many of us who are casting the game or or of course the other participants so every single game from or every single map from the qualifier was played in this best of seven every single game was amazing if you missed jordan versus the max i'm going to do a rerun um and yeah i mean this i'm just getting more and more hyped for the main event all right the top 8 from hidden cup 3 are already in today we established who goes in out of jordan and max and vlezenland tomorrow this is on the cards for our schedule we've got three best of sevens today took seven hours hmm well well we'll see how long the sets are tomorrow it could be a very long day uh backed versus dark 16 year old dark looks to take on back to make it into hidden cup 4 tomorrow i will have alice a uk player casting that one with me tomorrow heart verse barles i will have the nerd himself leary casting that best of 7 with me and then speaking of nerds uh i'll have hera casting accm and daniel vs uh mixing my words here this is why i need to co-caster the final set which is accm vs daniel i will have hera with me so some big names joining to co-cast the sets uh to find out who will join them in the main event for sunday what a way to end those deciders uh vivi vs bad boy bad boy probably was not expected by many to make it to the best of seven vivi didn't have the biggest challenge up until the best of seven that could be really close nikov versus licks i think we all know how crazy licks can play and we all know how how frustrated nikov can sometimes get against crazy players i think nikov's favor there but um mbl is going to be casting that one with me and slam versus winchester he's set to close it all off to close out those deciders on sunday i will have you already know dave casting that full best of seven so um yeah i don't know if you guys have plans for the weekend but if i were you i would maybe cancel your plans you don't have to cancel your plans but i know your friends they said they'd understand cancel your plans be here for the decider if you had to choose though um i would say make sure that you schedule to be there for the main event the main event is march 18th through the 21st and all the players are going to be playing with these hero names so in the main event it's a random bracket we have no clue who is who it becomes a guessing game for the both the players and us and then of course the main event prize pool is is closing in on 70k right now because of your support so um those are some of the names cobra car gets a laugh every time i'm i'm all the way on littlejohn all right littlejohn's the underdog he's the weakest hero in the game i'm going for little john but we'll see um also one more thing is after today saturday and sunday i will randomize the bracket live on stream and that will be uh monday evening i don't have the exact details on that yet but basically after the decider is finished robo says hey player this is your account and then i do the bracket live on stream okay matt task says going to have the drop out of school for the main event thanks to united you're welcome

Channel: T90Official - Age Of Empires 2

Views: 90,031

Keywords: twitch, games, Hidden, Cup, Hiddencup, Four, Age, of, Empires, Two, Definitive, Edition, DE, AoE2, Decider, match, Deciding, Deciders, HC4, Hidden Cup 4, Is, Back, T90, T90Official, Hidden Cup 3, LaN, LaaN, LaaaN, LaaaaN, LaaaaaN, Villese

Id: Vr_N6rCeHlE

Length: 220min 44sec (13244 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 06 2021