Hidden Cup 4 | Harald Hardraade vs Sundjata (Best of 5)

probably first of many and this is what got me going bro the fact that harald hadrado is the first person to pick yellow there have been people who've picked the yellow color throughout hidden cups that were not the viper also the viper has not picked yellow but we all know that he loves it he has won uh viper is one hidden cup one through three so is this perhaps a viper confirmed i'm excited in the meantime well what's also interesting is right off the bat we have our first mezzo mezzo matchup true uh mine's on one side aztecs on the other naturally when you have uh the mezzo civs picked you're immediately looking at what the scout activity looks like is either player gonna go forward for the lame i know we have the reed debacle uh in the earlier series but given that there are no wreaths the lame can be incredibly potent but it looks like right off the bat um on the side of sunjata we had some deer pushing while yellow uh making a bigger effort to get out and scout more of the map all right yeah looking at the maps everything seems pretty good except for maybe that main goal for sanjata that is the wall potential is nice between the wood lines and you do tend to see a lot of walling with these sieves but these gold spots man i mean it's not like the second and the third gold spots are great for herald but the main gold seems so much better for for harald so i'd say if you're sanjata you see that you figure that into your strategy unfortunately with aztecs you start with a little bit more gold and so i'd say there's actually more potential for them to be aggressive in the early stages yeah absolutely i mean while both maps do look reasonably wallable i i would have to agree i think i favor harold's map just simply because the gold more protected in the back while there is a hill in front of the berries that wood line kind of creates a nice opportunity to wall right in front of the hill and give you a solid defense point for you know what would be an early part of the base that somebody would want to pressure uh from the side of sunjata all right so harald one of the players who likes to weaken the bore with the town center okay six inside the tc two shots that's pretty standard i'm just curious because based on my research which might mean nothing at the end of the day there's four players who really don't like to do that consistently let's see if sanjata goes for it we've got a garrison here yep two volleys based on what i've seen about 12 players do this so it's like it really doesn't narrow down too much dash but just something i always look for in a game one right i think it's the it's the opposite which helps narrow down and i know that uh master of templar did not uh use the tc and so uh perhaps one of those four players who is is less likely to use the tc uh but yes with these two already looking at one of maybe those pack of 12 players another deer push for the side of sunjata so so big on the food eco early on yeah this is really it's really hard to narrow down the players based on the sieves here because picking aztecs and mayans just feels so natural on arabia and especially because they're not necessarily quite as strong on all the hybrid maps that are in this tournament so i mean the color is fun to talk about some people are saying viper confirmed i think the big thing right now and i'm pretty confident about this i think we might be looking at winchester in the yellow because it's not as if i mean it would have to be a real mind game and a half to draft goths just to watch viewers freak out about it later on when you're not winchester you know what i mean that is very true and i know you were talking to nilly a little bit about how in previous tournaments viper has you know specifically swapped up his play style and looked to throw little easter eggs in there to try and you know throw people off but nearly did make the comment he doesn't think viper will be as willing to do that this time around so it's definitely a curiosity uh you know with again the size of the tournament and what's at stake how much more willing players might be to to you know look to confuse the audience versus just go uh straight for the victory itself yeah the big thing the big thing was really when he would get ahead he would start to mix in some things in hindsight it's so easy but there one in particular i remember was on high down he starts making guard towers everywhere he was ahead in that game and that had me make a knee-jerk reaction of oh it's tattooed tattoo loves his towers and i just you know after casting hidden couple we look back people it really makes you feel dumb all right it really makes you feel dumb it's so fun but when you find out you're like what did we just guess you know so but i have to say um pretty passive start from sanjata here i mean the eagles just now moving out he's not found the enemy at all yet and is on the way to feudal age which is peculiar because he's creating the militia he already sent the one villager out to to mine gold without the mining camp so producing militias got to find his opponent in order to send those militia out and actually look to do damage but as well militia uh just now starting to be built by harold as well yep so i think it's greed you can get away with at times um some players prefer to do that some players do not i'd say an approach that some of the greedier will take is stay at home push a lot of food and then go forward find the enemy and then wall up like crazy behind it and we're seeing that from sanjata uh aztec should have the edge in amended arm engagement i say when the archer switch comes in you start to favor mayans a little bit more in the matchup okay well just now starting to wall on the left hand side of the base for harold again i really like the position of his lumber camp and his mill very close together so should be easy to defend behind his military buildings and as he's walling towards his other woodline looks like a lot will be protected the pre-walls on the gold already so super safe approach uh by his side as the man at arms are not mad at i'm sorry the militia are beginning to be tracked here on the left-hand side it's an interesting one right because harald is he's trying to buy time he's trying to wall this is what i talked about with aztecs aztecs can get the fuel age bit faster they can use that extra gold and they can stop the mayan player from walling up but good reaction here from harald oh wait a second he didn't hit that palisade yet you're kidding yeah a little bit of a failure there in micro but does manage to wall out the man at arms at least so it's just the eagle on the other side not able to harass too much the upgrades are in for both players but with the scout advantage this could be a one fight for harold as they go for it let's see how the micro plays out that's a pretty big deal actually just the fact that eagles on the other side helped win the fight but i will say that having i don't know collectively that's not even a full man at arm across two people it's not really that strong now as there's probably yeah and there is an archery range at home for sanjata so the big thing there was i think the time spent and the space to do what you want to do so sanjayatsu will be fine with that and also sundiata's eagles still pretty strong and out there absolutely and definitely i think the the time that he afforded himself to get more efficient walls up is really important at home because he's almost fully walled by the time those men at arms as they're being chased by a teenager uh on the right-hand side you already mentioned it's barely a full man in arms it looks like they might just go down is he out he was bugging out he was in the middle of the wolf he was like in the belly of the wolf before the wolf even ate him right there but okay the archer saves the day get some woo-woo-woos in chat man but uh you know game one of the first set of the day had some holes these players playing very clean of course yellow has a lot more walling to do but dash isn't it it's so interesting how you look at the map and you might say oh someone's map is way better but now the game's played out and the person with the better map was actually the one who was on the back foot and here comes sanjata to try and break through that's a very good point and that's all attached to that early aggression that you talked about the ability of aztecs to get up just the slightest bit faster and get their military forward will the wall complete looks like the eagle's going to get here just in time to harass this villager by herald two archers two skirmishers onto this woodline that's gonna be dangerous that's so frustrating because it's not it's not a lot of military but look how effective it is it denies the wall kills a villager might not even kill another one yet but it's really close okay just barely going to get away as we garrison into the tc a little bit of damage goes towards the scout some archers in defense here for the mayan player but completely on the back foot at the moment while at home soon jada uh more than happy uh to just work on the eco dropping the farms now and look at this now that safe gold is no longer safe and man the blacksmith was really late for herald i think that gerald was was hoping to play passive here because of the walls but that one area wasn't walled up and so now you can't go passive you can't rely on just your farms or i mean at least you are but like clutching really would have been in if you knew he was going to be open here he's actually still open on the back side i don't expect to see sinjat to do much more than just get value from this microring down archers and and send in more and he's already on the front woodline yeah lack of fletching is is huge at this point it's just allowing so much time to be bought on the back side of the base here by sunjata still off of the gold is herald and so again that's going to stop the archer production while he waits for uh the fletching to come in now fighting up a hill against two skirmishers loses the first of his archers in this micro battle bringing in two villagers to help though i like this move just clear out the back of your base so you can focus solely on the front side yeah uh just just things have snowballed here big time for poor herald and harald's gotta get gonna have to get some military out it's also really awkward because you can't make eagles against the skirms that are on front because you don't have gold right now so you've got to get back to that as soon as possible i think this is definitely a spot where we're going to see herald use the market your eco you're off of wood you're off of gold you're gonna need to balance some things out i think we'll see a market soon and some players are better than that than others some players can use the market to catch up other players are not used to relying on that yeah you can really tell uh kind of how how much this has thrown him he had he had two idol villagers off to the left-hand side that were were walling previously uh but lots of idol eco in that regard while being harassed on this front wood line he's finally back on to his gold so the archer production can begin again uh but now he's stuck inside his base at this point yep and that just gives sunjata free reign back at home look at that farming eco up and on the way it's looking a lot cleaner that's beautiful man i mean the farms are on the mill even this is so satisfying look at that i'm i'm not used to seeing this in my oh he's housed pretty badly 50 out of 50 he's sending one bill to build a house right now that's a that's a pretty nasty house right there uh that said his if you just look at banked resources 600 food to 200 they're much closer to clicking up to castle yeah the only risk i'd say here is it's one range investment which means you're investing more economically which brings you to all the things we've just said but that can lead to you also losing some map control so i think sanjatsa has just got to be uh leery of that and then decide on what's next and it looks like eagles will be next we see a barracks on the front so with the second barracks we'll probably see some eagles come out i honestly feel as though i don't see the need for it dash i'm not saying it's going to be bad but i would have liked to see in the second range you already have good numbers you already have good upgrades i know that maybe against mayans you're playing towards their strengths but uh hitting with archers also could have been decent with this fast of a castle time all right 30 of the way up grabbing the gold mining upgrade but already checking in uh to that infantry armor and starting to build a few of those uh eagle warriors i mean granted given that uh harold's uh you know the mass of harold's army right now is skirmishers this swap could really catch him off guard alongside the earlier castle age this could be a one tc you know all in to some degree when you do some good damage with those eagles and start raiding that's a good point you know i even whittled down the archer numbers in there look immediate archer pick off is playing super clean and even just two eagles right now would probably push harald back herald has actually made a switch which is interesting we don't see it too frequently nowadays switch on to stone so after falling behind switched to stone and is hoping to go for plumed archers as also is realizing the pressure is going to come in and is building another layer of walls behind now that's a really good point i didn't realize how early he brought six villes onto stone he's basically at that 650 mark already so maybe recognizing that he's going to be later to castle age and needs a more defensive setup at home leads a wall to bring his skirmishers back in walls the the eagle scout of all things in so he's going to look to get that kill but again the numbers are falling just by virtue of these skirmishers harassing over the woodlawn yeah that was pretty that was pretty slick though i have to say because now that you have now that you have some skirms behind here you can whittle down the archers and the eagle finally goes down the walls can defend from eagles and he's just buying himself time to get a castle up but um i'm curious if sanjata is ever expecting that because sanjata seems like a full meta player he's just going to go eagles and siege the castle goes up maybe just maybe herald could have defense against the siege yeah he doesn't have vision of that stone just yet uh and so might not be aware of it drops that siege workshop forward as you talked about so looking to go all in i actually like the fact that he avoided upgrading the archers or the skirmishers in any way went straight for second armor uh on the or no not quite just the eagle warrior upgrade and looking to push in but there goes the castle being rushed down by plenty of bills won't be a doubt castle i like the walls in front as well just being ultra safe and defensive with that placement i really like how sanjatsa is playing this he of course doesn't know about the castle so the siege is well it's going to seem a little limited in a second but i also love how harald is playing this adding the second town center probably realizing he's up against an all-in so he can catch up with the vil count he's gonna have some plumed archers and back in the day dash when it was when plumed archers were common what you would see is you'd see exactly this you get the castle you start making plumes but you rarely move out with them you're just kind of hitting things from behind walls as you boom on three tc's and even if you look at how much he has on stone right now it's not as much as it was before i feel like he could switch this into a second castle third town center he's got resources he's in a good spot yeah now zunda immediately rotating around to take down the barracks and look to pressure elsewhere with the manganese so not looking to let up i was going to ask you what's the play at this point you know do you yourself in seeing the castle take the foot off the gas and look to eco up yourself start macroing or do you continue uh to push forward but it looks like he's already answered that question for us with the second manga nail out on the field and already looking towards the right side of the base putting pressure on that second tc yeah the answer is both now this is some confidence from harald just four plumed archers let's see there's an attack round from senjata a split micro from herald splits away from that one as well these plumed archers seem really slow for some reason i don't know if it's because i'm zoomed out or what but i'm usually used to them being faster but uh yeah dash you you add eco but then there's always going to be a spot to hit where the castle is not protecting so that's sanjata is making the right call here all righty well tracking on the right hand side a few skirmishers and those feudal age archers looking to do some damage to the plumes but harold great micro running away towards the hill this supports in a lot of ways the winchester call out yep i could see that you know i could see it being winchester 55 villagers versus 50. particularly because you you said or rather winchester typically is willing to take fights that honestly other players shouldn't yeah you know four four archers against the manganelle most players in their right mind would not entertain the idea of that but his confidence in micro i think is what speaks to me on that prediction there and it's always it's always been that way like for better or for worse vince has always been like that now there's other players too you think the leary the viper hera those players they're going to have the confidence as well but yeah this is an interesting game because the overall idol time for herald is way higher right now but he does have more villagers and mayans as david has always said for years as uh harald's actually out of wood repair center that's big buying privilege they're able to get away with the lot now was sinjata take out that magnel sanjata should take out that mango and does do so the tc still needs repaired and that's been picked off by the tc and oh my goodness this is ridiculous dash is almost too much for two people to talk about man much less like myself if i was casting this solo and the plumed archer counter attack was walled out another cast okay second castle coming down on the front of the base i mean while it is a small base uh confined in space he will be quite well defended at this point as long as the castle goes up important to note as you said uh sunjada behind all this has now moved to three tc's one on stone another one on the wood line at the front of his base so definitely uh recognizing the fact that his uh his ability to deal damage at this point has been lessened and looking to to move into a macro game and not get outpaced when it comes to the macro side of the game yeah so now he's got a hold he's got to maintain that lead um i think this is the dangerous part about plumed archers two castles to produce them now and look at that micro from herald i mean he's picked yellow he might not be viper but certainly he's showing that he's got some skills here which might be confusing some people out there um my worry for sanjata is what do you do from here if you switch into you switch into skirmishers which are great with aztecs it's so easy for the mayan player to switch into their own eagles so i think uh it's gonna be in my head it's a combo it's you you have to move into skirmisher defense at home you know have a just a small force of skirmishers looking to defend against the raiding that will happen from the plumes continue to macro up and then look to eagle raid your opponent to death uh you know either lake castle or you know once you arrive in the imperial age use your mobility of those eagles uh to kind of deal damage we've got a a rogue manganell over here looking to take out a pack of plum archers they're being microed while the eagles come in from behind gonna force that small uh that small group back but again over to sunjata's base we've got we've got plumed archers knocking on the door of this house here on the on the right-hand side i think you're they're i think you're spot on with that i think there's actually a house on the other side of that or a door on the other side of that house excuse me because there's no door on this side so depending on the house it must be on the other side yeah well the eagles are just not really doing much right now and and the micro from herald movement archers might not be meta for a lot of players but herald says they are and he's just got ev he's got zinjata surrounded right now and again the splits and now we have the repairs from senjata oh you can see a bit of panic on the side of sunjata as well tried to rush up that siege workshop now looking to repair the mangonel wow doesn't get it and now a castle is coming oh my goodness how many bills how many bills yeah is it doubt we'll find out in a second i mean look at these weak bills he's sending a veil forward with four health who cares who cares this poor woman was just sent to the front line no he's not protecting the villagers confirmed he tried to throw us with the yellow pick yeah game one with mayans and these villagers are just getting massacred nice try doubt delve went into this hidden cup he didn't want to win hidden cup he just wanted to convince everyone that he was viper honestly that's like a greater compliment to him than anything i'm sure but dropped early shot and another one what okay oh my goodness i i don't know what to feel right now every all of my opinions of this game just got flipped on its head with that one play right there losing near 20 plumes in that entire engagement bringing more bills forward though not willing to be done just yet gonna drop the outposts to look for better positioning perhaps even this hill depending on which one thinks they're going to make it to the imperial age first this hill with the relic on it could be solid castle drop dude he's still sending pills forward i think it's a gather point in his tc and now there's skirms and manganese here and more plumed archers are going to go down it was there that is such a low pack of health there with the elite skirmisher is going to be able to fight this aggression off and now securing that gold on the front of his base all of a sudden student giada's position feels so much better just reaching imperial age yeah plus it's not as if like herald has had so much on stone it's not as if he has the eco to be an imp he can't eagle tech switch so zendayata's at lateral skirmishers or what i think nice snipe there from herald as he gets the monk but i think this will they'll obviously be a skirmisher opening they could probably kill all these doctors quite early i think if i'm herald i stay as active as i can with the uh with the plumes but i also try and maintain my numbers dude this is a real dangerous situation to be in but oh there's a hole here oh this is huge that is massive already taking out three four villagers on the wood line and some more i think he'll continue to run in this force is as good as dead so do as much damage as you can while you have the opportunity already the other wood line has been vacated that would i think be the biggest concern at this point for sun jada is access to wood because of these plumed archers and the way he's walled his base uh there will be opportunities to raid just as you said a great play from senjata as he's sending uh the skirms over to deal with this he's gonna save some of those villagers he's also pressuring that castle now you see the armor upgrade coming in for infantry for harald can herald hold and get into eagles because eagles just wrecked skirmishers he's even using his plumes right now against the trebuchet yeah that's not gonna work for you buddy not quite not quite the mangoes uh targeting and taking out plenty of them no reaction here on the plumed archers but three trebs means this castle is going down quick only 50 of the way to the imperial age the pressure is on and so there's a timer here as you mentioned how quickly can he get into that eagle switch to defend uh against the siege push uh from tsunderson china bringing a forward lumber camp uh in support of his entire uh military force but again just highlights uh the the difficulty of access for the woods so i would like to see some of the small groups of plumed archers still getting around to continue raiding while looking to use those castles in defense and build up the infantry force to take on uh sunjata's force head-on this is a spot where i think sinjata should make it seems crazy but either go for your own eagles champions or even a few jaguar warriors for now because you know that the eagle switch is going to come in so i think you've got to prep either your own eagles to match it in some way or or get infantry to counter those eagles now big thing for mayans they don't really need their castles anymore but they need gold and the golds are actually right over here so sinjata is pressuring the proper area getting his armor now on infantry and he did have eagle warrior in before right so it's not like he's too far off from mixing in some of his own that'll be strong and i feel like it's falling apart for herald it was looking so good for a while now it 100 is i mean just just how far behind herald is in getting the upgrades just now completing eagle warrior himself but still behind when it comes to uh the the defense upgrades where scale mail just came in uh for sunjata so a definite upgrade advantage there now moving on to the second of the castles with three trebuchets that's not long for this world that means the plume production is going to fall straight through the floor you can kind of see him looking to expand outwards from both sides of his base he's actually look on the left hand side here forward market and one yeah barracks perhaps looking to raid just a little bit with eagles which could be one of his ways back into the game but forward castle as well on this hill from sunjata gives him so much control over both of those golds those extra golds for harold he's going to be hurting uh for gold for production for that infantry that he plans to create dash might be a bit early all right it's definitely a bit early but i think sanjata might be uh like he's top eight confirmed in my opinion based on what i've seen okay three relics got it lately the perfect castle position he's pressuring the castle he even if you look at his fog of war has seen almost everything on the map he had sent like even the small details sending a few eagles to hit at stone a moment ago like all these tiny little things since is looking strong here but has to be said was herald maybe a little bit too ambitious in some moments in that game it most definitely was i mean we're looking at that castle placement and bringing so few villagers forward and low health villagers at that as you mentioned separating his uh military from the villes themselves so that they could get flanked by uh by the eagle warriors of zunziada uh for when for for a game in which he had control in in well defending from that initial castle age push as well uh i think there was a bit of a throw moment there stone excites you when your mayans you want to make all the castles and get all the plumed archers that's great but if you have enough stone for three castles at 25 minutes and the enemy only has one they're going to imp faster they're going to have other resources with similar bill counts and this is the case of and i kind of touched on it um he went two tcs and kept five on stone i was thinking he'd turn that into a third town center he was on two tc's for a while there dash and he was on stone for a while and you've got a switch you get a lead with military and you diversify your eco a bit more but even there i don't think that was the big issue i think if he would have made his third castle on the left initially and he would have just ran around with his plumes instead of trying to force impossible fights it would have been fine he just got too ambitious i guess with his micro yeah i lo i'm still feeling the winchester call out uh on the side of harold i do agree that we're possibly looking at a top eight player on the side of sunjada my initial thinking was somebody like hera in this case because if if there's one thing i appreciate about the way that hera's game has improved uh over recent years is his understanding of how to play the map we talk about really intelligent uh you know uh uh castle placement here to kind of close out the game in taking over these two goals he targeted the right areas of the map he understood when his initial castle age push was kind of hitting a wall and stalling out made a perfect transition when it came to eco as you mentioned knowing that plumes were coming in gets those skirmishers out but still keeps the pressure up with the eagle warriors i think uh it just well strategized on the side of sunjata are we saying harold or herald i'm gonna let twitch chat decide because i'm okay with either i think it's probably herald i think you're correct because harold would be with an e i just i i okay you know why did i even ask them because this isn't helpful at all this is not helpful at all so you know what thanks but no thanks everyone agree on something at some point in your lives thank you all right dash let's move on and and let's speculate we just brought up we mentioned a few names for sinjata it's very easy to get excited about that but now we have to talk home maps and it's actually more difficult to guess who is it's more difficult to know what maps the top eight are going to play because they did not have to qualify and they had all that time behind closed doors with the new map so we have sanjata going for bay and mudflow and then herald has islands and bypass i guess it will be on harald's map next correct and they don't necessarily have to put just confirming they don't have to play in the order they were drafted he could choose either islands or bypass here correct that's correct he could do that okay um that of course is completely on him gotcha gotcha well yeah i mean like i said i whenever i see islands i obviously think of the viper just because i know how confident he is on water maps and that when that for him he'll always view islands as a free victory um so i expect to see islands in in pretty much every viper draft but of course it's not unique to him as you mentioned winchester as well willing to do that coupled with the sieve picks and that's the thing when you hit the sieve picks his his his you know his desire to play portuguese goths as well being picked up definitely definitely calls for a vinch bay and mudflow are interesting picks on the side of sunjata though i don't feel like those are as revealing uh obviously mudflow one of the newer maps bay a holdover from previous tournaments as well i wonder well we'll really have to see more here but there's a few thoughts that are coming to mind just want to point out with the draft uh because there's a little bit of confusion in chat and it's understandable the draft makes it more complicated the red box is a sieve that was globally banned meaning that prior to all the picks they they said nope we're not doing this and then uh they went back and forth with ziv picks the crosshairs is what's called a snipe so after all the sieves are picked ragas you're crazy thank you yeah that's a huge my goodness 100 gifted subs that's amazing contributing to the prize pool as well awesome support thank you ragas but but who would who really doesn't want to play against saracens what kind of a global ban is that well or is that a viper troll no see the thing is saracens are an all-in type civ and players who are confident and standard to build in their standard ability are not going to want to play against those civs like nikov is the one that came to mind he hates playing against saracens and he hates playing against so you pretty much just leave another top five sieve available if you don't globally ban it because remember you're not banning just from the enemy you're banning it from yourself if you pick a good sieve so right so you could global globally ban saracens and then if your opponent picks cubans you you snipe that and you've dealt with uh the two that you that you absolutely despise playing against yeah i just find that very interesting and if we think sunjata is a top eight player who who isn't yeah i don't know that's that's interesting i know that i know that i know because the way you said it where it's a global ban and leaving more ope civs open viper has actually been vocal about this in the past i'm not saying that i think zenjada is viper but he's been vocal about this in the past that he's not always going to look to globally ban a best sieve true in some cases he finds it advantageous to ban something that's somewhat irrelevant simply so there are more options for him uh to be drafting later on you know what someone just said in twitch chat that herald banned his people he's a viking and he banned vikings what is that crap man well you know he just didn't want to lead his people to war he's thinking about their you know their well-being that's true i think i think you know history was not too kind to herald i think that uh he did end up getting killed in battle so that might make sense you'd want to avoid that all right let's see all right well let's find out in game two what we see here i i've seen islands and i've seen something which makes me want to talk an awful lot and speculate on who this player might be dash i'm seeing it as well yeah so we're going to be into this game now 15 seconds into game two and herald playing as the italians completely standard something you would expect from someone who would pick islands as their home map it's one of the best civs here and now sundiata has gone celts so let's break this down you just said landing yeah we're 100 gonna see it landing here and which player i mean we've only seen one game so remember poor jacqueline you were like jacqueline uh you just for fun pick jacqueline as your hero and then jacqueline looked amazing in game one on arabia and it didn't look so good on the other maps so what high-level player could dominate like that in arabia and then have very little confidence with islands meta i mean back tea is a really good call out for that one yeah maybe especially given the you know the proficiency with the mayans pick and then as you mentioned uh kind of a lack of comfort ability on islands to be honest the other name i have written down for jacqueline is doubt um and that is both based on again the comfortability with mayans as well as the bulgarian's pick yeah that was interesting yep i know that doubt is a fan of bulgarians uh specifically and so i had some curiosities about whether or not that one was doubt but i also like to believe that doubt as an experienced player would have put up a bit more of a fight on a couple of the other maps so dash herald paused two minutes in now i know that like i know that like hera because he's got a big fan base now like people think about hera when it's a pause but backed is the o.g pauser he always picks mezzo in game one if he has an opportunity and in hidden cup three it was his first series i'm not even kidding you guys his first series was actually game one and he went forward with mayans tried to lame and then paused and i said you gotta be kidding me this isn't back and after the tournament was concluded it was indeed backed so i'm just saying something to remember yeah he made it too easy on you yeah but but anyway so italian civ wise they have just all the bonuses that stack up nicely here um they probably are the most well-rounded water sieve the fact that it's cheaper to go up to the next stage is huge um you have cheaper fishing ships and cheaper dock techs that alone right there on top of all the upgrades you have is is a big one um health i just the first thing we thought of is this player is not going to try and win water and they're going to try and take that land they are slightly later to the dock looking at a back dock now for instance so again i think that's very telling that you're not going to be fighting for water you just want the the few fishing ships that you build to live as long as possible while you look to sneak a transport around and end up landing i do also want to call something out i don't know if you noticed this harold he used to scout to lure a boar yep which obviously on islands you're you're less likely to run into the opposing scout and so you don't necessarily need that health but that's an intriguing move that i feel like only certain players would be willing uh to make uh whereas on the side of sunjata he just went for the classic villager lure so two things about that it's it's quite common and again i'm gonna bring up a name in winchester who did it all the time in the qualifier um it's common because it's just less village rightly time walking out to get the boar and you're not going to need that scout if you're trying to win water but if you see the enemy has celts i don't know if having a weak scout is necessarily the best thing for you because if sanjata shows up with a scout and two villagers you can't take an even fight from the get-go so um i it's hard to say dash but that might actually be a factor if we see a transport shift from sanjiata because njita has i mean it's back dock it's help pick which we don't see on this map it's got to be thinking land yeah waiting to see the transport queued up both players have picked up loom so expect to see them clicking to fetal here soon second lumber camp being dropped uh on the side of harold he's got a villager looking to wall so early palisade walls he is thinking about the celt's pick and he is thinking about the possibility of a landing so while his scout will be on the move looking for that he's he's already pre-walling i think this is really really intelligent that is sick yeah i mean maybe just go fast futile the wind water anyways and just wall if he lands you and you have a mini arena here that's not a that's not really a bad thing um we'll still see a second dock is there a transport ship from st johnson now what if it's a mind game from sanjata what if sanjay just goes it might be look at this he's got he's just now clicking to feudal after that last bill was made he's got five fishing ships out it could honestly just be a fast castle of some kind and then and then look to retake water i mean he's making a ton of fishing ships and you know if the enemy is going fast futile that they're going to eventually die but i guess with the keltwood bonus you figure it's worth it just still surprised to not see a transport ship because at a certain point if you don't have the villagers over there already you're not going to be able to land them as the enemy will have navy and look at this i mean harold is harold is worried he's walling towards the tc yeah they're very i love these walls though they're efficient right because you cannot afford to wall you know too much on the entire island so walling straight towards the tc the only vulnerable position right now would be his gold but he's still got the scout on the move looking for that landing i there's the transport oh it's coming out now okay great so i'm curious if sanjata is even going to make it because herald is opening with galleys and galleys can not only are they quick but they can snipe transports really really fast so uh i mean my money is that the transport will probably work out but it just does not feel like a player who's confident on water at all and gosh i had some of the the top eight cast with me for the qualifiers and hera said and i quote if you see someone hidden cup just send it that's me on islands he made it seem like he had no confidence on water that he didn't really care about it and he said he's just gonna send it which implies yolo and this would be one way to send it that's for sure i also think yeah as we've got the the galley's making their way around the back so is going to find that those fishing ships and galleys are they make quick work of fishing ships once they get there this is so bad oh oh no oh i mean here comes another galley now i don't i mean how many games kill a transport yeah i he might make it to the islands before he dies uh i think it needs 12 micro oh he's blocking it and he threw all of his fishing ships to the corner while all this is happening they're just idle in the corner okay he saves saves the bills though they don't go down in the with the ship that's good the captain you know allowed the crew to to land and get away but i also want to point out just the fact that harold didn't over invest in the water two galleys immediately started producing more fishing ships now he's adding a couple more galleys i think just to hold water because he knows that the landing isn't coming two more docks being dropped on the front here by sunjita a pivot by him knowing now he must contest water since he's not going to be able to get off his island but harold's got so much control castle though at comparatively comparatively yeah i mean it's just okay let's say that it doesn't work for sanjata it still could right but let's just say it doesn't work this is not a player like imagine a best of seven semi-final best of seven final this is not good you know have miscalculated it that badly tells me they don't care about losing this type of game and they haven't even practiced too much which is a little worrying long term but sanjata at least is in castle age now and maybe could send a few fires forward right getting the war galley upgrade so those fires will be quite potent against these fetal age galleys for now but i just loved the the reaction from herald to say okay you're not going to contest for water i'm going to fish more which led to this competitive castle age time uh the only worrisome thing is that the fish and ships are on the front right now so sinjat has definitely got a chance to be able to push the fishing ships and even this out a bit third dock added on the front for harold here plenty of fishing ships still at work but with these uh fire ships coming in there's going to be a lot of threat to each of these fishing ships and not enough in defense right now when it comes to the galley or fire production from harold he is swapping into fire galley so fire with fire here this it's amazing though i mean he lost a transport ship was contested on water but kept his fishing ships alive now he's taking some fishing ships out feels pretty close still my question now is if you lack confidence you transport again oh god never mind we answered the question here he is where he's on oh he's on the front of his face an in-your-face stable let him know what's coming i love the confidence all of a sudden and this is all in you called hera and his commentary about being all in i see stable dropped but there's no way to get it i mean there's just a couple openings here i mean that's a horrible spot for staple if the enemy wins water you can't really produce out of it but i guess workshop now then again but his staples about to get walled in he does get one night out so let's see what kind of harassment can happen here running away from these spears the eco for herald is not that good right now he lost so many fishing ships and the others are idle he actually is honestly so focused about the landing that he's losing his fishing ships on water and he does not have as good of food eco this could work for senjata you're right this is fascinating he does have he's got those five fires right now but no more in production at the moment so having having had to have pulled all of those villagers out to look to defend against the stable itself the the eco is really taking a hit we got a monastery now being dropped i love how the forward is just shifting around the island as the pressure is coming in seriously and celt scorpions are insanely strong i don't know herald if this is the right play but okay a knight comes in a stable at home was good you take out the villagers here you can take out the siege and that's that's a good play from from herald starting to feel a lot better about herald situation now uh tc should go up and siege workshop will even go down so stable walled in night trapped in there siege workshop will go down monastery useless and no more villagers to continue the pressure uh so i think you're right he's he's completely stopped all this pressure in his tracks now it's just about getting his eco back up and running right we talked about the mess that was made as he drops a second town center we've got sunjata doing the same thing on his gold back at home yeah and that's i guess the beauty of going yo lowell islands is that if a forward fails they still need to go to your side but i think we'll see it there's no reason that herald should skip making a transport right now make a transport and just transport your knights over to sanjata's base i think sinjata either needs really well-placed town centers or a defensive monastery i still you know what another name that comes to mind do you remember seeing borrows versus heart in the qualifier yep yeah yep generally a heartbreaking series just because it went so long and i was you know both those players fought tooth and nail like i don't even though we've talked about some other players we're basing on arabia every single player at the high level plays in arabia all the time right so it's not crazy as we could see a big demo okay he wants to get this instead there we go that's better actually um yep yeah taking out the military because now you can take out the fishing ships with the military so i like the pivot but like anyways back to my point it's not unheard of for anyone they're the top 16 players in the world they all should be able to play beast mode with the mesosiv on arabia so this is twice now today i feel like you know i've gotten a little bit deceived by the quality someone brings and then i sit back and i'm just like wait a second they're not prepped for islands and so maybe someone like carl's the player who did qualify would fit the bill for someone like senjata i don't know yeah and that that to me aligns with the celt pick right i can see borrow's wanting to be uh a generally a more aggressive player in that regard on a map where he's less comfortable just take the fight to the other island perhaps you win it early perhaps you don't i mean you still have the option to boom at home like he's trying to do yeah um and you know late game with a few castles and if you can manage to get one over to your opponent's side road raiders can kill all true and you know if you see it as a real weakness you say whatever i can afford to lose this game because i've got good strategies for the other maps uh there's the transport now for herald um it's in queue anyways and i i guess the monastery was bothering him but i would have liked to have seen these nights three minutes ago because they could have been all around the eco for sinjata now sanjata's got monks at home already so i don't think the knights will do too much yeah i think that's a really good point the monastery wasn't much of a threat monks alone aren't going to achieve much so definitely could have left that up while the siege workshop and the stable were taken care of uh relics being picked up on the side of uh harold at the moment did you see that there's still fishing ships alive for sanjata he's still got he's just been moving him around man he took him from the back of his base to the front and then when he dodged that demo he's bringing him over to the right-hand side uh they're stealthy stealthy fishing ships i mean it's 15 military versus five it doesn't feel like it's unrealistic for sanjata to possibly come back with a faster imperial or something but kel the kelt water tech tree is pretty poor if you ask me i don't even remember if they get fast fire ship can someone in twitch chat tell me i think they do but then they lack they don't they do okay they do but then they lack um what is it uh racer which can be a big deal on galleons yeah definitely definitely going to be hurting for any water control later in the game but but take a look at the eco numbers starting to rise three tc's for shinjata only two for for herald and so we're starting to see a small you know small difference in eco that the knights though have landed they're looking to do some damage the one scout with him does great damage in terms of taking out the monk that was great also just the idol time you got to make a spear right now that was great to send the scout there oh don't lose it now okay yeah smart thinking uh herald i think he's got a you're always prioritizing getting to imperium um but you just gotta make sure that you're not allowing the opponent to stay on water like they are right now it's tough balance and i feel as though sanjat has given himself a chance 68 villagers against 59 right now two relics a piece so both of them already thinking ahead in that regard still a little bit of jostling done for water control on on the front of sunjata's base but he's really not putting much of a fight up nice demo they're on three ships it's it's the same docks dude this is ridiculous he continues to repair these docks and get demos in he hasn't had to re-dock on the front at all which is just crazy fishing ships still hard at work for both players let's go he's positioned the ville too dash he's made it so the fires can't for whatever reason you can't diagonally hit that villager that's perfect he's a hero a hero villager right there seven hp stern death in the face says i don't care my foreman told me to to hammer this dog so that's what i'm going to do do you think do you think that's a fun job like boss do i really have to hammer the dock that's on fire again right yeah i'm not a firefighter there's you need a license for that oh wow there's this monk in the middle oh no oh but both players i i i think uh picked up redemption because i saw both attempting uh to uh to convert uh ships from the other side so see if those play much of a role but we've got the imperial imperial age click up here for sunjata that eco that extra eco doing work for him all right um [Music] what's what's the play is it is it castle at home in order to to drop more docks and try and get control or is it going to be another yolo you know send a few villagers to either a center island or the opponent's island for a castle job chat chat obviously chad is giving you a hard time for the redemption comment you don't actually need redemption to convert ships and listen i know nothing about leagues so that's completely fine don't stress it but i think you'll take that out i think sanjata's approach should be prioritized winning water with fast fire and then land immediately after so don't try and take this late so it's actually interesting now that herald is going to try and land sanjata so it might distract sanjata's attempt at winning water if he's got something like condo tierros or what castle there too the three ville castle plus a barracks and a monk to observe what you know what's so what's so weird about this is it's gonna be huge if it's not spotted if he shows up with a few um condo tierros and trebs so much of this eco gets denied but if it's spotted then jiata will just make trebuchets and trap it down from the other side of the wood line no problem yeah well you know what it's not going to be spotted and i just took a look at at stone count soon john is nowhere close to a castle he's only got three bills on stone at the moment 195 in the bank so while he's the first to hit imperial and no council drop anywhere to be seen this is gonna catch him completely off guard he's swapping into water but he's already been landed wait a second okay so i i'd like to blame project belgium if i'm wrong on celts getting fast fired he's clicked heavy demo he's not clicked fast fired do they not get fast fire he's gonna try and demo these down now heavy demos could be insane here dash okay they don't get it thank you project belgium it's even the high level players don't even know dash because this is so rarely picked and i was getting crap for saying you needed redemption i think i get a pass yeah one of the top what is belgium top 20 uh 30. we'll give him top 30. yeah we'll give him time there you go top 30 player doesn't know who gets fast fire i get a pass on the monk comment that's true but dude this is insane the fact that like look it's sanjata's coverage he sees virtually everything and he wants to go for a transport what if he ends up castle dropping the enemy at the same time oh my goodness that'd make me the happiest person in the world oh jeez still 200 away from a castle himself we've got uh six condo tierros uh sitting in both of those barracks at the moment a trebuchet on the way i actually love the patience here by herald knowing he hasn't been spotted he's gonna wait until he has another trebuchet in the queue so that he can pressure completely and look for the killing blow right out the gate but there's the landing on the other side double barracks from the kelp player will he follow this up with the castle see you dude he doesn't see it how does he not see it and sajata is going to go for pikeman he's going to can he deny a castle with pikeman but look at this look at the castle at home by harold yeah it's a good castle it's a good spot if the pressure starts coming in i don't think that castle will be denied and we have the condo tier showing up i always say it don't trickle trip when you're being sneaky surprise the enemy and what a surprise this is immediately sanjata falls back to a castle in the middle of his island they can't take those farms he can't take the wood lose the tc bleeding heavily right now yeah he just lost control of a third of his island these condos are so hard to deal with even though they're not fully upgraded just yet but like you said two trebs already on the island none being built in defense just yet until this castle goes up and it's already under siege yeah and you can't make anything really i mean make your own shrubs and repair this forever but i don't see this really going well for sanjata and i suppose we kind of felt like it wouldn't go well for him on islands when he picked celts and failed with the transport initially but he's attempting he's attempting the pikeman raid but with a couple genuine uh crossbowmen plus you know condos and pikes in defense this uh this is going to get nowhere drop in a tower on the wood line for the the smallest semblance of control but now three trebs working on that castle only one in defense uh this is looking bad the big thing here is just keep the bills alive if you have the bills in the enemy island there's always a chance but i think he's not pushing and he's getting pushed to the degree where it's not going to work on either side so it's a double whammy here this series is going to be tied up in a second these condo terrors are doing work absolutely absolutely without a castle at home now there's nowhere really to fall back to there's no way to push these trebs off the island because you built your four barracks is forward so your only military production is a siege workshop in a barracks and there it is the gg is called all right now most important highlight to look back on before we sum up the game is this moment right here um i'm sure everyone knows that this is what changed the game so let's watch it again all right and that's where i knew that herald would win the game because god wasn't on his side yep i know incredible demo micro yeah i mean god wasn't on his side and he was always going to take it from there am i supposed to i'm using capture age pro by the way i'm going to just speed up through the whole game because i think i should have looked at the stats first but it's all right it's super fast there we go we're good and yeah we'll sum up this game with the stat stash but like the main thing even before looking at the stats to me is just the fact that i i don't think that synchanza likes or knows water maps very well no it does not appear to be the case kel such a peculiar pick there uh to be honest i mean again it makes sense to me given the strategy choice and looking for that landing but was so much later to feudal age and you know maybe credit has to be given where credit's due to herald for going fast fetal yes you know understanding that that pressure might be coming and getting those early walls up i think the early walls uh did wonders in terms of uh staving off the pressure that was attempted in the stable siege and monastery push yeah it was it was herald kind of expecting what would come with celts and even though it wasn't like pretty he got the job done right i don't think that he would say that he executed as best as he would have wanted to there but gets the win and now i'm wondering because this has been kind of a theme where players are just they seem stuck on certain maps is like how is herald going to look on sunyata's home maps that's a good question that's a good question because so far arabia and islands right i mean islands is you know while probably you know or definitely a less practice map than arabia for all of these players is still a fairly common one yes um and we stand we're waiting on the rest of those hidden cup maps to you know to to come in uh looking at mud flow looking at um forgetting the name uh with the pass through in the middle uh bypass yep oh that would make sense bypass with the pass through you know look at looking to see those two maps uh play a role in this series and how each of these players will react uh to the oppose the opponent's choice in those maps yeah well um before we start game number three i can see it will be on mudflow big shout out to everyone again thank you for the support today um the goal for me going into this was obviously to put on a great tournament uh have a massive prize full for the players and have some fun uh but as far as viewership goes this is amazing for a thursday make sure you get it here on saturday and sunday the big quarter final day and then the semis in the finals my goal 100k 1990. no my goal is to reach hidden cup three numbers because that was an insane time um and that's just it just feels like that's going to be a tough goal to reach but yes i will go bald if we hit a hundred thousand so i was gonna say i'm waiting for it to be at like 99 you know 900 and then t90 just pulls the plug oops technical difficulties waits for about 5 000 people to leave the stream loads it back up oh i'm back there's no contract i i can do that you know i i mean it it hurts my channel's progress but it helps my hair so um we'll see thank you robert the hun it sounds like a hero name right there actually no robert doesn't really sound like a hun name sorry but um that's a good point it's like it's like bill yeah i'm not sure robert had made it to east asia at that point uh in time just yet exactly oh god well anyways let's hop in game number three here again what's the preparation going to look like surely sanjata is going to understand this map but will herald the players they they had about a week to test out the maps and do all these different things but it's still not a ton of time and it really has spiced it up earlier today we saw this map and both players went for completely different strategies herald is in the yellow playing as the japanese and then in the blue we have sanjata it's his home map playing as the chinese this is interesting chinese i mean chinese makes sense based on the start right you got the you get the fish right there next to the tc so the extra villagers you know able to start working immediately on that food eco uh so it's a really intelligent pick here i think and obviously a very versatile sieve with lots of options and cheap upgrades japanese on the other side what's your opinion of them being picked on this map i i don't love it dash um in the practice games that i've seen practice games that we played i played like six different versions of this map as we were trying to find a good version to pass along to the test players but while it is nice to have the cheap lumber camps and the cheap mills because there's plenty of places to chop wood and and to forage just don't feel like it's quite as strong as something like frank's something like khmer um even something like huns i i don't know might feel a little bit stronger but anyways um i i think you look at this with the logic of sanjata has practiced this map and he's gonna have something strong planned if i can get a win here it's almost like one and a half wins right in a in a sieve draft scenario by the way can you hear noises outside no i'm no i'm good no like my my outside you can't hear me yeah no no i'm not hearing anything okay there's someone like i don't know if he's got a weed whack or what like right outside my place right now doesn't he know it's hidden cup geez he should hey man i'd be like hey buddy do you have a twitch prime out there he's like what like a twitch prime all right anyway you can link it to your amazon account it's up to me for free if he contributes to the prize pool he'll be like what oh i already have a pool oh god uh is going to get badly housed here a lot of people were were saying that mbl already played but uh it is something that he's done before that hurts with chinese yeah that's a big that's a big one okay it does get the house down forced down with the uh the lumber villagers uh i i'm already curious about this we've got the the forward lumber mill i know that uh you know some players might offer something safer in the back of their base uh but senjata not afraid to go forward into into the water portion and the larger woodlands yeah um so dash this is i i've seen a few practice games from the top 16 themselves only because some of them forgot to make their games private and they were on their player profiles and i downloaded them like a snoop um okay and of those games a lot of players now granted they were training together would go for something like a scout or men at arm opening into a a dock or two in late feudal to make some fires and galleys now we saw someone open with that and it failed today so it's really hard to say but i've never seen a drush so this is this is fascinating yeah uh i mean it makes sense with japanese right uh just uh making use of the the infantry bonuses that they get but how much damage are you really going to be it could very well catch some jada off guard although only two militia going forward at the moment yeah it's a two-parter on one hand you want to dress chinese because chinese get loom at the start but on the other hand you want to leave chinese untouched so i i think if the ville gets picked off here and it looks like it will with amazing work from herald i quite like this uh the only concern now is will you be feudal age soon because there goes sanjata on the way there yeah honestly as long as the quick walls come in he should be safe but there's still potential for another ville kill if any of them are caught out but yeah very successful drush off of just two militia at the moment we've got the faster fetal obviously on the side of sunjadi he brings another five out onto wood hmm you know what's fascinating about a drush here dash and it just dawned on me when you typically what happens when you run out of space or sorry you you finish off your buffalo here bore whatever is you start to make farms around the tc on this map you have to make farms around mills if you wall in your mill to protect from militia you can't comfortably farm there it's not like you want to farm 10 tiles away from your tc either so this with the way yellow scouted this might have been just to keep him from expanding to the second berry area and expanding to farms that's a really good point now we got three villagers working to drop uh the barracks for sunjata wants to get that in just before feudal age hits we'll see what the follow-up is he's got no no one on gold so perhaps it is a scout follow-up but he doesn't have the wood to make the stable yet so it has delayed him plus i don't see it being realistic for sanjata to get both like the farm and the wood eco upgrade right off the bat so that pressure if even without the veil kill i think really shook shinjata and sanjata doesn't know where to send his eco right now yeah the stable going up now as we flip to the other side of the map scout harassing those barry villagers a dock going up wow harold dude this is again another game on this today actually that's huge that villager could die um never mind just got the militia but the approach is so different here right i think this is going to be man at arms and and fire ships coming from herald so yeah or on four on gold so he's looking to produce as soon as he hits feudal he's got these two militia four militia now actually all of them linking up together so this could be actually a decent amount of pressure still coming forward against these scouts oh i can see it all happening now to think about it synthiatic he's gonna halley's he wants to harass the woodland he's just straight up galley because you have to the scouts can't fight that so you wall it out but if you add a galley and sit it behind the wood line then what did the scouts do the only thing the scouts can harass right now is yellow's eco and if yellow in theory gets some spearmint in defense which isn't here yet it could work out true that's true both of his woodlines while on the back of his base quite exposed at the moment even the berries themselves so it's and there it is already on the front side harassment onto these villagers does get one of the scout picks with the villagers so looking to fight retreating back to the galley and the spearman is out all right spearmint this is this is so fun to watch and now you have a tower uh on the wood line which i think is a great call from sanjata seeing what would happen if there wasn't a tower there and how the villagers would have to run into the hands of the man at arms the scouts on the move and harald messing up the quick wall that could be two additional villagers down yeah at least one and then he'll likely flip and be able to micro this next one down a fourth scout coming in so the pressure is going to stay high yes these spears are here in defense and chasing them away i i agree with you that tower though a really intelligent placement understanding that that you know that those uh galleys were going to come forward he is repairing this mill so small amount of damage being done and looking to bring up an archery range in defense of those men at arms it is so tough to to do anything on this map if you don't have military another veil down exactly like you've got to have some mobility i think and another villager down another on the front and it's on the archery range that's huge and another oh six one kd and i think now at this point syngasta can just mix in an archer or two taking gold at home no problem and push the man at arms away and now it's leaving me to wonder was this how herald planned for this to go probably not no i i can't imagine i can't imagine so eight seven to eight eco behind now in total still just repairing that mill at home looking to get his first couple archers out to deal with just the man at arms zenyatta i don't think sinjata was sorry dash but i don't think he was expecting to face this strategy but he adapted to it so well really really well these men at arms didn't achieve too much they're now gonna get pushed away peralt just running over to the left-hand side dropping those cheap mills so making use of the cheat meals but they might get scouted out as these scouts come over to the left-hand side that's so far away sanjata would never go out there sinjat is still just looping around and why not but we've got a tower in the middle for herald i think one thing that we've seen be very strong on any map that has water is galleys so you fall behind on land if you can somehow take control of those big woodlines in the middle with galleys maybe you've got a chance here if you're all despite the bill difference still keeping those scouts active very good to see but not going to find damage as long as these spears are here i i think though it's just so easy for him to relocate those wood lines so yes good tower forward good pressure from the japanese player but just easily sending all of his bills over to the right-hand side he's got the archers now patrolling over there to make sure that they're not going to get pressured and with those archers going to be very hard to get any more tower drops down this at this point harald's feeling like he's on the clock and this might be the gg move because the second archers show up the spearmen don't do anything as if they were doing much before and his galleys didn't find the new wood line he went to the left side to check they're over on the right side and there's already another tower for sanjata so perfect planning for sanjata and i mean the choice is yours zenyatta you've got stone berries gold everything to hit right now yup he's gonna push those villagers off of stone pushing another set of villagers off of the berries i mean that's near 10 villagers idle right there when you're already down in eco numbers this is really going to hurt any opportunity to go towards castle and look for that all in pressure which i feel like is the only option uh remaining for herald at this point i mean both of their economies are rather weak so it's a weird one to see six on food right now for the winning player is awkward but defensive towers going up probably seen more and more farms um man at arms and the galleys are underneath the tower though what a weird situation this is okay grab one or two picks here we got a couple of archers going down though and just the one mad arms remaining let's see if the archer will we'll pick it off hmm i'm a little worried for sanjata because despite the ville count i'm not seeing military right now free military and just tower defense it's not the most confident approach it's not like resources are floating to the point where i expect to see xinjiang to click up to castle either so this is we're 20 minutes in normally if this was arabia players start thinking of clicking up to the next age i don't think we're gonna see that anytime soon no these uh these two archers on the south side getting chased out by the three of herald so that's gonna stymie all the pressure that sunjata did have uh playing much more defensively now you see the tower dropped on the farms in the back around that mill as you mentioned it's just so dangerous to get your food eco up on this map because of the inability to place them around the tc still has four villagers on stone so i do like the cautious approach uh with the towers yeah it's just that transition dash like even having more archer numbers would be important here the fact that this woodline's still exposed and you don't have even a dock like what about a dock and a few fire ships i i feel as though sanjata is possibly throwing what could or most cases should be a winning position yeah just two galleys here harassing yet another tower to be dropped to protect the woodlines it will go up just by virtue of how many bills are being thrown at it with one ville pick he did drop another archery range as well so where you asked for more archer numbers it looks like he's going to deliver on that ask i would love to see arald maybe just hold this position for the rest of the game send a ton of villagers on gold dash make a market and buy food if you get japanese towers with siege it feels like it's going to be so awkward for sanjata to be able to continue even with additional villagers if all they're doing is chopping inefficient wood lines he's dropping another tower so so he's keeping up the pressure while it is in you know the vision of senjata no reaction just yet and that is at least going to harass one part of this wood line very claustrophobic yeah over here on the right hand side there it is there's the response in tower see if he can get it up the galley's coming back over looking to put a stop to that yellies seem really strong in certain stages and if there's a garrison there that could be tough for sinjata there's not a garrison but that's because there's other things to focus on look at this in the left side finally a counter attack for sanjata beautiful runner micro using the hill here yeah focusing the archers first with the zone has the hill should be able to make work of these uh two skirmishers while taking just a little bit of damage in return yep skirms are armored so it's awkward but i'd like to see him run just run to the back of his base keep him away and it just felt natural there's the call there's the market if heralds can get to castle age faster this is definitely possible despite all the veil losses in this game the kds 8 to 4 with eco yeah the archers go down so again harald establishing map presence i think that is the big thing like you say knowing that he needs to all in he's doing everything he can with these towers even if they will go down this is difficult why why you know the galleys are around why would you run in here and just toss away villagers like this that was such a poor play i don't think it's worth it to take out that tower and now he's got to run away anyways look at the repairs oh my god herald is not going down without a fight here dash this is insane trading two villagers for two galley kills essentially was the end result of that play tower wars still taking place will next reveal go down just barely gets it away all right the tower will be pushed back look at that man look at that castle on the way up now sanjata is going to have a much cleaner eco but i could see one night ruining that look at all these farms nights become really important now um i don't think herald with seven on food really can do a lot more and make a few towers and like choose one thing like i don't know a vodka or something and here you go senjata catching out the villagers finally he's picked up on what to do here dash mixing in a fire as well he's holding on to wood for now yeah that fire is going to do work against the singular galley will likely go down though uh to the skirmishers and archers just after that yep yeah uh gerald is dropped a second dock and going into straight galley and fire production though so wants to continue controlling the water through navy whereas zenyatta this is such a land player man he's like i could just see that sundiata must groan like oh you're telling me how to make a a dock you know like it seems like he really does not want to make docks uh and many people watching might relate to that but he's gonna go for a stable i think knights are good but there still is a risk that mass water in the middle could win the game for herald yeah and what's interesting about it as well sunjad is the one making or swapping into cav herald is not the one with a farm eco because he's going for for navy so it'll be interesting to see how much damage he can really do i mean obviously again most resources on this map are far away from any defense so it's going to be about scouting that pressure coming in and looking to get you know either walls up or units in position to defend and if all of your military is on water how do you defend against an attack on land oh my god there's three demos here but a big attack oh man what a crazy moment i feel like 20 villagers could die on either side here the demos could go to the wood line there's currently a tc going up for sanjata and now you've got the villagers on the back side for her all this he has to force down the tower and he will definitely take losses here too oh yeah a great a great mico here as they become crossbows he's just microwaving away from the skirms looking to do eco damage the tower does go up so he'll have to move away but got three four veil kills throughout all of that and we'll just continue just continue running and harassing yep big 49 to 38 and i think the big thing here dash is that he solidified control of the middle with the tc so he's got the tc up the knights they can just run past the war galleys no problem and hit the woodlines to get a few more villager kills and if sanjata can just extend his eco lead which he will do with these crossbowmen maybe then he could do anything yeah husbandry is in plus one on the knights the first one goes back to deal with this archer that's harassing the gold oh rather he set the first two forward sorry to deal with the skirmishers these crossbows still doing work on the villagers creating complete chaos yeah and herald i mean these crossbows could get demoed but at this point they've gotten enough value i think uh what happened to the other demos by the way this is gonna be ugly yeah i don't know what happened to the demos because we were too busy watching her all die crazy raid from senjata that's a really good question where did they go i i think they might have hit the house or like the tc or something oh wait no you could see the bodies here you can see the bodies that's a co-caster's job man people are going to blame that on me well who's the co-caster here really oh really you're gonna you're gonna pull the joke all right all right just enable chat nearly nilly was enabling chat's behavior earlier and you're gonna do the same appreciate it that's what i'm here for that's what i'm here for uh but yeah i mean you can see it in the score difference as well at this point uh it's looking it's looking pretty done and dusted uh for herald at this point as the knights continue to stream forward while the villes get pumped out of these two tc's the eco is going to continue to climb and there's just not enough control on the side of her all to really do damage he's bringing the galleys forward to harass some of those those farms that you talked about so you know taking 10 villagers off of farms is definitely some worthwhile damage but again as soon as they're relocated elsewhere the damage been stopped i am so bothered by sanjata's complete neglect of water he's had the eco to make fire ships and now we're seeing guard tower which is not bad but like so many oh it's a moonwalking demo oh boom that what that was like what of course we see that one there was there was an easy five bill demo right there and then the gg yeah i would call it there too i think oh what a sad time to call the gg but okay listen i hidden cup is all about um assuming way too much way too early okay yeah but do you feel in some some level there that sanjata felt like i'm way ahead i'm just gonna do whatever and not even go towards the um the proper move which would have been making a few docks and making fires was there some of that there because that's weird to me in a big tournament like does that mean that it's also a player who's really comfortable playing towers yeah but that's so for example like viper viper would never approach this map that way he i he just wouldn't listen i have ptsd and i need to talk to you about it all right you're my therapist now listen that's what i said last year and then viper went guard towers and i was like this is tattoo and then afterwards viper's like haha funny funny faked out the whole community so i'm sitting here like i'm not saying it's viper but i'm just a little bit suspicious when someone doesn't make a few docs in that instance you're right he as you said before he's one of those players where i feel like once he knows he's in winning position like he will take he'll take reasonable risk once he's in control you know for the sake of taking that risk and putting on a show and this may have been one of those cases where he he realized how far ahead he was because of the vil picks early on because he was able to defend against the man at arms fairly reasonably that maybe at that point he just decided yep it's going to be tower defense until i can get to castle and flood with some knights there's a possibility but there's definitely i think a few other players i think who are a little bit more willing yeah like mbl is a player that actually i think would be more willing to just throw up towers definitely get to the next stage and say screw water i'm killing you i'm killing you with knights there's actually a beauty in the fact that that set that nearly and i casted earlier uh was so early because so many viewers were just like this is mbl and even nilly and i thought the same if mbl's still out there there's a lot of people assuming that he's just been knocked out that might not be the case so uh yeah anyways what about what about yo this is the one other name i want to throw out there what about yo for sunjata i could see it i could the aztecs the aztec picks make sense to me not wanting to play islands and just kind of going for something yolo mudflow ignoring the water i towers are reasonable the thing is it's complicated because i think the way sinjatu opened was perfect but it was just the neglect of water later on that was the little sus yeah so i i really the only person i feel as though i have somewhat pegged in this set is herald so far and i still believe that that would be finchester i'm convinced i'm convinced it's vince yeah but i don't know like i'm not even convinced indiata's you know who you might have in your top four top five yet he's just really good players up to one here but we've actually seen twice now where one player doesn't seem to really know or doesn't perform as well on a home map which leads us to a very exciting time dash because do you see what's next i do and i have so many questions i haven't hopped in yet actually but i know it's bypass and oh boy i can't believe this i have so many questions let's do it dash um all right so to the viewers at home this is the first time that we will debut this map in hidden cup it's a brand's new map and look at the civilizations harald remember one on islands earlier having portuguese in his back pocket saved portuguese for bypass and then syndiata has malay of all sieves uh talk me through what's going through your mind dash ah why do you pick goths well i granted it was his last pick right based on how it's drafted yep so you know maybe it was just hey this is my last pick but why do you pick goths and then not use it here is is one question i have i'm not really sure where where you're seeing the strengths of portuguese unless you're planning to try and push make a castle age push get through this wall drop a castle and organ guns and siege right where because if you can isolate a choke point and a single you know a single uh combat point i can see some reasonability in the portuguese pick but otherwise i struggle to see where any of their other strengths are really going to to to provide you anything on this map likewise we got malay on the other side which uh i guess my first question will be whether or not we see the strategy of the early feudal eco upgrades into into castle at that point or if he's gonna try and play it a little bit more of a straight of a straight castle dude here's the thought which save is better twitch chat help us out you had to pick one of these civs in this map which sid would you pick because i was thinking about that as you were explaining portuguese have arbalest which are identical to malay they have uh monks which i think are identical but cheaper um they have cavalier they have uh light cav with full upgrades malay do not um they both get good bomber cannons they both only get capped ram they both only get onager i'd say what really needs to to work for malay would be the crazy build orders you can go with with advancing faster to the next age but i i almost feel like portuguese have more potential here to be honest with you yeah in this specific matchup they just they just might i mean i do think that a uh you know castle and siege with you know a couple nights yeah a couple monks some manganese in a castle you're definitely looking at a very solid castle age push against malay who would struggle to deal with that you know having only you know archer options dash are you familiar with the legend of the liar i i do that is a legend i must have missed okay so as a player around 13 or 1400 oh are you kidding me hold on this zebra this is how long four zebra doesn't want to be eaten and who can blame him really um anyways he's a 13 or 1400 player who would go into a game picking malay he would always favorite haida which is kind of similar and we'll get to that what what's happening with the zebra hold on a second i like how soon john is just like screw it i'm over it you win i'm killing this ostrich instead yeah um so anyways he would he would pick malay and he would say to his opponent at the start hey man uh i meant to pick magyar's except he would actually miss belt and say magyar he's like what do i do with the sieve and so the enemy normally they'd be really nice and they'd be like oh you've got this and that and like help him out and he 100 new malay and he'd go sneaky stables and he'd show up with a bunch of cheap elephants and wreck people so chata is possibly excited for some elephant action and i don't think that is too crazy to think of when there's this this bypass in the middle yeah that said we've already got herald walling up house extra palisades i was gonna say it's interesting to me because i did i did catch up on the show matches uh just last night that uh you know unlike in the show match of bypass where we had somebody go forward with kind of the black uh black forest strategy yeah and get that gain that extra space it's not going to be the case this time around and in fact are all taking extra precautions uh to make sure he doesn't get hit with any early aggression yeah and sinjata just doesn't seem too bothered by that at all maybe just assuming some things it's important to note you cannot build on this sandy terrain here so castle drop is not possible though a tower rush would be also on the sides there's plenty of food gold and stone so if you push the middle and you don't control the outer ring you could lose the game and this is the exact build you had mentioned dash and it's it's making use of the light bonuses perfectly it's a fast feudal very fast feudal eco upgrades yeah you can see this working really well peralta has okay two on stone oh so this is now fast organ guns from heralds yeah see that's what i'm thinking so but how does that interact with i mean i'm assuming we're not gonna as we said we're not gonna see pressure in futile uh from the malay player i mean so probably not great i don't see a barracks being dropped yet and he's just about to hit feudal so that's highly unlikely it's just a matter of then who who's making it to castle first well harald should hit castle age first but sanjayata is going to have a veal lead because he spends less time um researching researching right um and we'll have the eco upgrade so the economy is going to be significantly stronger for sunyatta i feel like an approach he might take in sanjatsa's position is at a stable and play it like arena where you patrol the outer ring of the map with scouts but if harald drops a castle in his base and then shows up with a bunch of organ guns and magnels i mean this base is wide open to pressure who cares about how strong your eco is if it just gets smashed by working guns yeah we'll have to see i mean like you said he'll he'll definitely get to castle first at this point fifty percent of the way to feudal lots of farms being dropped on the side of the malay player okay never mind just trying to pay attention to the scouts here kind of hard to see yellow on this terrain my apologies viewers but it is interesting how herald has stuck to picking yellow every single game and some aspects of this would for the uninitiated maybe scream the viper yellow portuguese he loves portuguese yeah yep and lots of micro in game number one but i'm still not quite convinced i think we have a bluffy mode here on twitch for the subs i think this might be a lot of bluffing from herald yeah i think so too just grant get because i don't i got to be honest i just don't like the overall draft from herald like if we're just taking a look at the draft holistically i think we're seeing some of the difficulty of the sieves and the maps that are drafted where you end up with japanese on mudflow uh you know and things like that and i i think that viper is is generally an exceptional drafter will give himself plenty of options and he's also just willing to play you know generally strong sieves and we don't see those kinds of things like where's the lithuanians where's frank's khmer you know all of these things that we talked about uh you know mongols persians there's actually very few players in hidden cup four who really try and play mind games with drafts like doubt and tattoo are known for preparing i'd say unique strategies but not necessarily with wacky sieves the only one who's a little out there with sieve picks has always been winchester and so that's why i'm thinking about this and i hope peralta realizes that you can't build a castle in the middle that would be pretty embarrassing and a big tournament to try and build it there but the villager did go forward for a second just to see is the enemy uh like what's the enemy up to and oh harald had lost the scout earlier i completely missed that okay so that's why blue scout was a bit weak and i don't know how you lose that there with blue still having so much hp so he had to use the villager to scout then yeah he must have just uh mismicroed on a hill somewhere the ville did catch that the blacksmith and the market are going up we'll assume that the rest of that gets walled up and it is with houses uh castle ages are are going to be very close to similar just by virtue of how much faster malay will research this it's just malaysia so broken with this build man look at the resources in the bank for sanjata and look at the ville count guys because you spend less time researching the next age it's essentially a six ville lead just by macroing he's got so much wood in the bank too you could just drop three tcs but what's funny about that is there's obviously going to be an eco lead but while i'm not convinced with organ guns i do feel like organ gun magnel could do a pretty good job at so so it's going to be a safe castle to defend uh the bypass in the middle and make it easy you know for those uh those oregon guns to go forward and i like the scouting from sanjata this might honestly be auto scout at this point let's see is this auto scout well we did have the that's looking pretty auto scouting right there that was a random that was a random left turn and what was the stats it was something ridiculous like the viper uses auto scout on you know a far higher percentage than anyone else that said i feel like bypass particularly after you've killed the enemy scout and you cannot be scouting within your opponent's base yeah this is one of the maps where most pros would say all right flip on auto scout so i don't have to think about it he'll he'll casually explore the rest of the map while i work on my eco at home just as he's doing yeah we might have the stats hop up on screen i'm not sure all the stats that are available to pop up for us um but shout out to happy leaves if we could get some salutes and chat for happy leaves he analyzed a thousand recorded games from all 16 players the thousand combined anyways um and viper auto scouted i think 60 percent of the time and second place was at 20 percent so wow like a massive difference viper you think like you associate auto scouting with low elo legends and things like that right he would just save the scout and then you know he's like all right i'm going to get that scouting in and i don't have to worry about it anymore so oregon guns forward three already out onto the map putting pressure on to the market itself and the thing is a defensive castle would do wonders at stopping this but double monastery the stones forward yeah so he's got to go for something else here and it looks like monk defense for sanjata i'm i'm i'm good with that based on everything you've seen so far you've got plenty of time you know these these organ guns aren't going to eat through that market incredibly fast so you'll have a few months out on the map he's going fast in vitoria herald you've got to be kidding me look at his resources dash this could be one of the biggest masterpieces we've ever seen in hidden cup but what does that really get you well okay so when you go one tc play it tends to be it tends to suck in this situation because he's behind by 13 bills but yeah if you make vitoria's while it is slow it does boost your economy when you get to him yeah i mean it's going to be way behind don't get me wrong but it is an interesting thought i mean it'll give you access to trebs as well right so if you're just trying to push up the gut working solely out of a singular castle because he's not you know there's no siege workshop he's been dropped yep you know so so if you're looking at just a force of oregon guns to play the front line and you can start to see look at the defense a couple towers trying to repair the market things are going to start to get a little messy here so yeah this this imperial age might catch a malay player off guard who's dropped three tc's and is investing so heavily in eco thinking that he's safe and you can't guard tower so like i'm just trying to think through the possibilities here you can't really defend from trebuchets in san jose's position can you because you'd have to getting close to the traps you don't have military so if there's just two trebuchets with the working guns and look yellow's prepping the houses prepping the houses because it takes 20 pop space away from you if you're gonna make victorias this is sick it's a fast imp push these guard towers aren't going to stand a chance against those trebs when they come in i'm really curious to see what sunjata does as soon as he sees the imperial age go through someone in chat had the perfect reaction and just said if this works dot dot dot dot dot because synthetic has double the eco and better eco upgrades vittorios have always been seen as something that's too weak to justify competitively maybe the big thing is you have to be able to force fights and be able to take out large chunks of enemy economy sinjatus had all the reason in the world to expand to the sides there's nothing stopping him out there but he hasn't done that so i feel like there is a chance if you have to relocate all of your eco the ville count won't matter much all right impson oh my god being produced there's the victoria three it's amazing how much space those cost three fetorias oh my goodness okay first treb coming out as well all right so looking over to sunjata though what's the response i think you start thinking about impinging yourself into a defensive castle but now you see something so far away sinjata's like all right this is going to be a problem let's stonewall it up in the middle wow okay i mean that's going to buy you plenty a fair amount of time did you just continue to passively wall behind i'm still waiting for that expansion outward though like you talked about where's you know let's select you know 15 20 vills get them outside the walls do you think you could justify if you're herald sending one villager to either side and just stone walling off those sides i love that like i mean seems like a big stone investment but seriously well now you've got the passive uh the passive stone coming in a fourth fetoria coming down now a barracks finally being dropped so it looks like he's you know uh herald is finally thinking about adding some other military to his force but the first treb doing work on that uh the most forward of the tc's the second layer of walls coming in from sun jada he is he is terrified of the pressure coming in but with his eco lead if he can keep it off and he's approaching those imperial age resources yeah but he has to build another tc surely you don't want to imp in any of these tc's do you oh god he's picked the middle one i guess he's malay so he's probably thinking he could keep it up it will be quick and now he's now he's starting to evacuate some bills he's heading to the left-hand side with one group he's grabbing stone with a small group on the right hand side okay he's got the monks out as well on the left-hand side yeah i'm going to switch the stats now every once you can see the value of the military one relic already you know this is the problem with vitorius he he's pop capped right now it's just so slow he's dropping another one five fetorias and you have to remember it's not like they're free so you're investing so many resources in and it takes so long to get it back so it's an awkward one but i will say i think gerald is going to go for our blessed and yes i think arboles bombard cannon maybe if it was a little faster it'd be nice but um our blessed bomber can could be sick okay first of the guard towers goes down now moving on to target the second one still only one treb understanding that herald's been working with very few resources because he's putting up those fetorias only one treb is is really slowed the pressure here yeah i don't like that i would have loved to have seen three i'm really surprised we didn't see more uh and now you have uh a castle in a perfect position for saint johnson more towards the back i think the big thing we already touched on the fact that sanjata started to relocate eco is very important here if he holds in the middle i suppose that in order for sinjata to take out harald zika we'd have to take out vitorius but it's not like yellow is ever going to have control of the sides in this game yeah yeah this is this is looking pretty scary for herald now just because he still hasn't broken through on those walls amp's already in we've got chemistry on the way uh for the malay player now granted he lost his blacksmith so if he wants to find any blacksmith upgrades he still needs to build another one really that's funny okay you know this is kind of funny too the trip is chopping the trees he's like you can't wall me out a good point actually look at that he's gonna chop through these trees right here i think is there another tree behind that i can't quite tell i can't yeah yeah yeah there is there is yep i just clicked on it okay so he still needs to kill one more tree here to create a small pathway through and sunjata sees it he's coming in building another wall with our blessing and organ guns though uh herald should be able to push that bill back and still look to cut through but it's just buying time now the monks yeah monks uh getting conversions on the organ guns there monks have block printing now so they out range everything that herald has except for the trip and i'm just we're seeing how slow victoria buildups are at a high level it doesn't bring you in eco like actual villagers will and and this is with how many fertorius he's got he's got five so that's a hundred pop space inventories he only has 60 pop on the map now you even have bomber cannons for sinjata this is perfect defense yeah it's gorgeous gorgeous defense uh i i loved how safe he played with the walls it wasn't just one layer when he first saw that pressure it was multiple layers having the monks out uh to deal with the organ guns specifically even some of these arbales getting those conversions while those two monks will go down bombard cannon looking to trade we finally have a pathway cut though yeah we just how much pressure can't come in i can't tell if that this does not seem like it's too good here for overall but you know what the fertoria's paid for it so i don't know i suppose in theory if it continues like this for the next hour even if senjata has the sides sanjatsa will be out of resources gerald does not have a single villager on food but he has so much food so whatever yeah that is the fedora's doing work he's got two stables going up as well on the left-hand side so finally thinking about transitioning to the outer rings with pressure will he see that castle if he sees that castle he could deny it look at that those buildings from sunyata see it i think herald is using the select all archery range hotkey so that archery range is sending units forward right now and he just lost his trip oh the monk the monk just alerted him by trying to convert that villager he does convert the villager the first arbalest comes out but just one arb list i don't believe is going to push all seven of these villagers away but he's bringing four villagers forward and the scouts okay i mean okay this castle's not going up plus monks are dying to arbs on the other side this is really expensive for sinjata he's bringing a lot of bills forward now looking to force it down it's an important castle to get up and i think he'll do it i think it should just get trapped down though the harads should already be making a trebuchet and isn't sadly but i think you don't even have to put that treb in a dangerous position uh to take that castle down so definitely would imagine he should be moving a tribe over there soon yes and jason thinking about the sides here is injustice showing that having eco and having the outer resources is important i'm just a little bit it's so weird because there's so much pop on our screens and yet only 30 of it is with military both players and sunyata in particular need to get more pop out in the field defensive castle now on the hill behind but sanjata is the first with the treb out here on the left side he doesn't see it just yet but as soon as he pushes through these military buildings and now with arbalest to harass this wood line here the few villagers that harold does have are going to have to be relocated to seems to have this locked down you know like oh wow on the right hand side which is the gold fills plus sees the the stable go up exactly that goes up the castle in the middle is a little bit ambitious um but i suppose maybe it's not the monk's already on the way to convert that bomber cannon sandiata's got his own syndiata okay microwing not microwaving okay but you see how like silly vittoria games are dash 170 pop is what it says for herald he doesn't have that he's got 60. yeah this is uh this is a tough spot i mean it was a it was very much an all-in play all of the pressure has been stalled out and now you're starting to feel uh the lack of eco and options uh for the portuguese player got some bombard cannons out on the left-hand side trying to deal with the castle but three trebs as well in response you know you've got to be a little careful if you're sinjata in the middle because you just place the castle which is the clear target so that's something you've got to focus on um it's starting to go down now as monks are being sent forward also the castle on the left is being pushed too but now we have capped ram bomber cannon and treb since then they're feeling confident try and push those yeah a few skirms just to deal with the arbalest as well but the bombard cannons targeting the traps it's making it difficult for senjata to find a way forward seriously and even there look sanjata losing the monks chasing the cannons the cannons were microed back again a trebuchet herald a treb would be so huge here yeah he did have one out and it went down pretty much immediately unfortunately can herald hold here possibly oh don't tell me he got a bombard both bombard cannons missed that monk and so the monk gets a conversion that's that's brutal for herald who's who's who's doing his best to keep this left side alive but i think intelligently uh sunjata is aware that he doesn't need to put on too much pressure so he's waiting for enough arbolus and skirmishers here now he has enough to really control this hill the traps are going to come forward again and look to push it down he's also guard tower on the wood line because why not we upgraded that earlier he was able to push the bombards off in the middle although they are returning now low health castle so we might see pressure back towards the middle as the final option here for herald six fatorias for and well five heralds work so clearly six was the issue yeah as another bombard cannon gets converted here yes indiata's got all the gold all the all the resources he would ever need five relics in the monastery at home and it's just on the right hand side now he's holding oh along with another trebuchet so much damage just two light caps dealing so much damage i have to say i know herald is going to go out of hidden cup with this might not be the best strategy but certainly one of the most unique ones we'll see so i'll respect him for that very true very true one of those that if it works you start freaking out like if this was working right now i think we all know who twitch debt would be guessing but because it's not working they're not saying the name that's a no i gotta be honest i'm i'm there as well though because in my head viper would only do this if he was so confident that this was a winning strategy but that might be giving him too much credit you know for just the quality of player that he is sure sure you know it was a weird game with 40 military for sinjata it's just consistently been under 20 for herald and herald is that 180 pop he's going to lose a fetoria there these things now the take a lot of some knights out some nights out for herald and he will deal with that trebuchet on the right-hand side at least but the push the push continues here on the left-hand side one treb going down still another bombard cannon to deal with the last trip and it does yeah i mean trebs on both sides have gone down for sanjata but i feel like zenyatta has no worries when it comes to that two thousand gold banked up with no fatorias i'm starting to see some karambit warriors now i think and we're seeing it now one big push in the middle will end this game and sundiata's got bomber cannons in the trap the castle will go down victoria's two and it's just feels like it's just a matter of time yeah flood flood gates are going to open with that castle down any kind of unit can come streaming through now all of these features here on the front hand side are under threat from these uh these two trebuchets and two bombard cannons a couple of guard towers behind for good measure because why not playing it ultra safe here yeah um again i always get tattoo vibes when i see keeps or is it someone who realizes they've won this game and they want to fake people out and think have us think that it could be tattoo i could see synthetic being tattooed realistically yeah but actually no no i couldn't because he's sucked on islands man this isn't tattoo celts you're right he wouldn't go celts this is a faker this is yo i'm i'm i'm confident i'm pretty confident in a yo prediction on senjata okay i mean look i'm as confident as you can be in round one you know or day one uh but i fee i told myself in this event i'm gonna predict fairly confidently because if i'm gonna be wrong i may as we may as well be wrong with conviction but gerald calls the gg he taps out as he's receiving pressure on every side the all-in didn't work yeah and that okay what's weird about that is was that strategy practiced another thing that makes me think winchester and we're getting real deep here but if you think about who winchester tends to train with he's training with players he's 100 or 200 elo stronger than like he trained a lot with dark for example dark played well in the qualifier but he's a level or two below winchester perhaps if it is winchester which is my conviction for herald and i think he played great maybe it wasn't tested in the right against the right people because well i wanted this to work so bad and if you go back and listen to my tone i wanted it to be a masterpiece i just didn't really have faith in it ever yeah absolutely well and so here's my next question and maybe there's getting two in the weeds was malay specifically a pick that this is difficult to deal or to deal that kind of damage i'm not i'm not saying that malay was picked under believing that portuguese but was this just an unlucky matchup for this strategy i think that given that the player can get to you know can can get to to castle with so much eco to defend and even didn't have a horrible imperial age time because of the quickness of the upgrade yes you're spot on like malay if you look at their their weapons on arena they're kind of garbage on paper right compared to celts with siege on agers and lithuanians with relics and paladins like they don't have a strong unit it's just their eco and their uptimes so in this instance you're going all in malay is one of the best civilizations to get a lead and defend from that all in now what's weird is i don't think that he necessarily picked malay expecting portuguese because portuguese could have been elsewhere and i don't think that he was necessarily expecting that that fast imp um yeah like imagine if herald had something like celts and just boomed i feel like wood raiders and siege destroy malay so absolutely either goths or gus right or god's goth's pick specifically for this map for exactly that reason they still have they have the option to go wide this to me feels like a map where the ability to raid uh from the sides because you have three points of entry through the middle and from both sides goth feels like a really powerful pick here in a booming scenario but yeah i mean throwing throwing the curveball in portuguese so you know again to give credit there's just i guess as high a chance that you that you catch your opponent off guard with the portuguese pick but in this case it feels like an unlucky sieve matchup against malay and very well played by sunjata i loved again how much caution was put towards that initial push multiple layers of stonewalls plus guard tower double monastery was the perfect defense against low numbers of military dingy

Channel: T90Official - Age Of Empires 2

Views: 89,520

Keywords: Harald Hardraade, Sundjata, Hidden Cup 4, HC4, Age of Empires II DE, Age of Empires, aoe2, aoe2de, t90, t90official, hidden, cup, four, hc3, age, of, empires, two, definitive, edition, round of 16, day 1, harold, hareld, erik, the, red, eric

Id: RhC31nX5QK8

Length: 113min 54sec (6834 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 19 2021