Thursday, May 31, 2012

Art Chaos: MS Bitburg 2012

Red circles indicate a primary position taken more than 60% of the time OTB. In the case of Home & the D-side Can it ranged between 80-100% of the time. And the orange circled TCK on the D-side developed over the weekend into a near constant primary OTB. Otherwise orange colored props were alternative primaries used at least 25% of the time. The two that are also green indicate the principle secondary props. The light blue SD was an unusual primary OTB as was the snake corner CK; they were used primarily to break their previous patterns and get wide guns up asap.
From the color coding it's easy to see that the basic Art Chaos (AC) strategy OTB is to minimize early risk and get guns up quickly for lane control. What is less obvious is that AC consistently played the D-wire as the strong side of the field--by that I mean they tended to commit their 3rd gun to that side even when the intent was to go up the middle. They also preferred the majority of the time to fill the upfield middle props via secondary rotations once they could make a decision about where to commit their guns after either getting an elimination or gaining clear control over a portion of the field with their guns.
Here's the basic breakout: red T, 2 guns at Home, the D-side insert Can plus either upfield TCK or Can or the D-side TCK. The most common choices were the D-side TCK and the upfield Can. In purple you can see the primary lanes shot OTB (with some minor variations). The plan is simple enough; keep 5 bodies alive OTB and play early contain. The red T played wide can control rotations to the corner or snake and if played on the inside can counter secondary moves up the middle. Both sides of Home shoot constant lanes either keeping the opponent inside or forcing them to move thru the lanes risking elimination. With two shooters at Home there are players in reserve who can move either direction to fill for eliminated teammates or take up secondary positions that begin to lock the field down. For that purpose the preferred route was the upfield D-side Can. The snake shaded TCK was used less often and frequently earlier, as an aggressive secondary move, to increase the pressure on the opponents in their primaries for eliminations and as a change of pace. The principle attack was a direct line to the D-side of the M followed immediately--or as nearly as possible--with a sweep up thru the doritos. (Occasionally vice versa) Snake side play looked to bump wide to the wire and if a snake option presented itself--due to previous eliminations mostly--a closing sweep along the snake wire could be incorporated in the close out.
There were some tactical options that largely amounted to adjusting the timing of certain actions in order to alter shooting lanes either OTB or in expectation of countering an expected move, etc. In any event the basic game plan is as described. If any AC matches become available to watch, particularly prelim matches, you will plainly see the core pattern and follow-up execution outlined here.
If you have any follow-up questions don't hesitate to ask in comments.

14 comments:

Tor said...

Well, if you want to reveal it, what was your basic breakout and how did you approach this particular match?

Anonymous said...

What exactly was the point of this post?

You are quick to discuss flaws in event planning/execution, opposing team's strategies, reffing, how worthless divisional teams are, etc. But I don't remember the last time I read something stimulating related to the struggles/successes of TBD. Your post regarding PSP Phx is a great example of the point im trying to make "We're out" thats it no more about it, change subject to something other than TBD.

I understand its your blog and you can write whatever the hell you want but as an interested reader I think it would be great to read something related to TBD other than where you went out to eat or how much your flight times sucked.

I am sure you will have a Rahel-like retort and prove how much more intelligent you are or why you don't go into details regarding TBD but maybe take that into consideration next time you write a post, or not. /end rant

Neal said...

Baca
how about movie reviews in a hundred words or less starting with Prometheus.

N

Anonymous said...

I like these kind of posts. As previous commenter I would also like to compare with tbd's gameplans.

Another thing that I really would like to have your thoughts on is the euro style of paintball. You say they do run throughs and try to immitate American style paintball but do not succeed. Could it be so that the way euro style is played in Millennium works on the Millennium field layouts? I do know that Dynasty do have a lot of success in Millennium being an american team, but playing for so many years in Millennium have they adapted to.the eurostyle play when playing there? It can't just be bad reffing making it hard for american teams?

Thanks for a great blog!

Baca Loco said...

Tor
We had a very specific game plan for AC predicated on their tendencies. And in two points had forced them to start making adjustments to counter us--which is what you want as it forces the opponent to react. I may talk about this more in another post.

Anon #1
I would have thought that was pretty easily discerned--to breakdown the plan and basic execution employed by AC in Bitburg. All the Eurokids know AC and consider them virtually unbeatable so I thought they might be interested in what AC was doing.

As for the rest VFTD is a blog about competitive paintball not TBD and I do not trade on inside team bidness in this blog and never will. For the longest time I never even mentioned the team but at this stage that's almost impossible.

Neal
Sounds like fun but I don't watch that many movies. 50 words on movie trailers?

Anon #2
If you missed it the 'One Crazy Game' post in April should answer most of your questions.
Euro teams are certainly (sorta) playing the game the way the MS wants them to play.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the ideas employed rather the execution tends to be poor and less about the team than the individual.
Lastly I think the Eurokids are emulating who they think Dynasty is--and not the other way round.

Anonymous said...

Is 'eurokid' intended to be as insulting and degrading as it sounds?

Kid has developed as a pretty hefty insult online and we are curious if this is your intent.

Mark said...

Such an outrage anon#3!!!! To be called a European young goat?!?! Take the high road bro, show everyone that your kidskin is thicker than that!!!

Baca Loco said...

Anon #3
It's only insulting and degrading if you want it to be.

An anonymous 'we'. Well that's a first. How many of you are there and did you take turns typing in keystrokes.

Anonymous said...

The Euro teams are emulating who Dynasty used to be.

Now whether that is better than who Dynasty is, remains to be seen... that kind of ball takes a roster that has been playing together consistently for years, and intelligent players, to be effective.... and none of the euro teams are there yet.

Euro teams play faster than US teams today, while US teams most definitely play better team ball.

Question is if the Euro teams get better at playing cohesively first, or the US teams speed up first ;)

Personally I find the development exiting, and think the gap in playing level between us and euro teams has closed significantly.... it is not closed yet, but at least the MS is no longer a cake walk for vacationing american players anymore.

Anonymous said...

I don't know how much speed matters as long as you win. Being aggressive for aggressiveness sake doesn't make much sense if you lose consistently to teams that play as a team.

I'm pretty sure US teams know how win some quick points. You see it all the time. But it's better to win consistently and confidently as a team than blow down the field getting chopped to pieces as some witnessed Damage do in Chicago on Sunday (ouch)

Anonymous said...

To hell with that. Old school Image style was the deal. I wish more teams had that mentality today. Go hard and go fast. Always. But the guns are so fast today it probably isn't an option. I just loved the mentality Image played with. It was so exciting. I bet those guys would have all quit playing if today's guns were used back then. They played to win. But they played to have fun and the style they chose just isn't a viable option today.

Missy Q said...

I don't think 'kid' was used in an 'insulting or degrading' way at all.
I definitely saw it more as a 'belittling or condescending' kinda comment.

Anonymous said...

I think Baca is so old, that everyone is a kid to him. Just like how Missy is so fat, that everyone is lunch to her.

Baca Loco said...

Thanks, Anon--I think. Missy was just trying to be helpful in her usual ham-fisted way. :)