It's been a long wait, but it's time for the final bout in this great season!
The teamsFor the 5th time through WDL's 7 seasons, we'll be seeing another battle between the overall #1 and #2 seeds in the league. After receiving byes during the playoff's quarterfinals phase, these teams proved their dominance once again by defeating their semifinals opponents without losing any games.
The Techno Vikings have cemented their status as one of the WDL's most legendary teams, by achieving the perfect score of 20 points through the regular season for the first time ever and showing surreal resistance against losing that is reminiscent of Water's teams in past seasons. Their commitment to consistent practise sessions and expert play in pretty much every position were the primary forces behind their seemingly flawless performances. Most expected them to make it this far as soon as Caution finished his draft, but nobody quite expected them to beat everyone up
that badly on their way here.
The Dream Team also boast an impressive season, with 15 points and their sole loss being against TKV, while TDT's members were admittedly in bad shape and without practise. With a variety of team line-ups and positions, they have crushed many other teams that looked evenly matched on paper. DemonSphere has shown that he's done messing around, and that he'll be going all out for the championship he's sought for so long. We should expect DS's team pulling out a much stronger game than they did against their championship adversaries a couple of months back.
The playersThe Techno Vikings' line-up has been a somewhat heated topic of discussion as the season went by. Caution has notoriously been an upper echelon player for every season he attended, and his draft was superb for a first-time captain. Avc became
the runner to look out for, as he made the final adjustments necessary to break into top levels of play over the course of past seasons, clinically tearing apart every defence he came across. GhostKiller was a strong backbone for the team during the regular season, being the fragging powerhouse the team needed to kept the pressure on while Caution and Avc played their own game. For the more important games, however, GhostKiller's dumb antics and silly mistakes led to him being replaced by Xenaero, who has played some of his greatest performances yet, cementing his place as one of the season's scariest fraggers and well earning his spot as a member of TKV's main line-up.
The Dream Team's draft was somewhat of a gamble for this season, as DemonSphere banked on an all-European line-up to make his season work, and it worked out excellently for him: with turSKA displaying his usual flawless and calculated gameplay, Denzoa putting on strong performances at defence, and D'Sparil being another sleeper pick who's helped the rest of the team tremendously, TDT has trampled almost every team and shown themselves to be many steps ahead of the curve. DemonSphere himself hasn't ceased to impress either, with godlike showings regardless of which position he played.
The mapsMAP20 was a likely pick by TKV, seeing as it is historically one of Avc's best maps to run on, while Caution is also an excellent Mid here. TDT's main focus on this map should be fighting back with an equal or superior runner to get away with more flags than their opponents. The other homefield, MAP21, has been on DemonSphere's sights for a while, and the rest of his team has adapted really well to it as shown in their comebacks against REG in the semifinals. TKV must learn the map inside out or else they might actually get steamrolled.
The statsLifetime match W/L/T spread:
Lifetime round W/L/T spread:
This is a first-time championship match for all TKV members (disregarding BST in Summer 2016 as Avc was a sub-in player and did not play) and TDT's turSKA and D'Sparil, and a second time for DemonSphere and Denzoa (disregarding WUMBO in Winter 2015 as, like Avc, he was a sub player and didn't play). D'Sparil and GhostKiller have made it to the finals in their first season. This will be the first season where neither Water nor Torvald will be crowned champions as they haven't participated in this season. The only player who would not be considered a first-time WDL champion upon winning is Denzoa, as he has victories in Winter 2015 (sub) and Summer 2015 (active).
The predictionTKV might be the favourites to win, but this will most likely end up being a 5-round battle of endurance.
- TKV wins game 1 with a sturdy 2 or 3 flag lead;
- TDT quickly adapts and comes out much stronger in game 2, but TKV gets away with a last-minute tie;
- TDT keeps up the momentum and wins game 3 in a dominant fashion;
- TKV swiftly changes things up and clutches a win in game 4 by scoring several caps in a short while;
- Momentum shifts back to TKV as game 5 is played on their homefield once more. TDT in this case scenario will lose if they don't win this game. With that in mind, TDT plays a very aggressive game, leading to a low-scoring battle that will end up in TKV's favour simply from the homefield advantage.
TKV 3-1-1 TDT
