Saturday, January 29, 2005

Weekend Schedule

Here's all of Sundays games and the MR point spread. All times are in EST.


ProBowl 15 Game 3

Betrayal vs Assassins @ 6.30pm (even)
(series tied 1-1)


AML Semi Finals

ElementalForces vs Llamasery @ 4pm (llamas by 2.5)

StarFire Elite vs NightBane @ 5pm (SFE by 3.0)


For more info and all the latest league news check out the Premier League website.

Friday, January 28, 2005

AML Semi Finals Quick Predictions

Well it's like this...

I just finished the semi final predictions and was copy and pasting them into the blog when my PC froze up. Couldn't do anything to fix it, had to reboot and it was bye bye predicts =(

So instead of re-writing them, which I'm fucked if I'm going to do, you're only going to get this summery of what I wrote:


Llamasery vs ElementalForces

Tight game here, with llamas trying to keep their shape against EF's more aggressive style. The key here may be Sky0ne's Strong Bad style computer explosion. Without that control from spec we could see another performance like the NB loss from EF as ego's run unchecked, and if it's one thing EF have got in spades it's unchecked egos. Llamas to just sneak it in a very tight low scorer. And yes I know last week I said whoever won the EF/BN game would be my pick to win it all. In my original predictions I spent a log time going over this in detail and why I could still choose llamas. You'll just have to take my word that I had very good arguements.
Quickometer: 3-2 Llamasery


NightBane vs StarFire Elite

Another tight game. SFE have the teamwork, NB have the individual skill. This match is going to be decided on one thing: lag. Both these squads have laggers falling out of their asses. The difference between them though is that NB's laggers usually end up in spec while SFE's laggers will stay in and tank. Another point to bare in mind is that both of these teams have choked before deep into the playoffs when they were expected to win and I expect this game will be decided on a choke by someone here. As NB seem to be the team of density right now I'll go with them to win it in another tight one with MfA choking to lose it for the StarFire Elities.
Quickometer: 8-6 NightBane


As these are pretty shitty predicts I'm going to do something extra next week as I unveil my first ever Vorbometer Super Bowl predictions. Football predictions with subspace analogies. Does it get any better than that?

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Freaky Predicts

Freakmonger has put up some AML predictions on his subspace website. You can read them here.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

The World According to Vorbis

I've decided to start another blog for my mindless non-subspace related ramblings. It's called Sick Sad World and you can check it out here.

AML semi final predictions up tomorrow.

Monday, January 24, 2005

Weekend Results

All of yesterdays results and stats:


Probowl 15 Game 2


Assassins bt Betrayal 5-4 (after OT)

MVP: turb (Ass) 3-2, 2 FR (+177)
LVP: Inno (Bet) 1-2, 3 FR (-146)
Game Time: 47:43
series tied 1-1


AML Playoffs Round 2


StarFire Elite bt Fly-NDeath 12-4

MVP: MfA (SFE) 5-1, 2 KO (+149)
LVP: Xudikkor (FnD) 0-3 (-193)
Game Time: 25:01

Llamasery bt Warlords 8-6
MVP: Crunchy (llamas) 3-0 (+141)
LVP: morphine (llamas) 0-1 (-157)
Game Time: 45:00

ElementalForces bt BlackNike 12-3
MVP: mOuSeR (EF) 5-0, 3 KO, 4 FR (+148)
LVP: Frowzy (BN) 1-3, 2 FR (-183)
Game Time: 32:13

NightBane bt CtrlShift 6-4 (after OT)
MVP: Lateralus (NB) 2-0, 1 assist, 2 FR (+160)
LVP: Drunk Virus (CS) 0-1, 1 FR (-93)
Game Time: 47:27


To read full match stats and game logs go to MasterRater and to get all the latest league news check out the Premier League website.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Mauler's Predictions Updated

Mauler has put up an AML squad review on his website. It's a very interesting read and you can check it out here.

eBloggy Update

The problem with eBloggy was due do their current server crashing and then deciding to switch severs because of it.

They are due to be back online sometime today. I'm not going to move back though. Once the eBloggy blog is back up I'll move the archive over to here then shut it down.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Weekend Schedule

Here's all of tomorrows matches in Pro and AML and the MR point spread. All times are in EST.


Probowl 15 Game 2

Assassins vs Betrayal @ 7.30pm (even)
(Bet lead series 1-0)


AML Playoffs Round 2

Fly-NDeath vs Starfire Elite @ 4pm (SFE by 6.5)

Llamasery vs Warlords @ 5pm (llamas by 1.0)

BlackNike vs ElementalForces @ 5pm (EF by 0.5)

CtrlShift vs NightBane @ 5pm (even)


For more info and for all the latest league news check out the Premier League website.

Friday, January 21, 2005

AML Playoffs Round 2 Predictions

I went an impressive 2-3 in round 1 last Sunday. The two I got right were the obvious Llamasery over Fly-NDeath and the equally obvious (to me) NightBane over ElementalForces, although for different reasons than I expected.

The three I got wrong were SFE over BlackNike, which was the most surprising result of the round for me, not so much for SFE winning, but the manner of their victory. I expected BN's pace to push SFE back and when they subbed in their lower ranked players for reps for them to overwhelm them. Instead the opposite happened. The score was tight through the match and BN seemed to have the advantage, but SFE took over after the subs.

In the other two games I got wrong I got my upsets crossed. After the build-up I gave Warlords last week, including making them my most improved team of season, I still picked Disavowed for the win. I forgot about Dis' usual early round 1 exit in the playoffs when they're favourites and that's exactly what happened. The other game was Secret against CtrlShift, which was the game I did call the upset in, but in the end CS held on for an 8-7 squeaker after leading and looking comfortable at 6-3 and 8-4.

The highest rated player of the round was taffee who racked up +141 while going 4-0 with 2 KO's in leading Warlords to their upset over Dis. The LVP went to EF's Empower who rocketed his way to a dismal -301 MR Rating and an 0-3 record.

So here's the Vorbometer predictions for round two of the playoffs, which this week are brought to you by the VW Polo, small but tough.


BlackNike (#4) vs ElementalForces (#2)
$$$ Game of the Week $$$


The playoffs really start here. Both of these teams have what it takes to win the title, but one of them is going to get knocked out on Sunday. Both these teams suffered unexpected losses last week and both of them will be looking to make a statement here. Hell, I'll go farther than that; the winner of this match is going to win the championship. Who wins this game will be the team that can put their round 1 performance behind them and both teams have some baggage after what happened.

With EF I think the problem last week was that Sky0ne wasn't at the match. Against NB they looked disorganised. If you look at the box score then the choker of the match is obvious, it's Empower. In fact the real choker of the game was DarkDisparage on NightBane. I specced him for most of the game and he had a real mare of a match. His aim was totally off and he was redlining a lot. After a NB kill to start the match it was no surprise the next two kills were both on DD. But here's where EF lost it. The call to target DD obviously came from the players in the game, not from spec and they just opened up on him. Empower rocketed the shit out of him and all DD had to was backarrow and drop the odd bomb in his path. The next three kills were all on Empower and that was the game. DD ended up being the MVP.

BN's loss was completely different. The game was going completely to plan, for both teams. BN were hitting SFE hard, pushing them back and burning their specials. SFE were keeping their shape, not offering any obvious targets to BN and subbing for specials when needed. At the 28 minute mark the score was 5-5 and with Mauler and The Deist subbed out for MfA and Raspi things were looking in BN's favour, but SFE went on a three kill streak and although there was still five minutes left and the match was still 4v4 BN panicked and started to hit SFE as though it was the last minute of the game. They rocketed around the map, crossed their targets and blew any real chance they had in getting back into the game. BN did get two kills back, but the last kill went to SFE for a 9-7 win. The surprising thing for me here was how SFE used their tight slow-it-down style not to slow down BN to their pace, but to actually speed them up more and force errors at crunch times. Normally teams that play like SFE are pushed back hard and split up by BN's relentless pressure until they give up easy targets, but last Sunday it didn't work.

So who's going to bounce back Sunday? Logic says EF. They have players like Vezuvan and Rump Roast that they could throw into the game and I'd expect Sky0ne and Freakmonger to be there this time to control things, but I'm going to be unashamedly biased here and pick BlackNike and I'm doing it for one simple reason. For as long as I've known and played with BN (IML excluded) they've never had back-to-back bad games.

Vorbometer: 6-4 BlackNike
Key Players: Joe Bane (BN), Iron Hands (EF)
Watch out for: DK realising that this is the first time I haven't picked him to choke in a big game, which probably means he is going to choke.


Your Fly-NDeath (#6) vs StarFire Elite (#3)
>.< Complete Mental Breakdown of the Week >.<


I don't know why I'm even bothering to type analysis for this game. FnD were seriously found out last Sunday by llamas. Even if FnD didn't have any lag problems the result and the score would have been the same. ZDX had zero support and FnD were bitch slapped 12-1 and the exact same thing is going to happen this Sunday. FnD are a one-man team and that is not going to get you wins in the playoffs

Vorbometer: 12-0 StarFire Elite
Key Players: Divine, Mauler (SFE)
Watch out for: ZDX finally going bipolar as he gets chased 1v4 by SFE all over the map only 20 minutes into the game. Total meltdown, it's been coming all season.


Llamasery (#1) vs Warlords (#9)


Let's not go with all the happy crappy stuff about how WL's and llamas are such friends. Llamas' are going to run over Warlords here like roadkill and not look back. Warlords may be set up as the upset team of the playoffs (set up by me actually), but llamas' are built so you can't really get an upset out of them. They play so slow and deliberately it's hard to force a choke and you're not going to get them to play in another style to force the mistakes, and besides Warlords aren't built like that either. They're another grind em down style squad. For Warlords to beat llamas they'd have to play like SFE did against against BlackNike last weekend, but they don't have either the individual skill or depth to pull that off.

The only chance Warlords have is if llamas get caught looking ahead to round 3 where they play the winners of the EF/BN game. But considering the season they've had do you think that they're going to be worried who they play next week? Of course not and there goes Warlords last chance. Bye Miz.

Vorbometer: 12-5 Llamasery
Key Players: Perceptor (llamas) Taffee (WL)
Watch out for: Demi back in effect next season


NightBane (#5) vs CtrlShift (#10)


I think NightBane are the favourites in this match, but as I've already said they were very very lucky to come out with a win last week and they're not playing like favourites. Any half way organised team would of beat them last week and if you're looking for a half way organised team then you can't get much better than CtrlShift.

CS are right now in just enough mode. They did just enough to make the playoffs, they did just enough to beat Secret and this weekend they'll do just enough to beat Nightbane and then go on to do just enough against SFE which may or may not be enough, but this is about round two and when we're talking about NB just enough is plenty enough, enough for me to say it's enough anyway.

Vorbometer: 12-10 CtrlShift
Key Players: twIsta (NB), Big Bacon Classic (CS)
Watch out for: Me having enough

Archive Update

I've added all the August posts to the archive.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Do Not Adjust Your Set

I've decided just to go ahead and put the template up. It's going to take a while to get right as the eBloggy script and codes are nothing like Blogger.

The first thing to get right is those codes, to make sure the posts and comments are working OK. So until that's done the blog might look a bit odd for a while, specially the fonts. Also a lot of the links to the right will point to eBloggy pages.

Shouldn't take too long to fix though

Lost Posts Found

I've added the 'lost posts' to the archive. These were the original first few posts on the blog that I accidently deleted.

I've also started work on the template. Hopefully I'll just be able to use the eBloggy template with a few script changes. If not I'll just slap up a new one. Should be up by tomorrow along with my AML playoff predictions.

Moving Again

With eBloggy becoming increasingly unreliable I've decided to take the PremBlog back here permanently.

Season 7 is coming to an end. The IML championship has been decided, The ProBowl should finish this Sunday and AML is half way through the playoffs.

I will continue to do my predictions for AML, but I'm going to concentrate in getting this blog up and running for the start of next season. Right now I'm working on moving the eBloggy template over here, then I'll add all the old archives from eBloggy to here.

Once that's done I'll start to recruit some new posters and get some content up for the start of the season 8.

And this time I promise, no moving back.

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