With three quarterfinal matches concluded, it all came down to the last one.
Jordan’s Urban Warrior is going up against Lebanon’s Silent Hill in a predictably aggressive match. After all, both sides are proponents of the aggressive wave style of play, where teams just unleash drop after drop of the hardest, strongest bot around to destroy their opposition through brute force.
In the case of this metagame, Ancilots were the top examples in the category. Thus, both sides went for the heavy drops early on and Nikolai knew that the side that can outmaneuver the enemy even by a little bit…would win this kind of series. After all, they were the ones who introduced the tactic back in the first edition of the War Robots World Championships back in Moscow.
Since then, tactics have improved in every manner possible, and Medevdev knows very well that their time might be over as cerebral teams like Korea and the Philippines have totally stepped up their game.
However, he’s going to enjoy his prime in the meantime.
One of the unique things in the tournament is the fact that there’s a female player in the Lebanese lineup.
Adeline “STRYKER” Yusop, vice-captain of Silent Hill, may seem to be your typical next-door girl: With a subtle demeanor and a kind personality, she is indeed a good lady in every sense of the term.
However, there’s more than that: She is an extremely intelligent and competitive War Robots player to the point that she is considered to be a “God-level” player.
The maps were quite predictable, as Lebanon chose Moon, Jordan chose Shenzhen and Dead City became the deciding map for their series; after all, these are the best places where close range weapons can shine with flying colors.
Indeed, it turned out to be a colorful match as both sides dropped the full Ancilot complement on their first drop. However, they differed in the details.
While Jordan favored a buddy system in deploying their robots, the Lebanese decided to fan out mid and try to funnel their enemies into a full-scale fight.
STRYKER immediately commanded her team and positioned their Ancilots in such a way that they can run to cover quickly.
On the other side, the Jordanians have prioritized keeping the match as close as possible, making sure that they don’t get clobbered beyond a 2-3 situation in terms of beacons.
After what seemed to be endless waves of Ancilots, the Lebanese were able to finally take control of the map and turn it into a 1-0 lead.
With both sides taking a ten-minute break, they went into the second match with slightly different ideas: While Silent Hill went for the full Rhino play, Urban Warrior envisioned a full Bulgasari lineup.
While theoretically, Jordan’s lineup was better, the STRYKER showed why she was an extremely insane player: With one single Rhino and occasional support from her teammates, she was able to hold off two attacks by Jordan at the right beacon before finally being forced to eject her first drop.
Garnering 1.1 million damage as well as nine kills and three beacon captures, Yusop definitely showed everyone that she was not just a beauty. To add insult to Jordan’s injury, the Lebanese team trapped them inside their spawn in the last third of Shenzhen, which lead the analytical caster to comment,
“Man, that was the first blowout that I’ve ever seen in a World Championships semi-final! Hot damn!”
She was a fierce beauty…and living proof that gaming and gamers don’t have to be separated by gender; rather, that they can do it through sheer skill, smarts and determination.
As a result of their rather quick and odd 2-0 sweep, Lebanon is the last country to make it to the semi-finals of War Robots’ most prestigious tournament. They will join the Philippines, Russia and Brazil the next day.
You can read the next chapter here! As for the previous one, you can always go back!
