Forge Hub vs Halo Crossing
Our last SNF with The Running Riot took place a couple of weeks ago as you may have noticed recently, but that was not the only match played that fateful weekend. Another team of Forge Hub representatives were quietly fighting for our good name behind the scenes, and only now does this epic tale see the light of day. Our opponents were from a group called Halo Crossing, a community that many of you may have already heard of, or may even be a part of. Having some strong ties with Forge Hub, and sporting some familiar faces in their community leaders and the resulting SNF lineup, Halo Crossing is a group dedicated to all things Halo. Sporting a wealth of information on all three titles in the Halo trilogy, as well as a dedicated section for Halo Wars, the site has a bustling community base. Since the showdown was taking place on the Sunday of the MLG Dallas finals, we thought we'd get in to the spirit of the weekend and settled upon an MLG theme for our matches. Oh, and by the way, that Neven Verano character that you see below is in fact a most cunningly disguised me...
Team Forge Hub
Neven Verano
Qrangeremi
Roche178
Shad0w Viper
Team Halo Crossing
Divine Plan
kidbomber
Swift Strider
Zanitor
Game 1: MLG CTF Pit v6 on MLG Pit v6
A true classic of the MLG Circuit, we decided to kick off the evening's proceedings with a game of MLG Pit CTF, known for its strong set ups over other CTF maps like Onslaught. Forge Hub came out of the gates hard and fast, pushing up on all sides of the map and dominating both power weapons and the CPU off of the spawn, and almost immediately converting to a capture as the pincer closed in on Team Halo Crossing. With 1 cap to our name and dead on a minute of the game gone by, we circled back round for a quick rinse and repeat. Halo Crossing cut our stride short, however, putting a halt to our returning charge and locking down their base as they tried to regroup. But we came back in force, pushing the remaining Halo Crossing members back to their flag room and mopping up before swooping for the second cap in 3 minutes. Halo Crossing managed to get their act together and made a serious push to our side of the map, grabbing our flag and looking to bring the game closer to level pegging with time to spare. But a combination of poor route choice and, well, Shad0w, quickly put a stop to that, or so we thought. Halo Crossing pushed us back long enough to secure their first cap, pulling us up to a 2-1 score with over 10 minutes still left on the clock. But this overextension would cost them, and our attempts to stop their flag runner quickly turned into a counter-cap at the hands of yours truly. Swift Strider somehow snuck onto our side of the map and put up a spirited last stand to try and stop the final cap, but my team was right behind me and I managed to dash past to put in the final flag and close out game 1 in under 5 minutes.
Final Score:
Team Forge Hub: 3
Team Halo Crossing: 1
Tactical extraction
Game 2: MLG Ball v6 on MLG Guard v6.1
Game 2 played out like a truly classic game of Guardian Ball, with one team taking an early lead in an attempt to set the tone of the game right from the off. That team just so happened to be us, and as we clocked up more and more ball time, Halo Crossing was unable to break our setup, let alone enforce one of their own and net some significant points. Our slaying was on form, map control was good, and overall communication saw that no member of the blue team snuck around us unnoticed. But, as is so often the case once again with Guardian Ball, Halo Crossings sheer determination saw them scrapping more and more precious seconds as we spent our time trying to stop their relentless pushing off the spawn. We suddenly noticed that our comfortable lead of over a minute had been eaten away to less than 20 seconds, and Halo Crossing wasn't letting up at all. We knew we had to start seriously keep to the objective and focus the slaying around that to regain our position. With the enemy now only 2 seconds behind us, we finally managed to grab the ball for more than a fleeting second and pull away just enough to secure a victory by time limit, but with a lead of under 15 seconds, this one ended up being a lot closer than any of us on Team Forge Hub had been counting on.
Final Score:
Team Forge Hub: 212
Team Halo Crossing: 199
Lock it down
Game 3: MLG TS v6 on MLG Amp v6
Victory had already been claimed in the name of Forge Hub, if only just, but the draw of MLG and the custom of SNF spurred us on to the 3rd game to cap the evening off properly. Game 3 took place on MLG Amplified, the only forged map of the three used that night. A staple of competitive Foundry maps, Amplified is the true home of fast paced, BR-based teamwork. I didn't start this game well in any sense of the word, taking so long to even get my first kill that some of my team already had double digits on the board before I pushed off that painful zero mark. Skirting at the edge of my team's movement about the map, I put in assist after assist only to be denied kill after kill. Finally things began to pick up, and as my place within the team flow settled down I began to catch up. I ended up netting my only negative performance of the night, and the only one for Team Forge Hub during game 3, but my assist count hint towards the real story of this game; Shad0w and Roche absolutely destroying to keep Forge Hub ahead by a wide margin for the entire game. Closing out with a final score exactly double that of Halo Crossing, our main slayers for the game really stepped up to ensure that this game 3 was closed out in another sub-5 minute performance.
Final Score:
Team Forge Hub: 50
Team Halo Crossing: 25
Unstoppable Roche
So there we have it, two SNFs in one night and two wins to our name. We'd like to thank Halo Crossing once again for coming out and having some MLG-themed good times with us. As always, they're great guys to play alongside or against. Keep an eye out for the next SNF, and let's hope that we can maintain this newfound run of victories at the hands of communities from all four corners of the Halo universe.