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This past Saturday night was the first time I had the opportunity to participate in Epic CTF, a Team Schooly D Classic Customs legend. And, indeed, TSD delivered an absolutely Epic CTF experience.
But.. what IS Epic CTF? It's an official TSD map/gametype: CTF on Hemorrhage, sans wraiths and shotguns. 3 flags to win, flag at home to score, no time limit. How does all of that play out? Let's find out!
First, let's meet the players:
While this was my first time in Epic CTF, it was not for many other players. They knew what needed to be done: Avateur called for an immediate rush for the Blue flag.
40 seconds into the game, Avateur and Kanbo already had the Blue flag and had boarded a Warthog to bring it home.
As Blue team was just making their initial attempt at our flag, Kanbo was already scoring the first point of the game.
Gametime: 56 seconds.
Score: Red 1, Blue 0.
At the 4 minute mark, Infinite Se7en managed to get Red flag through teleport just as NartFOpc did the same for Blue.
In the crazy few moments that followed, as players died and respawned, they joined the effort to collect the enemy's flag rather than defend their own. You can see here as both Blue and Red team rally around their flag carriers:
Then this happened:
Red team has Blue's flag. Blue team has Red's flag. Let the battle begin.
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Game 1: One Flag CTF on Powerhouse
Wait, what?
That's right, through the magic of write-up time-travel, I'm going to interrupt the write-up of Epic CTF with a write-up of the first official game of the night, One Flag CTF on Powerhouse! It's a write-up within a write-up!
I should mention that an unusual turn of events had me not only showing up (rare enough on it's own), but actually hosting this particular customs night. As it is, I only have the classic built-in maps/gametypes, so offerings were a bit off from matchmaking's latest tweaks.
That might explain why Blue team decided to take our flag in the wrong direction..
..which was our saving grace. Asides from Blue team's round-1 directional snaffoo, both teams made the most of the remaining rounds, dragging the enemy flag foot by foot with a rope made of mangled corpses.
Red Team wins against Team Should Stop And Ask Directions, 2-1.
Gametime: 8 minutes, 37 seconds.
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Let's rejoin Epic CTF and see what's happening.
Both Red and Blue team needed to recover their own flags to score. But with strong players on both teams, defending their stolen flag was equally as important.
Getting into the enemy base wasn't particularly hard. But the flag carriers were hiding and had to be found. Even then, the flag had a 15 second return timer.
Inevitably, the other team would show up in force before you could return your flag.
It was starting to feel a little impossible. Then I saw Infinite Se7en hiding with our flag in a very unusual spot:
Under fire, he fled through the teleporter! THROUGH THE TELEPORTER! Suddenly our flag was no longer in Blue's impenetrable spawn fortress, but was now isolated in the middle of the map! This was the lucky break we were waiting for! I shouted the alert to my team: ASSEMBLE!
But Blue had no shortage of Warthogs. Red team didn't rally in time and Blue recovered our flag back to the safety of their base.
And there they hid.
And here we hid with theirs.
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Game 2: Multi Flag CTF on Highlands
I spent most of this game making lone attempts at Blue's flag, learning the hard way that Canecutter and his rocket launcher was all the defense they needed. Blue pulled out a capture in the last 30 seconds of the game. I never even saw it happen.
Blue Team wins against Team Singlefile, 1-0.
Gametime: 10 minutes, 10 seconds.
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It was crushing to let the teleporter incident slip away. I felt that that had been our one chance to recover our flag. We launched assault after assault on the Blue base. We found the flag carrier. We killed him. We crouched on top of our flag. The Blue team swarmed us. We died. Our flag remained in their grasps.
I was starting to recognize that recon was going to be an important part of getting our flag back. Precious seconds were being wasted searching the inside and outside of Blue base to find the carrier. I perched in Blue cave as a lookout. And what did I see...
Unfortunately for us, Infinite Se7en chose to drop with our flag into Blue base, rather than take the teleporter again. Darn!
At this point, our assaults on Blue base were starting to resemble these Warthogs. They never stood a chance from the beginning:
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Game 3: Oddball on Reflection
Blue Team set up a solid defense in the staircase, earning a straight 70 seconds of ball control. When Red finally gained possession, there was some confusion on where we wanted the ball. We knew we wanted it out of that -blam- staircase, but without a solid plan the ball ended up in what I would consider one of the least defensible places on the map:
It was a grenade trap. No amount of bubble shields was sufficient--bodies, explosions, balls. Well, just the one ball I guess. It was a mess down there. Blue gained possession several times, but the ball never moved and ultimately Red pulled out the win.
Red Team wins against Team Should Have Taken The Elevator, 150-106.
Gametime: 6 minutes, 20 seconds.
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I tried to rally our team to launch coordinated attacks on Blue base. We were successful in gaining entrance. We had some almost recoveries, but Blue team would always overwhelm us in the end.
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Game 4: Invasion on Boneyard
Blue "Wort Wort Wort" Team hit Bravo hard, but not quite hard enough. Round 1 was a skunk.
Red Team fared better on offense, but Blue Team stopped them in Round 3. As for the game itself, it was carnage of the kind that only Elite on Spartan action can provide:
Red Team wins against Team Skunk'd, 2-SKUNK.
Gametime: 14 minutes, 58 seconds.
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Infinite Se7en was hiding by the teleporter again when The Kanbo got through and killed him. Our flag dropped ON blue's teleporter, so when rowboat 000 went to retrieve it, he brought our flag back into the middle of the map!
Our flag was, once again, in the open! ASSEMBLE!!
iMonkey777 and I were quick on the scene. I stopped to block blue's teleport. We may have even succeeded had it not been for Antithesis:
Once again, Blue recovered our flag to their base. And there they hid.
And here we hid with theirs.
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Game 5: One Flag CTF on Spire
Remember I had built-in gametype variants? Lack of matchmaking's jetpack loadout was an interesting twist for this game. It seems that the key to Spire is air control. Both teams seemed pretty equally matched in that regard.
Tie game, 2-2.
Gametime: 8 minutes, 39 seconds.
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I petitioned my team several times to give up Blue's flag. Let them recover, let them score. The game would be tied and we could make a fresh attempt at their flag.
I was certain that we would succeed.
Instead, the battle raged on. And on.
Eventually, Avateur and I reached the Blue base completely unimpeded. We had several moments before the Blues would arrive. We searched. Our flag was not here.
I returned to my lookout post in search of our flag. It was no where to be seen.
But this was not our first time playing Hemorrhage. We know her secrets. We knew where to look next:
But two could play that game:
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Game 6: Neutral Bomb Assault on Breakpoint
After surviving Blue's caravan of doom (almost their entire team following behind their wraith), Blue pushed hard through tunnel. We recovered, gained possession, and pushed back. Then this happened:
Yes, those are all piloted by Blue players. Blue's vehicle domination brings them to an easy victory.
Blue Team wins against Team Doesn't Have Any Banshees, 1-0.
Gametime: 10 minutes, 18 seconds.
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Every attempt we made, we moved closer and closer to taking out their carrier in his rocky haven.
Perhaps sensing the danger, Blue team took our flag back inside their base. It was just in time, as our team arrived in force, completely oblivious that the flag had been moved.
I was the lone survivor of our assault. I hid back on the rocks, hoping they wouldn't realize I was still alive. On lookout, I tried to spot our flag. I had also hoped that they would return it to this rocky spot, where I would be ready to pounce on the unsuspecting carrier!
Meanwhile, NartFOpc's hiding place was secure. Blue had no idea where their own flag was, so the rest of our team could focus entirely on offense. Our team fought and fought.
And fought.
Then it happened. Our stalemate was broken:
After defeating Blue's retalitory assault, our team brought Nart out of hiding for the capture:
Gametime: 1 hour, 11 minutes, 08 seconds.
Score: Red 2, Blue 0.
I was waiting. I hadn't left my lookout of Blue's base, so as soon as Blue team's flag respawned, I was on top of it completely unhindered.
As I walked out of Blue base, I had a choice to make: Left or Right?
I chose right. So did Blue team, as they all respawned with me in their sights:
Ultimately, it was MoltenSlowa that sneaked past Blue's defenses and brought their flag through the teleporter. We moved it inch by painful inch to our base. Then, finally:
Red team wins against Blue team, 3-0.
Gametime: 1 hour, 15 minutes, 9 seconds.
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All told, our 'Your flag must be at home to score!' standoff lasted 62 minutes--longer than the combined total gametime of all 6 previous games.
It was awesome!
There were bonus games to follow--lighthearted, goofy stuff. I won't discuss those here--you'll have to fight your own way through Epic CTF to experience those :).
Thanks to Schooly D for organizing these game nights, and to everyone who participated:
Antithesis721
Avateur
CaneCutter
CortanaVII
hellmitre
iMonkey777
Infinite Se7en
KoRnyMunKy
MoltenSlowa
NartFOpc
Pkmnrulz240
Roland Zevon
SNIPE 316
The Kanbo
rowboat 000
unhh
Wilshire2
ZaneZavin
You guys were awesome.
I also invite you guys to check out the postgame stats. Red team had a combined 29 Flag Carrier Kills, if that suggests how many times we fought to get our flag back. Red team had 404 combined kills, Blue team had 470. Although it doesn't show it, NartFOpc had an incredible 59:60 flag carry time.
Red team also earned a round of Thank the Maker medals--how very appropriate!
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