It's been a quiet year for STK so far. The only
tournament we'd played together before Singapore was the first round of PALS in
Kuala Lumpur. Typically we would have played a handful of local tournaments
already, but the PPL has been transitioning into "NXL Australia" and
their events have been scheduled to start much later in the year. And due to
work commitments we haven't been able to field a full roster for the new Perth
league, the MPS.
Some of our players are guesting for teams in
Australia's Super 7's. Rambo and I were keen to have some extra-curricular
activity of our own so we set our sights on the TPOC. We had heard many
excellent reports of this event with several top teams from Asia in attendance.
We were fortunate enough to be put in contact with Asia-Pacific champion,
Infernal. After a few Facebook messages, we were scheduled in to join them for
the second round of the TPOC in Bangkok. Coincidentally, the second leg of the
PALS in Singapore was the following weekend. So Andrew and I booked the week
off and planned some R&R in between the tournaments.
To guest with Infernal was an exciting. We have
admired their team for many years. They beat us in the championship game at
World Cup Asia in 2012 and were the overall series champions of PALS last year.
Some of the best players in the Asia Pacific play on Infernal.
The tournament kicked off on Saturday. The field
layout was challenging, there were a lot of big gaps and the wide bunkers were
not ideal... small doritos and mini A's and pins. In typical Bangkok fashion,
it was also hot. I wanted to play good for our new team-mates on Infernal, but
it definitely wasn't an explode down the tapes kind of field. With the huge
gaps it took a lot of patience and a lot of diving to survive the field. Rambo
and I found it a bit easier to talk being on the same side of the field as the
tournament progressed so I stuck it out with him on the snake side eventually.
It was the kind of field where you really had to check off everything before
moving.
It was a highlight to see the Infernal guys in
action from the same side of the field, for once. We managed to play well and
make it through the prelims in 2nd seed. This left us to play off against
Raskal in the semifinals.
We came out strong, going up 2 points quickly.
Then I got a penalty on the break -- I got hit on my outer-most pod, didn't
know and gunned up. That cost us a point. Then we lost the next point. And the
final point, it was a long one to start with. Then, we had some friendly fire
on our side of the field, with Rambo accidentally getting shot. He was holding
up the dorito side, once he was gone I looked over to catch a glimpse of Raskal
flying down the dorito side. And then that was it. We lost and went into the
playoffs for 3rd and 4th. We managed to win that against Virgin Aisawan.
It was a great experience to play with Infernal.
I enjoyed getting insights into how Infernal works. From my observations, I
would say Infernal is more structured and disciplined than STK.
Infernal took us out for a meal after the
tournament and we spoke for hours about our teams. It was great to hear about
certain things from their perspective, how they practice and some of their
history. Infernal really looked after us while we were there. Thank you Ole,
Ae, Shagga, Bank and "the manager" for letting us be a part of
Infernal for the weekend.
The TPOC event was excellent -- it really has it
all. Great competition and friendly atmosphere. The organiser, Tom, really
looks after everyone. I hope the rest of STK can make it to these events in the
future.
With TPOC out the way, Rambo and I had a week to
kill before PALS Singapore. We decided to go to Vietnam to pass the time. We
looked at Ho Chi Minh and then realised it was 40 degrees every day there. We
were still recovering from wanting to kill ourselves every waking moment in the
Bangkok heat as usual, so we settled for the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi, where
it was a much more pleasant 27 degrees.
We stayed in the Old Quarter, a hectic sprawl of
narrow streets packed with motorbikes, cars, people, roadside vendors and
buildings. There were so many motorbikes on the road. Waiting for an opening to
cross the street is impossible. The method is to just go. Don't speed up or
stop, just walk at a steady pace across the road and let the traffic dodge you.
The first day we explored the Old Quarter and
tried the food. We made sure to eat all the classic Vietnamese dishes we had
heard of, Bun Cha, Banh Mi, Pho, and let our AirBNB host show us some other
foods.
The following bay, after a 4 hour bus ride, we
took a junk boat out to Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site; some
thousands of isles emerging from the tropical water. We disembarked the junk
boat to kayak around the isles. If we capsized, there was no way Rambo could
free his giant legs from the kayak in time and he would definitely die. We
precariously threw cameras between our kayak and other tourist's kayaks for
photos all with Rambo's life hanging delicately in the balance.
The bus ride to and from Ha Long Bay went quick
chatting with Rambo. Many things have changed over the last decade and we don't
hang out as much as we did when we were kids but we are great friends.
We spent some more time exploring Hanoi, and then
prepared to continue our journey to Singapore for the second round of the PALS.
We met up with the team on the Thursday and
walked the field. Stevie clocked up his first absence from our travelling
roster as he was tied down with work. That leaves just me as the only STK guy
who has been to every tournament we've ever done.
On Friday, our first game was against Sydney
SWAT. It felt like their offense wasn't quite dialled in for that first game
and we were able to win 4 - 1. Next up we had Raskal who we beat 3 - 1. And
then we LA Wrecking Crew. We'd never seen this team play before. Playing
American teams is exciting as I feel they have a different play style. We won 3
- 1, but the points were close. We had a weird point where Rambo and I were
trapped in the back center trying to hold off their dorito side and we were
taking turns taking pot shots over the top of the bunker. Our breakshooting
that game in particular was pretty strong I think too.
This left us in the weird position of not having
dug ourselves into a hole on the first day for once.
We went onto Saturday and versed the Hellions
from Singapore first, a new team to Division 1. They came out hard and gave us
a really intense, close game. We trailed for most of the game. At 2 - 3, Nalds broke the game open getting down
into their snake. With the score at 3 - 3 and not much time left, we got a kill
on the break and pressed down the field. We were able to come away with the win
with a few seconds left.
We played Raw next. This round, Raw had Damian
Ryan from Infamous guesting for them. We beat Raw 4 -1 to lull us into a false
sense of security. At this point, we'd won all of our prelim games so far which
is unheard of for us. We had one left against Xtioneers. They stomped our faces
in 0 - 4 just to give us something to think about going into Sunday.
Sunday was strange. Nemesis and LA Wrecking Crew
had their semi final up first. We had all our stuff ready in the pits to follow
as the next game. The Nemesis/Wrecking Crew game ended in a tie and went to
overtime. Time expired for that too so it went to one on one's. Then things got
weird, we ended up watching the two teams play 6 or 7 one on one's. It just
kept on going. Then there was a huge commotion about is it meant to be infinite
one on one's played or does it go back to prelim seeding. We waited and waited
for a conclusion. We dumped our hoppers as the paint had all swollen in the
humidity of the pits waiting. It was quite a wait. Finally, it was resolved
with Nemesis winning.
Next up was our semifinal against Raw. What
followed was a Raw we hadn't seen before. It would be easy to say Damian Ryan
did all the work but it wouldn't be true. On the receiving end that game, I can
say that every player on that Raw roster took part in stomping us out. We had
no answer. Damian was clocking G's on the break and flying down the doritos.
The others were wrecking us too. In the prelims, I think we had more success as
we were getting G's on the break and it left us with more bodies to deal with
Damian. In this game, the kills just weren't coming on the break. We got shut
out 0 - 4. It was crushing. I thought we might be able to win two PALS in a
row. I got back in the pits after getting shot out that last point and had a
slam fest with a bunch of pods. I'm glad Hunter was there to see it and be
proud of my rage. Getting shut out in the semi's is heinous.
Raw went on to shut out Nemesis too and won the
tournament. I couldn't be mad for long -- Raw have helped us in the pits so
many countless times. Jane, aside from being a paintball celebrity in her own
right is also one of our paintball idols, and all of the guys on that team are
so earnest and nice. It was great for them to win.
And that was it. Two third places in 10 days. New
friends on Infernal. Getting curb stomped in a semi's game. Back to Perth.
We're currently sitting at the top of the PALS
scoreboard, and I would have to attribute some of this to our M2's. Thank you
DYE for your continued support.
