Hello everyone, thanks to Bacilus we have some exciting predictions for the finals! Have fun reading!

Bac's Div 1 Final Coverage!

So, the big showdown of season 11 is closing by. As expected before the season, Flatline and Gangbang(/timmerman/lolsteamroll/saunamen/epic/whatever) are going to decide who takes the might champion icons until the next finals. I'll go through things that you'll want to pay attention while watching the match in HLTV.

I'm hoping that we can get at least some shoutcasting done for the finals, so stay tuned on that too.

Marine play

Tactics
Flatline:
The German team's marine rounds involve a lot of early shotguns and most like an obs-first build. Usually they push to nodes with big brute force, take down a node or two and then move on to set up a PG. After that it's a standard 'upgrades into a second hive push' plan. Their strategies often heavily rely on the push team, while the cappers aren't taking much of hurry to get the economy going.

Gangbang:
The Finns are a tough one to predict. Most of the time they'll use a two-man, one shotgun pressure team while 3 marines secure the economy, but there have been variations and exceptions here and there. We've seen fast node LMG pushes, spread two-node pressure, interesting capping routes and I wouldn't be surprised if they try something new on the finals too. Their builds usually involve a fast armslab, but later on it might turn out to be anything from a double hive lockdown to a proto vs 2-hive war.

Individuals
Flatline:
Morvie and Phil are the two impact players on marines. Phil is a solid all around player and he makes nice use of the LMG's mobility. Morvie on the other hand is the master of SG. A lot of the FL's success relies on his ability to take out at least a node. Without any node pushing success they're going to be in a big hurry against the second hive. Cosmic has also done a great job on marines here and there, but she hasn't been as consistent as Phil and Morvie. Saperion's comming has been decent, but FL has also slipped a few marine rounds they could've won with a little more organised play and different decisions.

Gangbang:
The Gangbangers field an interesting mix of marine power. Peach is definitely the maestro leading the rounds from the CC. You'll want to pay attention to his marvellous res control. Last week's ns_lost marine round is a good example as he kept GB in the play with 2-3 nodes for a long period of time. From that point on there have been many players with decent performances. Tane's aim is absolutely devastating and has allowed GB to go for the 2-man node pushes. Last week we also saw Zharp doing some very decent shotgunning. In addition to the shotgun masters, Kuitmo and Doogie have been very good all-around.

Alien play

Tactics
Both teams play relatively standard alien rounds. GB likes to use a lot of gorges, while FL relies more on skulkwork and maybe one gorge at max. The gorgepower allows GB to OC up the 2nd hive and recap the lost nodes quickly, so we've seen them abandoning their nodes quite easily.

FL's skulkwork is devasting at its best. Once they gain the map control the marines have to struggle hard to regain any of it. GB on the other hand shines on lifeform synergy. Gorges give excellent support to the rest of the team and you'll rarely see any lone lifeforms trying to fight the big enemy groups.

Individuals:
Flatline:
The FL early game is powered by Phil's awesome lerking. He does excellent bite harass and sporing. Most of the time the marine push groups are taking long walks on spore and require heavy medding to reach their destination. Later on the round Morvie's good fading keeps the marines busy. Handschuch seemed to skulk surprisingly well last week, but his veil fade was probably the least effective effort on the whole week. The rest of the FL operates as one powerful skulkpack, but I can't name any alpha skulks from the pack.

Gangbang:
The big question here is how Tane's fading goes. It has been quite flashy here and there. Last week he did a decent job, but not much more. Nevertheless, GB shouldn't fall because of his fading unless there are more flashed ones coming. Nade and Kuitmo have both been very reliable lerks, but neither of them is on Phil's level. You'll want to pay special attention to the fierce battlegorges too.

Predictions

The last week 2-2 left us with an interesting setup. Both teams proved to be capable of 2-0'ing maps and we saw some quite close rounds.

I'd say the biggest questions are probably whether Tane steps up on his fading and whether Phil manages to keep up the excellent lerking. FL needs to be effective with their SG pushes and avoid bigger marine mistakes. GB on the other hand needs to outlast the shotguns, most likely by recapping and hitting back on FL nodes. Peach also needs to be on his toes to not to lose the marine game momentum. Apart from that it boils down to a lot of close calls with SGs, nodes and lifeforms. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a baserush either.

As a Finn I'm calling this a 4-2 for GB , but it's very close to 50-50 right now.