Editor’s Note: This piece is written by and from the perspective of one of the participating Tuskers pilots.
Last Sunday saw the second round of Bei Artjay’s EVE NT collides series featuring the reigning champions Tuskers vs the challengers Waffles.
Without further introduction I’m going to link the video of the fight as it was a real nailbiter, there are significant gaps between the fights as teams reshipped but I have listed the start times of each round below so you can skip to the action.
Round 2 – 29 mins 10 secs
Round 3 – 52 mins 10 secs
Round 4 – 1 hour 17 mins
Round 5 – 1 hour 39 secs
Round 6 – on twitch file, link later in article
The first round was Tuskers with Vulture/dual Jackdaws vs dual Typhoons/Celestis for Waffles. Our Harpy went in for tackle but got hit quite hard and had to pull range before we tried the same thing in a Jackdaw. Having never flown the damn thing before, I made a massive mistake and got tackled, taking quite a bit of abuse from the Typhoons before pulling out as well. While this was going on, we managed to kill the two Waffles logi frigs, then the Celestis, leaving only the slow Typhoons to be slowly kited down. One dropped but the other held, leaving the score 1-0 Tuskers after the first round.
Round two saw Tuskers field Proteus/Confessors vs Sleipnir/Vagabonds. I thought we had this due to our T2 logi vs two T1 logi frigs. Right off the bat, however, our lone zero tank Griffin got blapped by the Vagas at 70 km and then some good flying by Waffles tackled our Oneiros. While we got their two Logi frigs, our Logi went down quickly followed by the Confessors, then the Proteus. A solid win for Waffles who out-projected us all match. 1-1 each.
Thoroughly shocked by our piloting errors in the previous match, we played a bit careful in round 3. The matchup was Absolution/dual Heretics with an Augoror and Sacrilege for Tuskers vs dual Armageddons, VNI and dual Navitas for Waffles. Obviously we didn’t want to get close to the heavy neuts of the Geddons and concentrated on pulling their drones out so we could kill them. In retrospect we probably did this for too long before trying to dive in for a kill and couldn’t break reps or get anything hard tackled before the clock ran out, resulting in a draw. Good flying by Waffles, still 1-1 each.
Round 4 in any other tournament would have been the round of the match: the commentary was frantic as was the flying. Tuskers fielded Astarte/dual Deimos with frig logi vs Waffles dual Typhoon/Celestis with frig logi. We decided this one was not going to time and piled in hard onto one of the battleships which took a lot of damage although crucually got a bit too confident and split off one Deimos to tackle the second battleship before the first one died. This allowed the Waffles frig logi to do an absolutely heroic job holding up their first Typhoon (who ended the round in 13% hull) and tipped the balance entirely. Our Deimos went down one, two followed by the Astarte and then the Navitas were cleaned up. One critical mistake from us and Waffles capitalised really well. 2-1 Waffles. A seriously entertaining round.
The pressure was really on for round 5, at this point Waffles only need one win out of two to take our crown and Tusker pride is on the line. The teams were Sleipnir/dual Vagabond with frig logi for Tuskers vs Astarte/dual maulus with Exequror and Vigilant for Waffles. We sent the Sleipnir in to soak up some pain while primarying the relatively weak Vigilant which went down in short order, our Sleipnir tanked well but burned out his Invul doing so and had to take a quick break to reload. The Waffles logi was primary next followed by the Astarte which could then not tank without his Logi. The two Maulus were of limited use against our brawl setup and this was an unlucky matchup for them. 2-2 each.
Everything hinged on the last round and we were by now pretty tired but the Kung Fury soundtrack was blaring on comms and we felt confident. Tuskers brought Astarte/dual Deimos with frig logi again vs Astarte /dual Maulus with Vigilant and Exequror for Waffles so a very similar matchup to the the previous round. At this point the youtube video seems to cut off too early so you will need to watch the twitch file and jump to 2 hours 51 mins, this match was a belter so I really recommend it.
Again we pile in hard with cheesy 80’s power rock ringing in everyone’s ears and primary the Vigilant again but this time it holds. Meanwhile the Maulus have pulled a lot of range and their damps plus ecm drones are pressuring our logi frigs who both pop leaving us just on the local reps of the T2 Gallente ships as we switch primary to the Exequror which finally succumbs to the damage. Almost at the same time we lose a Deimos which cuts our dps down a lot and Waffles still have an Astarte, Vigi and two Maulus vs our Astarte and Deimos. Game on and the commentators are going nuts. The Vigi flies like he has never flown before and attempts to pull range but we just nail him before he gets clear.
Now the Maulus are pretty much useless as the two Astartes slug it out in the middle of field. With the Deimos tipping the balance in favour of Tuskers this sounds like a foregone conclusion, but Tuskers were using rails vs Waffles’ blasters and our Astarte was having cap problems. With time running short and Tuskers only winning on points, our Astarte was getting to low armour. The clock ticks to zero as our Astarte was getting near hull and Tuskers keep the crown for now.
Massive props to both teams for one of the most entertaining matchups since AT; we really didn’t rate Waffles and they gave us the fight of our lives. Sulei swears it was the Kung Fury soundtrack that swung the match so there’s a tip for all you AT pilots in August.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Johnny Twelvebore.
