This Sunday, November 12th, the final four countries — USA, France, Germany, and UK — will face off in the DAoC 8v8 World Cup playoff tournament to crown a champion.
Today, I sit down with three special guest 8v8 commentators to get their take on what we can expect.
The three special guests for this post are well known in the 8v8 community:
Gaven is a DAoC encyclopedia who knows more about the game than anybody. When he’s not delivering his thesis on the mechanics of secondary resists, or scolding your alb guild for not running a Paladin, you can find him pugging in 8v8 and offering a helping hand in the Eden discord.
Stunningstyles, a pugstar recently turned official cowboy, is the 8v8 draft organizer who has breathed new life into the DAoC community. Usually found on Bard, Champion, or Mentalist, he has pugged with just about everybody and is the perfect player to deliver some neutral, objective predictions.
Drakula is a tried and true 8v8 group leader, formerly one of the most feared Reavers in all of the 8v8 world. At the end of Phoenix, it was unanimous that his group, Ten Minute Bio, was the 2nd best 8v8 group during NA time. He sits down today with his timers fully up, ready to discuss the world cup.
Q: What did you guys think overall about the first round of the World Cup?
Drakula: The first round of Worlds was full of exciting upsets that was really enjoyable to be able to watch and help Shout cast. I really appreciated that most of my personal predictions were pretty quickly over turned and it lead to the anticipation for each subsequent fight to be that much more edge of your seat entertainment.
Stunningstyles: Solid fights, very exciting to shoutcast, was very surprised by upsets by Italy and Scandinavia.
Gaven: Exciting! The fights have been great and more than anything the QoL for personal viewing / streaming is incredible. While there have been some opportunities to sports-cast daoc in the past, the spectator mode including seeing all group status/hp and buffs is unparalleled. Along with the new after fight stats summaries helps the genre be more open for analysis and approachable by all. DAoC can finally lean into the Esports arena.
Q: Of the teams that didn’t make it through to the finals bracket (Italy, Scandinavia, Spain) who were you most impressed with? Who were you least impressed with?
Stunningstyles: I was most impressed with Scandinavia due to the synergy and how well they played together even though they were not considered top picks during the initial drafting.
Gaven: Italy won my heart. I wasn't able to cast some of their losses. But it says volumes that they were able to win their match with the current leader Team USA. Their use of the strengths of Albion was clinical. Strong frontline pressure with Arms/Merc/Mins with careful exits to avoid spike dps. Incredible ranging by their caster line with an ability to swing fights by killing back to front with pinpoint dps where it mattered.
Drakula: I got to give it to Italy both ways. Italy brought the only Alb group to the World Cup, they bested the current leading World Cup team USA. I was equally disappointed they didn't make it to Finals after they hit the ground running so to speak.
Q: Are there any players that you feel carried their teams in the first weekend of match play?
Stunningstyles: My MVP was Kug on team usa for being able to consistently get aggro and stay alive and also stay on target
Gaven: Overall MVP awards: I'll leave this designation to others/the 8v8 community. So many strong roles among players expected to excel and that did indeed perform, that I can't choose 1-3 standouts from my overview. Also the ‘twink names hurt my brain regarding understanding who was on what. For the non-advancing bracket my MVP award goes to the support players in team Scandinavia. To be able to defeat team England in a mirror match 2-1 was a brutal showing. I would also like to give honorable mentions to all of team Italy for their strong play all around and group cohesion.
Drakula: Moose (BM) and Durrty (Hero) for Team Scandinavia. I admittedly focused almost primarily on damage numbers, and because of those statistics that I was bird dogging the most, those 2 players caught my eye the most.
Q: What are your predictions for setups that each team will run in the finals? Will we see any surprises?
Gaven: I think there will be some switching of group setups in the finals. Groups leaned towards safer, wider range builds in the prelims. There is expected to be more strategic building for the finals/semis with groups attempting to get in the heads of the enemies and find a weakness. I expect to see an Alb group in the finals among the 4 participants, of which none of these ran one last Sunday.
Drakula: Its anybody's guess as to what kind of setup each team will bring to Finals. My hard nosed guess is that Team USA and Team Germany will bring very similar setups, if not exactly the same. Mid hybrid/caster is a very strong, versatile setup… and if you have the S tier support to run that setup, you are going to consistently see results. Team England is the team I expect to bring some type of ‘shocker setup to the field this coming Sunday, [but I have] no idea or predictions about what Team France will do. After watching the carnage of 3 Bonedancers all over the World Cup round 1 sets, who really knows what to expect from them for the Finals.
Q: We saw a lot of mirror fights between hib tankers. Is hib tanker the strongest setup in the game right now? Where do you think we are in terms of balance?
Stunningstyles: Hib tanker is a strong setup and easy to coordinate. They are propelled by the new astral items. I don’t think it is the strongest setup but it is definitely S-tier with the new items.
Drakula: Hib tanker was arguably the strongest setup in the game [during] Season 1, as well. The removal of root from Bard, while it was a super controversial change, dinked Hib tanker slightly (one could argue), and the removal of casted celerity during the S2 beta helped bring Hib tanker back down from God tier setup. Now with Minstrel/Mentalist pet changes, we will see a lot more double Bard variations of Hib tanker for Season 2, and when it comes to 8V8 its hard to imagine a bigger cancer to fight then that (current patch level considering)
Gaven: Hib tanker has extremely high, I'd argue the highest, performance in a draft or pug setting. This lends itself well to the prelims where some groups had group members they were not as familiar playing with. I think the more consistent the players among an 8, the lower the win-rate hib 4/4 tanker tends to be. That said, a group that plays together often or one with strong support like Scandinavia, can push Hib 4/4 tanker to be very potent and still achieve a top5 best build status. But maybe its 4th or 5th strongest of that top5 meta builds among guild groups or super pugs that can reach the top of a build’s potential. Regarding itemization, much is yet to be seen as Mephitic Fang is still a new addition and can be spikey in its impact to an individual fight.
Q: If you had to revise any of the lineups we saw, are there players you would have included if you were team captain of any of the teams?
Gaven: I would have liked to see a team Canada. I think they have a solid opportunity for a team despite being a small player base. Some very strong players among their ranks. That said, it would be a pug and I don't know it would have done better than Italy's fantastic showing in 5th place. Lastly I look forward to Gurke playing support for team Germany this Sunday if its in the cards. I think there's a very short list of players that approach his skill level on Aug among other similar roles.
Stunningstyles: For team France, boot the skald and valk and put in 2 warriors
Drakula: If I was Team Germany I would have ran Bloodwyne. Don't know the circumstances for him not playing round 1, personal or otherwise, but that is a player that would have helped Team Germany a good bit I feel.
Q: Give me your finals prediction. Which two teams will be in the finals and who will win?
Stunningstyles: Team USA vs. Team Germany
Gaven: It’s looking like Germany VS USA in the finals. Kudos to France and England for their performance in the prelims The semi-finals matches were strong for USA 3-0 over England. But, if England can flip the script on US with a new setup or some adjusted member roles, this would be an upset and I’m hopeful team England can take at least 1 win off team USA in a best of 5. More than that would be an outstanding showing. Conversely, France had a 3-0 win over Germany in the prelims. So why pick Germany? I think team DE will be able to shore up their weaknesses as the field tightens. Where France having strong wills across the group may have difficulty coming to agreement. That said, there were strong showing from the players in team FR and I’m looking forward to a 2-2 that goes to the final round for resolution.
Drakula: I predict USA vs. France for the World cup. Team USA taking the World Cup. The amount of synergy that Team USA had prebuilt going into this Worlds is rivaled fairly more distantly by Team France. Team USA was a hard prediction for taking the World Cup by myself and many others, and I believe we are going to watch that come to fruition.