After an amazing match between Sebastian and TheViper, starting off the event with a close 5-map series, MbL vs. Yo played out the first match of Group A.

Loch Ness

Both players kept being agressiveness from the start on. MbL managed to take over water, but only barely. An aggressive castle from Yo helped him take control back and leaves Yo with a 1 - 0 lead after MbL gave that an early GG.

Stonedrift

A fully water based map. MbL opens up with a heavy aggressive move, directly bringing man-at-arms and villagers into the base of Yo with a transport ship, completely ignoring the default playstyle known on that map.

As a counter, Yo tried to counter that with a faster castle and raid with knights on MbL's side. The map currently feels more like land-based map than a water map.

The match then turned into a monk vs. monk fight, having monks and onagers on both sides. After 20 minutes, MbL loses his forward pressure and his town center, leading to a 2 - 0 lead for Yo.

Until now, Yo looked unbeatable. Map 3 may be the decider already.

Thames Both players decided to initially to go for a normal approach instead of full agression this round. This offered MbL more opportunities for this round.

After some initial raids, MbL went for a double aggressive castle towards Yo, however his own base was completely open to raids which Yo took advantage of.

Until minute 29 the game was extremely close, both players ending up in imperial age with roughly 110 villagers.

Slowly transitioning into post-imperial, MbL used both of his castles to go for a more aggressive playstyle and use trebuchets to get rid of Yo's defensive castles. MbL also managed to get rid of the raids when yo called the GG and MbL managed to take his first map of the series resulting in a 2 - 1.

Blue Wells

MbL follows up with the same opening as last map, going for a more defensive approach and taking early control of water areas. A 5-dock opening was used to rely heavily on water.

Both MbL and Yo are known to recover extremely for playing from behind, so everything is possible in this matchup.

After the initial clash for both in Castle Age, the game slowed down a lot again. However, long term, MbL will have the upper hand as the middle part of the map in Blue Wells holds roughly 1/3 of the total late game gold.

Yo slowly managed to push forward and slowly clear out MbLs docks and castles. That means Yo wins his first series with a 3 - 1!