North Sydney Sentinels are the World of Tanks ANZPL Season 2 Champions after taking out the grand final last Saturday live at Fortress Melbourne. Finishing 3rd after the regular season, the Sentinels took on 4th placed Brisbane Bulldogs for $10,000 grand final prize and the bragging rights as the best World Of Tanks team in the ANZ region.
Neither team had had a stellar season but found some form heading into the finals. Both teams were the underdogs in their semi final matches, the Sentinels themselves coming from 0-3 down against their cross town rivals, South Sydney Skorpions, to win 4-3, while the Bulldogs beat top of the ladder finishers Melbourne Matildas 4-2.
As with the semi finals, the match to decide the ANZPL Season 2 Champions was a best of seven series. The map picks started with the Bulldogs banning Himmelsdorf and Cliff and the Sentinels banning away Ghost Town and Ruinberg. For the picks the Bulldogs chose Prokhorovka while the Sentinels selected Mines, leaving Murovanka for the third map and Sand River as the tie breaker.
Prokharvoka is typically hard to take in an attacking round, which showed through with the Bulldogs and Sentinels both winning their defensive games. Mines opened with Sentinels dealing a lot of damage to the Bulldogs to take out match three but the Bulldogs hit back with a with a well fought match four, maintaining the defensive wins.
At two games a piece after their map picks the grand final moved to Murovanka, which traditionally favoured the defending side. Someone forgot to tell the Bulldogs though, as they moved quickly, taking down two of the Sentinels’ tanks without losing any of their own. Some brilliant gameplay from the Sentinels allowed them to mount a comeback and take the round. Bulldogs set up well on their Murovanka defence in response, taking the round and sending the grand final into a tie breaker round.
On paper Sand River seemed to favour the Bulldogs. They’d picked to play on Sand River a lot more than Sentinels had during Season 2 and they were also playing on defence. Sand River isn’t as defensive as other maps but given the Bulldogs’ experience on the map, they were the favourites heading into the tie breaker. The Sentinels weren’t about to go quietly though. Both teams poked at each other but the Sentinels were able to create a two versus one and a separate three versus two battle, getting kills on two of the Bulldogs’ tanks. The Bulldogs continued to fight but were unable to get shots onto the Sentinel tanks on the capture point to force a timer reset. In the end the Sentinels fought hard and were able to take an attacking win on Sand River.
GGWP to the Brisbane Bulldogs and congratulations to the North Sydney Sentinels, World Of Tanks ANZPL Season 2 Champions!
