nL.BF2 wins CAL DCon Tournament

The Desert Conflict mod or DCon as it is called, was a very promising mod that was designed to play much like the extremely popular Desert Combat (DC) mod for Battlefield 1942. We have no love for BF2 8v8 competition, and when we saw that a league was formed for a 10v10 double elimination format, which is very similar to the 12v12 format that we love to play, but CAL had discontinued due to a lack of teams, we decided to enter the tournament late in preseason. Preseason ended up lasting almost 2 months while we waited for the developers to release a patch to fix a few bugs from the initial release, although the game was still very playable for a first release. We had a very good showing in preseason and we knew that we were going to do well since 10v10/12v12 is a strong format for us. Finally, the season started, but a lot of teams had lost interest due to the long wait during preseason, but there was still plenty of competition left.

Week 1: We faced off against wKa on 73 Eastings, an armor dominated map with nothing but open ground and a few rolling hills making for some great armor battles. Infantry still play a key roll on this map though supporting their tanks and harassing the enemies. We knew this battle would be tough, for wKa are seasoned veterans of DC and from what I am told, this was their strongest map. We would have to push hard and fast if we wanted any chance of winning, because if your first push fails, a single person can keep an entire team at bay, and that man is the guy using the artillery piece. When I looked at our roster, I knew we could win. We were stacked with experienced tankers and infantry, although we lacked someone who was experienced in the artillery. We came out strong all 3 rounds and did what had to be done, but we were unable to hold our flags the second round, resulting in a 2-1 Win.

Week 2: We were matched up against NET, another veteran team from DC, on Gazala, a classic BF 1942 map. NET's current roster does not resemble their powerhouse roster from DC, but was still full of experienced DC players. We were very confident we were going to win this match because we boasted one of the strongest ground crews in the league as well as one of the strongest air crews in the league. The only thing that worried us was if NET was going to pixel aim or not. For most of the map, our ground crew played flag tag, while 2 of our pilots battled it out on the ground for control of the abandoned airfield. NET's downfall on that map was putting too much effort into trying to keep control of the abandoned airfield. The result was a 2-0 victory.

Week 3: Now almost halfway through the tournament, we are matched up against Dynamic, another powerhouse team with great teamwork and skilled players. This was to be an interesting match for it was to be played on Lost Village, an Infantry dominated map. The 2 teams boasted the strongest infantry crews in the league and we knew this was gonna go to 3 rounds. We had a gentlemens agreement to not pixel aim the USMC choppers to make the map more interesting. The first round we played a man down and terrible communication and dynamic capped us out pretty handily at 90 something tickets. Trying to beat a 90 ticket capout on the attacking side was gonna be tough. We weren't able to win side choice, but we still won the round. Dynamic choose the easy side and we knew it was gonna be a tough battle. It was an intense game of flag tag and excellent teamwork by both teams, but we were able to hold enough flags to keep dynamic in the bleed for the majority of the round and it helped us pull out a narrow win.

Week 4: The last week of the regular season we were paired up against RoM on Road to Jalalabad, the only other undefeated team in the tournament. RoM had a fairly easy schedule and we figured that it would be an easy win, but we were surprised to find that RoM had all of a sudden capped us out shortly into the first round, however they were not able to prevent us from getting a flag back and we struggled for a little bit to regain control of the map and eventually won the first round by a small margin. The second round went as planned and we were able to hold the bleed on RoM for most of the round resulting in a 2-0 win.

Championship: With regular season over we had won the upper bracket and waited patiently for 4 weeks while the teams in the lower bracket battled it out to see who would get to play us in the championship on El Alamein and that team was Dynamic. We knew it was gonna be tough, but we were confident that we could win. We knew we had the stronger air and infantry, but Dynamic boasted a stronger tanking crew. However, when match time rolled around, both teams were missing a few starters. Dynamic's Roster:

• RizzrawR - Jet Pilot
• Nick_Burns - Jet Pilot
• EndlessSleep - Jet Pilot
• Xor13 - Chopper Pilot
• Malakai - Tanker
• Novarock - Tanker
• Raccoon - Tanker
• Johnny5 - Infantry
• Cam - Infantry
• El_Shiznit - Infantry

Next LeveL's Roster:

• Cyak - Jet Pilot
• Uber - Jet Pilot
• Smokey - Jet Pilot
• Invasion - Chopper Pilot
• Rapture - Tanker
• Biggytim - Infantry
• Peacemak3r - Infantry
• CPLRoss - Infantry
• Shenanigans - Infantry
• Portob3llo - Infantry(Round 1)
• Str8 - Infantry(Round 2)

We started on Coalition and came out strong. Almost our entire roster knows this map like the back of their hand from the many years or competition in BF 1942. We had our squad leader (Biggytim) take the F-15 off the start and bailed at the north flag and spawned peacemak3r, shenanigans, portobello, and cplross off of him to secure the flag. Meanwhile, Rapture with the help of Invasion took the blackhawk and secured the east flag. Dynamic made a good counter attack and got the east flag from us. After having taken east from us, Dynamic concentrated half their team to camping our planes. They had us camped in our air and armor camped in the main for a while, but because half their team was camping they couldn't hold off our constant attacks. After regaining control of the bleed we were able to keep it for the majority of the round by playing flag tag, though our air continued to be camped most of the round only getting up occasionally. This round ended up being a close 32-0 win after having broken out of a solid camp.

The second round we were Opposition. While we waited to start we debated a few things in the strat, but decided to keep it the same as we originally planed. The squad leader took the mirage this time and bailed at north again and had shenanigans spawn off him to secure the flag. Invasion and rapture headed to the south flag in the chopper, but were shot down, however cplross was following close behind in the other chopper and was able to kill the lone dynamic attacker at the flag securing the south flag for us. After bleeding dynamic for a while they were able to squad bomb south and capture it, putting us in the bleed. We were able to react quickly and squad bomb their east flag putting the bleed back on dynamic. From then on it was just flag tag, but dynamic was unable to hold more than 1 flag for long. This was another close 14-0 win. GG Dynamic and everyone else who played in the tournament.