Y'all best count your lucky starts 'cause you're getting another highly-anticipated best-of-11 challenge series! While Nauzhror vs. Phobos (https://www.warzone.com/Forum/550812) has entered a hiatus with Nauzhror up 2-0, we'll get a best-of-11 series between Nauzhror and sanmu the shamu to follow up on the battle of words that we saw in the MASTER recruitment thread (https://www.warzone.com/Forum/540130-master?Offset=125). Nauz and sanmu will face off on 6-11 games of Small Earth 1 Wasteland (0 armies stand guard, QM-style template), with 3 day boot (can be modified at both players' discretion).

This isn't the undercard. It's the main event!

Two drastically different players clash... a Medium Earth-focused competitive generalist and a Small Earth specialist born of the Quickmatch casual scene. Is Small Earth straightforward enough that the Medium Earth competitive player will have no trouble figuring it out with the benefit of Multi-Day and crushing sanmu on his home turf? Or does Small Earth require its own set of skills, which sanmu has spent the last half year building, that Nauz just won't be able to keep up with?

You predict!
Here's the prediction template:

Does Small Earth have strategic merit?
Do Small Earth casual specialists deserve more respect?
Can Nauzhror, who's played little Small Earth outside forced Quickmatches, figure the whole template out?
If sanmu beats Nauz, will that prove anything? If Nauz beats sanmu, will that prove anything?
Will this challenge run its course?
Who will achieve their dreams first- Nauz of getting a 1v1 Ladder gold trophy or sanmu of having the Korea clan dominate the QM SE leaderboard?
Will sanmu eventually be a top player in the competitive scene?
Who would you rather have on your Clan Wars team?

Who will win this challenge?
What will be the final score?

We need analysts!
We need players willing to analyze the games as they happen. Since Small Earth picks are not that complicated (there's usually one set of "correct" picks), we will not be rating picks. Feel free to analyze games as you see them!

The Games
1. https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26974103 - sanmu wins!
2. https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26985822 - sanmu wins!
3. https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=27280891
4.
5.
6.

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About The Contenders
Master Nauzhror - the Blunt Old-Timer from Michigan
On one side, we have Nauzhror (https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=6516195490), aka Johnny Silverhand (https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=56114135921). Nauzhror emigrated to Warzone (then Warlight) in November 2012 from Tribal Wars. Since then he has been on a legendary quest to earn a gold trophy- he's come close, with several accounts he's made over the years, mainly for ladder runs (https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=2529731725, https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=2920026449, https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=1965222474, and https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=9520447453 are just the tip of the iceberg). If you run into a curt, blunt, analytical player on Medium Earth or Modified Medium Earth playing from Michigan and they play pretty well but not at an elite level, chances are it's Nauzhror. If you do something wrong, he'll almost certainly tell you- and if you ask him for help, he'll go well above and beyond to coach you. Nauzhror is considered somewhat of a Modified Medium Earth and Medium Earth specialist- at least, Nauz plays those maps quite often. Nauz also loves keeping statistics on his performance. Ask him what his win rate is against the last 40 players he's faced with a gold trophy. He can tell you!

Trivia about Nauzhror: Nauz even made a clan in 2014 that states his philosophy (https://www.warzone.com/Clans/?ID=96):

Inspirational Dissatisfaction is the philosophy of never being satisfied with things as they are, and using that dissatisfaction as inspiration to change them.

Speaking of dissatisfaction, Nauz on his accounts just breezes through Small Earth. Nauz has never stuck around to specialize in Small Earth, like many others have. In the ongoing seasonal, Nauz left after going 3-2 in his first 5 games and is currently unranked with a rating of 1941 (https://www.warzone.com/LadderTeam?LadderTeamID=27316). Nauz somewhat scorns Small Earth:

Small Earth is nothing but a luck-heavy early map that newbies learn to play as baby's first map. It's too small to allow much counter-play, having an early lead in it is nearly a guaranteed win unless you screw up hard, which makes it decided by picks, and with there being so few picks available, players often make identical picks, which results in first pick luck deciding who wins.

M'Hunter sanmu - the Breakout Casual from California
sanmu the shamu (https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=26129264062) was born in Small Earth. He lives in Small Earth, breathes Small Earth, and has almost only known Small Earth, although since joining M'Hunters recently he has started to branch out into other templates like Strategic Modified Medium Earth. Unlike Nauz, who has been on Warzone since 2012, sanmu has only been on this site since August of last year. Last August, when I was leveling up my alts, I ran into him all the time and scored a bunch wins off of him (e.g. https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=23690496, https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=23668686, https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=23652673, https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=23654810). He was just someone I'd always run into, because he was always playing SE.

Since then he's improved drastically and is now near the top of the casual scene for Small Earth although he doesn't yet play the template optimally. For these past 9 months, sanmu the shamu has been playing a bunch and growing as a casual, Small Earth-focused player. While Nauzhror is almost as old as the competitive scene and gates the top tier of competitive conventional play, sanmu is a relatively new, active casual player who gates the top tier of the casual Small Earth scene.

Trivia about sanmu the shamu: sanmu has been working to make the Republic of Korea clan (https://www.warzone.com/Clans/?ID=450) the hub for the competitive Small Earth scene. If you run into him on QM SE and play well, he'll mention this to you and try to recruit you (https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26865021). One of his goals is for the top 10 on QM SEAD to all be from the Korea clan.

Unlike Nauz, sanmu really digs Small Earth and consequently he's currently ranked 84th on the ongoing SE1W season with a rating of 2686 (https://www.warzone.com/LadderTeam?LadderTeamID=27379).

Edited 6/10/2021 17:58:14

Here's my predictions:

Does Small Earth have strategic merit? No. The top level of play is luck driven and skill-capped.
Do Small Earth casual specialists deserve more respect? Yes. Most players who think they could trivially master Small Earth underestimate it.
Can Nauzhror, who's played little Small Earth outside forced Quickmatches, figure the whole template out? No. But he'll probably drastically improve from his Seasonal Ladder performance.
If sanmu beats Nauz, will that prove anything? If Nauz beats sanmu, will that prove anything? Neither is really an elite player. sanmu doesn't represent the best play on SE and Nauz doesn't represent the best generalist play. So the results will need to be taken with a pinch of salt. But if Nauz wins, it'll probably mean that sanmu's SE specialization really isn't that big of an advantage and SE can indeed be figured out with relatively little effort. Alternatively, if sanmu wins, then maybe there is something to Small Earth that you can't just learn by playing MTL templates.
Will this challenge run its course? Yes.
Who will achieve their dreams first- Nauz of getting a 1v1 Ladder gold trophy or sanmu of having the Korea clan dominate the QM SE leaderboard? Tough question. I think sanmu because the 1v1 Ladder has short windows of opportunity unless Nauz improves drastically, which he might be doing already. Meanwhile the QM top 10 will just require him to convince some players to pour some effort into SEAD and SE1W.
Will sanmu eventually be a top player in the competitive scene? Yes. I think he's got the right ingredients and if M'Hunters just nudge him in the direction of discovering medium-sized strategic play at a deeper level, he'll be hooked and get really good.
Who would you rather have on your Clan Wars team? Nauz. I think both offer about equal benefit (sanmu will overperform because he plays SE, Nauz has held his own as a MASTER these past few seasons) but Nauz would provide detailed daily updates on Clan Wars data which is fun in its own way.

Who will win this challenge? sanmu
What will be the final score? 6-4 sanmu, with Nauz winning 2 of the last 3

Does Small Earth have strategic merit? Yes
Do Small Earth casual specialists deserve more respect? No - but not b/c I think they're trash but b/c I think they get enough. There's a big enough SE community already.
Can Nauzhror, who's played little Small Earth outside forced Quickmatches, figure the whole template out? Yes
If sanmu beats Nauz, will that prove anything? If Nauz beats sanmu, will that prove anything? Yes
Will this challenge run its course? Yes
Who will achieve their dreams first- Nauz of getting a 1v1 Ladder gold trophy or sanmu of having the Korea clan dominate the QM SE leaderboard? ...Korea domination... I suppose?
Will sanmu eventually be a top player in the competitive scene? Only time will tell.
Who would you rather have on your Clan Wars team? Johnny - b/c Masters is the biggest threat so Masters losing him means higher rankings for the rest of us! LOL

Who will win this challenge? Nauz ... I suppose? Just guessing that general high-level skills on multiple templates will beat specific skills on 1 template (but not sure tbh).
What will be the final score? 6-3 ... but I don't really know Sanmu, if he's really good maybe he can pull this off - and that in itself would be interesting!

To clarify, I intend to play the games RT-ish. I just want MD so I don't need to worry about booting or rushing to make decisions. I want to be able to go to the bathroom, or eat dinner, etc. I'm not looking to take 3 day turns.

https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26974103
Game 1, unless he prefers to wait and make the game be for coins.

I accepted the coinless game! Got some stuff to take care of rn, but place your bets now while we wait!

Does Small Earth have strategic merit?
Yes, though my stance is that it is mostly to do with familiarity of the map to intuitively know what strategies are feasible.

Do Small Earth casual specialists deserve more respect?
They deserve respect on Small Earth, but I would not expect much of them outside of the map.

Can Nauzhror, who's played little Small Earth outside forced Quickmatches, figure the whole template out?
Not to a level that would make him successful in this series.

If sanmu beats Nauz, will that prove anything? If Nauz beats sanmu, will that prove anything?
If sanmu beats Nauz, then it will reinforce the idea that there is considerable depth to the template. If Nauz beats sanmu, it would suggest otherwise.

Will this challenge run its course?
Yes

Who will achieve their dreams first- Nauz of getting a 1v1 Ladder gold trophy or sanmu of having the Korea clan dominate the QM SE leaderboard?
The Korea clan "dominating the QM SE leaderboard" is not very well defined.

Will sanmu eventually be a top player in the competitive scene?
I don't know him enough to make that judgment, but I would not be surprised.

Who would you rather have on your Clan Wars team?
Both seem active enough.

Who will win this challenge? sanmu
What will be the final score? 6-3

Hi this is sanmu's wife and I think he's going to kick Nauzhror's butt! He's the smartest man I know, I've never seen him fail to do something he put his mind to. And he's really set his mind to this, let me tell you that! So there's no way he'll lose! Nauz you better watch your back!

the only positive thing about this is that atleast go on completely (hopefully) unlike the phobos games where he backs out

Fake news. You don't live in the same state even. Not to mention your account's 6 years older than his.

Edited 5/20/2021 03:43:29

So what if my account is older? I played this game as a party game in college with my roommates. I remember it was Warlight then, and the default settings were 1 troop minimum, randomized battle outcomes. I introduced it to my hubby a year ago as a way to stay connected with friends during covid, and he really took to it. Here’s one of our first games, with our friends. Just a friendly free for all.

https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=23598965

What does any of that have to do with him being my husband? If my account were newer, would you believe me then?

Does Small Earth have strategic merit?
Yes, it's great for learning to play precise.

Do Small Earth casual specialists deserve more respect?
Yes, I believe there is no other template which shows skill easier than this one.

Can Nauzhror, who's played little Small Earth outside forced Quickmatches, figure the whole template out?
Depends on whether he practices. Just as a warning, I myself get clobbered on Small Earth.

If sanmu beats Nauz, will that prove anything? If Nauz beats sanmu, will that prove anything?
I'm too dumb currently to understand Small Earth so I will look at their respective strategies and try to improve.

Will this challenge run its course?
I hope so.

Who will achieve their dreams first- Nauz of getting a 1v1 Ladder gold trophy or sanmu of having the Korea clan dominate the QM SE leaderboard?
Hm, the latter I guess.

Will sanmu eventually be a top player in the competitive scene?
He has the brains now it's up to if and how strong he wants it.

Who would you rather have on your Clan Wars team?
sanmu is on my team and he is great.

Who will win this challenge?
sanmu

What will be the final score?
Well, how many games are there? I guess Nauzhror can take 1 maybe 2 games and sanmu wins the rest.

Edited 5/20/2021 05:00:06

My main Small Earth strategy is to play it with bomb + commander and then I hope that my opponent either parks his commander in Australia or casually suicides himself. If this does not happen I start to run out of ideas already.

@Dr. Ape
To make the goal of the Republic of Korea more explicit, it is to have at least half of the top 10 on Quickmatch Small Earth Auto Dist or Wasteland to be in our group.

This is where it currently stands:

Auto Dist:


Wasteland:



My apologies if the image paste messed up; Not sure how to resize it for this site. We briefly achieved that goal already for auto dist a couple weeks back, when my main was still in the Republic of Korea (and before I went on a losing streak). But now I'm grinding on this alt.

I find it likely that we'll achieve the goal again on Auto Dist fairly soon, due to the players we have grinding for it, and some of the other members of the top 10 have already agreed to join us.

Now, on Wasteland, I won't lie, it'll take some time. Many of the current top 10 are inactive (and therefore unavailable to join us). The ones who aren't, like TJ, are currently dominating the seasonal ladder. Also, the ratings are generally higher on the Wasteland map. We have members grinding for this map as well, so fingers crossed. I think we will achieve this too, but it will take time and probably new recruitment.

Our other goal is to simply have as many of the top 100 as possible on both maps. But that's also just our membership requirement (in addition to being nice)

Edited 5/20/2021 07:18:00

don't you get points in quickmatch for literally existing if you spam it enough?

No. Template rating gained and lost depends on the rating differential between the two people who played. The minimum you can gain/lose per game is 1, and the maximum is 10.

Once your rating is 800+ on an individual map, you start to only get 2 or 3 rating per win on average. On the other hand, you also lose 7-8+ rating per win on average too. To keep climbing at this point, you generally need to maintain a >75% or 80% winrate. Which is also difficult, because you'll be matching with a good number of people who are also at this rating.

And the rating lost/gained in each match doesn't even have to be equal. For some reason (we have checked this) the rating you lose can be more than the rating your opponent gained. And for some reason, that's often the case for these 800+ match ups (again 800 being the template rating, not the global rating. The global rating is like some kind of weird logarithmic addition of individual template ratings). Also, rematches don't count towards rating, so there isn't a way to game the system by playing a bad player over and over intentionally either.

Point is, it's like rolling a boulder up a hill once you get to this point. Yes, on average, you gain rating if your winrate is high enough. But it takes a high volume of games to increase it. It's not trivial.

Edited 5/20/2021 08:57:45

sanmu takes game 1: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26974103

Does Small Earth have strategic merit?
Yes, anyone who's played it competitively will agree.

Do Small Earth casual specialists deserve more respect?
Yes, but at the same time it's child's play compared to MME and the like.

Can Nauzhror, who's played little Small Earth outside forced Quickmatches, figure the whole template out?
No because he's much too elite to mess around with SE.

If sanmu beats Nauz, will that prove anything? If Nauz beats sanmu, will that prove anything?
If sanmu wins it proves that Nauz should practice a template before playing an expert on it, if Nauz wins then he has my respect but it mostly proves that sanmu is shit.

Will this challenge run its course?
Yes but only cuz Nauz won't want to back out and look like a dick.

Who will achieve their dreams first- Nauz of getting a 1v1 Ladder gold trophy or sanmu of having the Korea clan dominate the QM SE leaderboard?
Realistically, Nauz.

Will sanmu eventually be a top player in the competitive scene?
No, moving from SE to MME and other competitive templates is basically like starting from scratch. He has just as much chance of becoming a top player as any other casual quickmatch player.

Who would you rather have on your Clan Wars team?
Ursus.

Who will win this challenge?
sanmu

What will be the final score?
sanmu to sweep

Edited 5/21/2021 02:57:50

LMAO

Woohoo 🎉, gg