RTS-League: Clan Leagues for Strategy Gamers

Another Season of RTS League's Age of Mythology: The Titans Clan League is behind us and as we are in the pause in-between looking for the best clan in the community, let's look back at what this edition brought us in regards to performances, surprises or achievements.

After a few shorter runs, we had returned to a bit longer group stage that provided us with more games between clans to enjoy and especially stream for you live - with the help of the community we managed to get exactly 50 matches streamed, which is a pretty decent number of competitive content, so we hope you enjoyed your share of clan wars and we also want to thank all the streamers who helped make this happen not only on our continuously growing and recently partnered channel RTSLeague (and RTSLeague2), but also on their own when we couldn't cover the games ourselves - special mention belongs to ChronoJJ, MiracleMan, NarVi and TompX

We have had a good number of clans participating, and we were happy to see not only a few new names, but also older ones returning back - this mingling continues to support the idea RTS League runs on, and that is helping the community have some fun in a competitive setting, as the players and clans do enjoy a bit of friendly dueling keeping things interesting. And so we have seen long-lost names like AciD or Revolution South American battling again, coupled with newcomers AMIGOS DO OVELHA or WeAreTheLegendsOfMythology joining the fray as well.

Group Stage

Two divisions with skill-wise distributed clans and teams provided 7 rounds of quality fighting on both fronts - this season, we have seen an unusual amount of non-standard home maps taken, which is a great sign that clans have recognised the importance of the advantage it can give, and also that maybe they have grown to like the other options we're giving the players during post-season play

The prominent performance came from the powerhouse 2k for jesus without much of a surprise, though it had to be said that with the alterations to their line-up, they did struggle at places and there certainly were openings the other clans could utilise, and Emperors of Mythology did. EoM was a clan that performed well overall due to their strong line-up supplemented by skilled Guest Players, though it wouldn't be fair to call it just their achievement, as their core was pretty strong as well and they often played a key role in the games. The third to complete the tops in Division 1 were then the TheUnCrapAbles, a clan formed by former AbsoLads and See I Smash You members also connected through prior friendship - they have shown some good performances especially in key match-ups, and then were even in the Decider able to overcome the above-mentioned Brazilians, setting themselves up on a better spot for the Playoffs.

Division 2 was seeing plenty of interesting games as well, the best being the whole threesome between Deities of Death and KeeN, but Organization of Natural Uppers was the one supplying the fun games on maps like Sudden Death or Painted Desert, and they were more than equal opponents to the tops as well - they were there to take games from them and make their run for the Playoffs all that harder, with Gladiadores del Mythology taking a scalp in that regard, too - even though this Division ended up with two teams less than the first one (1 from the start and 1 drop), the overall skill level didn't suffer and the Playoff advancees were sure worthy.

The other clans that later on fought in the League Cup weren't providing any less fun games, AciD or Team Mystic had some pretty interesting battles, with FROSTs standing out the most and almost reaching the top post-season - if it wasn't for some strange decisions on their part, maybe they could've made it

Find all the streamed games on our YouTube or Twitch and recs in our archive

Playoff

Top 3 of each Div advanced forward, and we were down to the best of the best - Quarterfinals were quite fun and both took all three games to decide, confirming the equal quality of the clans - while UCA and ONU enjoyed each their special home maps, giving us a glimpse onto their potential strategies for the Semifinals and also unusual games in the process (Black Sea ftw), KeeN and EoM went the standard route including a good amount of salt sprinkled over the high-quality fights being decided by quite an engaging race for time.

Semifinals were about to welcome the firsts from the Divisions, though the roster adjustments and overall issues unfortunately didn't let JSS continue and so we had just one fight with Deities of Death sending TheUnCrapAbles home after a solid and convincing victory - on two non-standard maps with fun strats yet again, and a legitimately strange Oasis with 6 Ras :d

Find all the streamed games on our YouTube or Twitch and recs in our archive

Grand Finals

The last fight for the top Banners then welcomed Deities of Death and KeeN, clans that have already met this season and DoDs came out victorious, getting them an advantage in the Playoffs. Revenge time.

First map was pre-set Valley of Kings, a map we wanted to see last season already, but clans didn't even get to it We saw an exceedingly well-prepared strat by KeeNs that took DoDs significantly off guard and since the prevalent idea in the community was that the last season's Silvers should be the favourites, those thoughts started to crumble a bit.

Home map for DoD was Anatolia which brought them plenty of happy memories in the past matches and seasons - it almost turned into a nightmare here though. KeeN's aggressive approach yet again pushed them to the limits and possibly a bit beyond on the right flank, but the left one was their saving grace and gave them the reason to continue fighting - it was a tight one and the fact these were the Finals definitely pushed them on to not give up and in the end claim the valuable victory.

At a tied state, KeeN home map was Medit with brave choice of not only Poseidon on DoD's side, but also double Pestilence - possibly having seen its strength in the recent Vanilla tournaments, they gave it whirl, but there was a bit to be desired on the execution part and once the water was coming for the opponents and a crucial front TC was taken, it was kind of heading only one way.

Second set map was Midgard, a map that hasn't been chosen once this season, and so we were curious how the clans would fare on it - while we saw some decent water fight with even Heavy boats being researched, the brunt of the game was decided on land where DoDs started learning from their opponents how this match is to be played - early aggression and no booming. This time it was KeeN who got a bit surprised by this, and DoDs showed they know how to play this way, too.

This all meant the prestigious Golden Banner will be decided on a map chosen by the Gods - they seemed to prefer Oasis, maybe on the basis of the Semifinal strangeness And they made the right choice, as we got another nicely aggressive game worthy of the Grand Finals - KeeNs followed their idea for the match and even surpassed it with Orush (Krush, but with Oranos), and marched on with the Classical Age aggression - DoDs probably thought the game is going to go differently, as in the current meta one would expect, but that was the strength of KeeN's preparation for their last fight of the season and a proof that aggressive play can prevail and boomy style is not as safe as some may think. This last game then concluded the unusually aggro-minded match for the clan that was behind the idea in the first place and was also having the skills to be able to execute on it properly - the Champions of RTS League's Age of Mythology: The Titans Clan League, Season 29 are:



The honourable Silvers who gave them a hell of a run for it:



Watch the Grand Finals on RTS League's Channel

Download Grand Finals recs (Voobly Balance Patch 2.0 required)

And the Bronze then deservedly comes to the clan who made non-standard maps work for them - TheUnCrapAbles:



League Cup

The postseason for non-Playoff clans provided some extra fun for the teams beyond group stage, exactly as it's prepared to do, and there was quite a bit of rivalry with clans taking things seriously, which is nice to see - it resulted into some rematches from the Divisions where teams were aiming to prove the results were just a fluke and they can do better (AciD taking a revenge on TM), but in the end, it was FROST and Deities of Death B in the Finals. While the former were the favourites, confirming that on skilfull Medit, DoD's performance on Tundra was quite nice and they were definitely reaching for the Decider here - however, the experience came through, and so the sole Blood-Red Banner comes to:



Watch the League Cup Finals on RTS League's Channel

Download League Cup Finals recs: Game 1, Game 2 (Voobly Balance Patch 2.0 required)

Fair Play

A thing that can sometimes seem a bit fleeting in the community, but one we strive to support as hard as we can as the basis of our competition, Fair Play Award highlights what we want the community to be - a fun place to friendly compete in a game we all love This season, as voted by the fellow clans, the most fun clan to play with were:



UCA 9.3
JSS 9.3
RSA 8.5
TM 8.5
FROST 8.1
AciD 8.0
ADO 7.6
KeeN 7.3
EoM 7.2
DoD 7.0
DoD|B 7.0
GDM 7.0
ONU 7.0
FROST|B 6.3

Thanks for being so nice TheUnCrapAbles! (There was a decimal advantage if anyone's wondering :d) Also the very high numbers of all the participants signal some good effort on all parts to make playing here enjoyable, so thanks everyone for that as well

That's it then for Season 29 - congrats to all the successful and awarded clans, thanks to absolutely everyone for participating and see you next season!

Btw, what would you think about a Vanilla Clan League Season in the meantime?

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About us:
RTS League is the foremost and longest running "Age of" clan competition ever, with a history of hosting numerous other strategy games (like StarCraft II, Empire Earth, and Dawn of War) in the past. Fun and friendliness are the prominent aspects of RTS League, with the unquestionable prestige and fame the triumph brings to the top finishing clans following close behind.