RTS-League: Clan Leagues for Strategy Gamers

In the past few months, we had the chance to witness the very top Age of Mythology players battle for the traditional award belonging to the best clan in the whole of AoT - the Golden Banner of RTS League's Age of Mythology: The Titans Clan League. Season 25 brought some new names into the spotlight, with some others remaining in the shadow of their glory past, perhaps awaiting a better moment to pounce back and yet again grab some Banners for themselves. Let's now have a look at the path that led the new Champions to their highly coveted and prestigious prize of RTS League's shiny Gold.

Similar to last season, we have seen a remarkably smooth progress to S25 with very few hiccups along the way, underlining RTS League's strong position amongst clans and players alike - it's simply well worth it making the time and playing for the glory of your clan And looking at who competed this time around, we can clearly see some rivalries and egos helping along the way, too

Besides the established organisations like last season's Champions 2k for jesus, Deities of Death or Tsunami Clan, we have also seen a few newcomers like FROST or Fighting Immortal Newbies, with ReGeneration easily being the most discussed clan all around - its incredibly powerful line-up including the best players of today Magic and TheMista with Titou promised to supply some great games and also a serious threat to all the other clans' ambitions.

Overall, there were hardly any boring match-ups or games this season, which was also reflected by our highly improved streaming efforts on the RTS League Twitch with our casters offering you live 35 out of all the 55 possible matches - that's a pretty great number and amount of time you could have spent enjoying the high quality games played at RTS League just as they happened This, of course, wouldn't be possible without our dedicated streamers, for which they deserve some quite big thanks, and so here they are - thank you Chaos, Chrono, Chicks and Shelty! (If you're missing Black Adder in that list, then that's because that's me and I'm writing this post, so that would be weird )

And now, let's finally get to how it all went down right up until the Grand Finals:

The Path of AoL

Before the season started, probably nobody would've guessed that Albis Onis Lobias should be a favourite for even just an advance out of their division, much less some higher achievement in the Playoffs. Their Round 1 bump with FROST (vids, recs), a newcomer looking to upset the established order of things, seemed to confirm their rocky position, but right the next match with Brazilian Team (recs), basically the former Brazilian Legend, Champions of S23, hinted that it might be at least prudent to keep an eye on them. When they then dispatched Deities of Death 2:0 (vids, recs) in the last round, claiming first spot in Division 2, something was definitely in the air and ideas started floating around.

As usual though, Playoffs are an altogether different beast, and AoL's life span was counted in days rather than weeks looking how their players are excellent Norsemen, a supposedly not-so-great option against clans with experienced Greek+Eggy players, and their road included either TSM or DoD. But even before that encounter, they had to face Alliance des Résistants Francophones, a clan with potential to make anyone's day sour through their skill. This match (vids, recs) proved to be a great experience for them in the end, as even though they started well, ArF properly utilised their home map advantage through Vinlandsaga and convincingly forced in a tricky decider, testing AoL's performance under pressure.

Semifinals with Tsunami Clan (vids, recs), the second highest-seeded clan into the Playoffs, were then an array of great games and a nice showing of AoL's ability to switch between Norse and Zeus power, even though they definitely seemed more comfortable with their northern brethren rather than the lightning-wielding dude With the exception of TSM's favourite Medit, they were able to win all the rest with a varying degree of ease, the Savannah being probably one of the most nail-biting games of this season - a real test for TSM_Xeninha, who played her first match of the season right here in the penultimate fight

Lad's Way to the Top

Even though still a relatively new clan (well, in this community anything not at least 10 years old is new :d ), AbsoLads' strength was gradually becoming obvious in the past months, actually already since the last RTSL season where they've claimed the Bronze in their just second participation, giving DoD a real run for their money in the Semis (vids, recs - without VBP) along the way. The group stage only confirmed this trend, with them taking care of all the opposition including ReGen (vids, recs) without any real difficulties, facing just one problem in the first round against Organization of Natural Uppers (recs) - surprise home map Sudden Death worked for ONUs like a charm, but not even that seemed to faze Lad on their grand route to success too much.

Postseason was a pretty tough deal for them, facing the Defending Champions 2k for jesus right in the Quarters (vids, recs), but in the end all it took were a few brutal Locusts (and the toppest skill, teamplay, and all) and the path was clear to try and advance further than in Season 24 - a goal on mind of anyone performing so convincingly throughout the games so far. Brazilian Team definitely was a Semifinal opponent that had good chances of stopping them in their tracks though, being yet another recent Champion in Lad's path, but try as they might, they found it a bit too hard to crack AbsoLad's shell properly, nicking it just once in the match (vids, recs), and so we knew that this time, there's going to be a brand new Champion standing tall at the end of all this fighting.

Grand Finals

The culmination of Season 25 promised to be a singularly rare match, featuring two clans that have never made it this far, and also clans employing rather unorthodox god line-ups, with no Zeus/Isis-mains in the vicinity - AoLs as the Norse masters, Lads housing Eggy and Atties, including a very prolific Kronos. Seemingly the game balance on its head, but is it?

It all started on new Frozen Wastes RTSL (vid, rec), a map made for raiding, and not surprisingly, that is exactly what we've got in great abundance - raids all over the icy place. The game developed in all kinds of interesting fashions due to its openness, with each clan having a strong and a weak side, racing against each other who can finish their opponents first before falling themselves, but in the end AoLs had a better game and proved that Norse can do very well if they know their game plan, and after some truly intense fights marched into an early lead, knowing they're one step closer to living the underdog dream.

After this tough encounter, Lad's Oasis (vid, rec) changed the pace and must've felt as one of the easier maps, with AoL's special strategy backfiring due to nice game reading by the home team, but Albis Onis Lobias' Marsh (vid, rec) got right back on the crazy track with a well-executed plan resulting in one player's elimination before he could even reach Classical, setting the pace for the whole game quite clearly. Even though Lads continued fighting and made it as difficult as they could, the preparation time AoL put into this strategy paid off, and they were once again ahead in the Final run.

Sea of Worms RTSL (vid, rec), a proven fun map resulting in interesting gameplay, then saw a rather unexpected progress  where AoLs even after switching into triple Zeus couldn't withstand the mixed power of their foes, as Lad's superaggressive approach paid big dividends and basically prevented the powerful Mythical surge from coming into play at all, crippling AoL's game plan completely.

And so the fifth, last game of the evening was needed to decide the holder of the prestigious RTS League Title. Gods have picked Anatolia (vid, rec), a pick you don't see too often in the normal proceedings, and so clans needed to think on their feet how to win the game on this peculiar map. AoL trusted their Norse line-up and yet again went for it right from the start, with successfully stealing enemy TC and applying pressure, but after this small initial victory, Lad's mixed gods started slowly edging forward, gradually gaining ground where their opponent's claim has been before, and AoLs were being forced back to whence they came. The promise of glory eternal coming with the RTSL Gold was as strong as anything though, compelling Albis Onis Lobias to fight as long as they possibly could, with the ultimate hope of invoking the gods' blessings and wrenching this all-important game from their enemies' claws. But when the last of the powerful Ragnaröks was spent and strengths started to dwindle, the inevitable was becoming clear, and that was that the new Champions of RTS League's Age of Mythology: The Titans Clan League, Season 25 are:



And the honoured Finalists:



Watch the Grand Finals on RTS League's Channel

Download Grand Finals recs (Voobly Balance Patch 1.03 required)

Bronze Banner Match

The Semifinalists from Tsunami Clan and Brazilian Team were pitted against each other in a fight that promised to bring us some interesting plays in a battle of two former Champions, and on top of that excellent team game players overall. It all started on rather epic Frozen Wastes RTSL where we could've seen some great action and awkward situations for the players to find themselves in, and continued with equally cool Medit that seemed to be going one way, but in the end turned into a heated skirmish tying the match in its first session. Players then reconvened the other day and we saw a very composed performance of our steady Banner holders, resulting in them claiming yet another well deserved trophy to their virtual shelf:



Watch the Bronze Banner Match on RTS League's Channel

Download Bronze Banner Match recs (Voobly Balance Patch 1.03 required)

League Cup

This season we had another, and this time pretty strong, chance at a clan claiming the elusive and extremely rare League Double - AbsoLads could've won both the Gold and also the Blood-Red League Cup Banner at the same season. AbsoLads B made their way through tough ReGeneration in the Semifinals (vid, rec) and fielded a pretty strong team for the Finals that could've rivaled any Playoff attendees, but Organization of Natural Uppers had another idea about how things should go, proving that once their rust is shed, they are a strong contender for any of the Banners. After some good efforts and especially a rather crazy second game, they managed to get a hold of the prized badge of honour belonging to the best clan that ended up just outside the borders of Playoffs:



Watch the League Cup Finals on RTS League's Channel

Download League Cup Finals recs: Game 1, Game 2

Fair Play Award

The last, but by far not the least important award to be handed out is the Blue Fair Play Banner for the fairest clan of them all - a clan that is the epitome of all the good qualities a competitive team should posses. Stellar scheduling, arriving on time, being easy to play with, typing gg at the end - such are the characteristics that can be applied to the clan deserving the top placement. After all the ratings from all the competing clans have been properly evaluated, the most fun clan to play with has been, for the second time in a row, determined to be:



JSS 8.75
ArF 8.60
TSM 8.50
DoD|C 8.40
ReGen 8.40
DoD 8.25
FROST 8.00
Lad|B 7.75
PK 7.75
ONU 7.20
AoL 7.00
DoD|B 6.75
BrT|B 6.60
Lad 6.60
ONU|B 5.25
BrT 4.25

Well done on keeping being awesome and making RTS League all the more fun to play in, 2k for jesus!


All right then, that's all the deserving clans decorated now, and, as usual, all that remains is "just" to congratulate the successful clans and give thanks to all the participants who helped make this season as great as it was - congrats and thanks!

Definitely hoping to see you all in the next season!

Btw, if you'd like to help us bring RTS League and the fun it offers to the community to the next level and join our team as well, be sure to message me (careful to replace the addressee line with my nick - Black Adder ) with your ideas and how do you think you could help us improve! Currently we could use a whole range of skill sets from programming to graphics, video editing or League admining, but even text content authoring like round and match reviews or skilled social media management help would be quite welcome. Simply if you want to help and become part of our team, and a contributing community member overall, shoot me a message! (Careful to replace the addressee line with my nick - Black Adder )

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.

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