Latest / Start the game already! / [ENG] Magazine Ep. #09 February 2026

Transcript

[ENG] Magazine Ep. #09 February 2026 · Start the game already!

• 0:11
  Welcome back to another episode of the Age of Empires Magazine.
• 0:15
  I am your host Chris and this is my wonderful Co host Daniela.
• 0:19
  Hello. So there was a lot of things
• 0:23
  happening in January and most of it was about the qualifiers of
• 0:29
  Red Bull, Wollolo, Londinium, So we're going to talk about that
• 0:32
  in today's show. Other topics include Team
• 0:35
  Vitality joining the scene, news of mismanagement in GL, and
• 0:41
  what's new in T-90 Titans, Gold and Silver Leagues.
• 0:45
  We've also got official news previewing the new DLC and the
• 0:50
  Naval rework that we can discuss at least a little.
• 0:53
  And lucky for us, this time there's no franchise news apart
• 0:57
  from of course the DLC of HFM Bias 2 releasing on the 17th of
• 1:01
  February. So after the news, we'll head
• 1:04
  straight to some emails and then the tournament outlook.
• 1:08
  I hope you enjoy this episode and we're going to start with
• 1:11
  the news. So the highlight of January had
• 1:17
  definitely been the qualifiers for Red Bull Bullololondinium.
• 1:21
  We've covered the ranked ladder qualifier in a dedicated podcast
• 1:25
  already, you and I. So if you, dear listener, have
• 1:29
  missed out on that, make sure to have a listen because boy, there
• 1:32
  was lots of drama involved, especially in the last few
• 1:38
  hours. But to sum it up, in a
• 1:40
  breathtaking showdown, Hera, ACCM, Leary and Hart qualified
• 1:45
  through the ranked ladder. Hart and Vinch were actually
• 1:49
  tied in fourth place and had to play on a best of five decider
• 1:52
  set in which Hart won 321 against Winchester, securing his
• 1:56
  spot at the main event. However, that wasn't the only
• 2:00
  way to qualify for the main event, because there was also
• 2:03
  the Last Chance Qualifier, played on a weekend from January
• 2:07
  24th until 26th. Players ranked 5 to 8 from the
• 2:12
  ranked qualifier the the the latter qualifier earned a major
• 2:16
  advantage for the Last Chance Qualifier and were placed in the
• 2:20
  finals. So they got a buy on all
• 2:22
  previous rounds and players 9 to 12 also got a minor advantage
• 2:27
  and were seeded into one round before the finals.
• 2:30
  All other players had to fight their way through the whole
• 2:32
  bracket and in the end it was YO, MBL, Winchester and
• 2:37
  Sebastian who won the qualifiers and these four players join
• 2:41
  Hera, ACCM, Liri and Hart in London at the main event.
• 2:45
  So that's it for the statistics, but now we get to talk about
• 2:50
  these qualifiers. Before we get into the last
• 2:53
  chance qualifier, is there anything we need to add from our
• 2:57
  discussion? From the letter qualifier?
• 3:00
  Did we forget something important?
• 3:02
  I think we we had to rush it in the end, but we did finish
• 3:07
  talking about Mr. U's deduction and there was that was such a
• 3:14
  long discussion. I usually January for me is one
• 3:19
  of the longest months. It's just endless, endless month
• 3:24
  coming for. And usually February is exactly
• 3:27
  the opposite. February is just like goes in a
• 3:30
  second I feel like. But is that because of like the
• 3:34
  weather and because it's Stark and or do you mean Age of
• 3:38
  Empires? Well no, just generally.
• 3:41
  January to me is one of the longest months that I feel like
• 3:45
  it's never ending. I'm not sure why this one felt
• 3:51
  10 times longer. We've had Oh my God, the Red
• 3:55
  Bull ladder being so draining and so for everyone, honestly,
• 4:01
  like yeah, OK, it was great content for everyone, but it was
• 4:05
  also a lot to me and I casted a lot.
• 4:10
  I casted the last chance qualifiers afterwards and, and
• 4:13
  ever since I'm telling you, it feels like I'm so burnt out from
• 4:17
  casting. It's insane.
• 4:19
  I I think in like solid 2 hours we we cover it as much as we
• 4:25
  could from them. Rank ladder qualifier.
• 4:28
  I'm not entirely sure if we forgot something because the
• 4:34
  last chance qualifier in itself was an event during only two
• 4:39
  days that it felt longer than the rank ladder qualifier in
• 4:44
  itself. But do you think that's because
• 4:46
  it happened after the rank ladder qualifier?
• 4:49
  Because if that burnt you out then you might not have the
• 4:52
  stamina. Not necessarily, but I think it
• 4:54
  was because of everything that happened that weekend and we're
• 4:57
  going to talk soon about everything.
• 5:01
  Yeah, I, I, I don't think we should spend any more time with
• 5:03
  the Ryan Leather qualifier because we already have two
• 5:06
  solid hours about that. I I think it's very important
• 5:10
  what happened afterwards and it was a very interesting weekend.
• 5:13
  OK, so let's dig into that. I already summed up the like the
• 5:20
  like who qualified for the main event, but there were so many
• 5:25
  games happening even simultaneously that it was
• 5:28
  almost hard to keep up with it. And I kind of share your feeling
• 5:33
  of being burned out by these events, but from a totally
• 5:38
  different perspective because I didn't cast any of it, I just
• 5:41
  watched them. See, my job was way easier than
• 5:44
  yours, but I still felt burnt out because I have no interest
• 5:49
  in anything else that is happening.
• 5:51
  All my attention was put into these qualifiers and I could
• 5:55
  barely keep up with them. This reminds me of this is
• 5:59
  incredibly off topic. I was watching Hera earlier and
• 6:02
  someone sat in chat. I'm in vacation with my
• 6:06
  girlfriend, but I sneaked out or like sneaked away to watch your
• 6:13
  stream. There's no Red Bull qualifiers,
• 6:17
  There's no there's just hair. Playing one V once, preparing
• 6:20
  for TTL. Oh my God.
• 6:24
  He's just like, you know, the most normal stream that you're
• 6:27
  you'll ever find on his on his channel.
• 6:30
  Like he's not doing anything else other than just playing one
• 6:33
  V once. That's some die hard fan.
• 6:37
  Sneaked away from his girlfriend in vacation.
• 6:41
  So it takes Talana to be a dedicated viewer as well, you're
• 6:45
  saying? That, yeah.
• 6:48
  You weren't casting, but it takes some talent to watch
• 6:51
  everything as well. It does, it really does.
• 6:55
  And also I I mean, I enjoyed the hell out of these qualifiers.
• 7:01
  Also the last chance qualifier. But after that I felt like I
• 7:06
  need a break from Age of Empires 2.
• 7:08
  I didn't feel like watching any games anymore and I honestly
• 7:13
  didn't that much. I only tuned in if someone was
• 7:18
  streaming while I was at work and I had some time to do
• 7:21
  because, for example, right now we're getting to that phase
• 7:25
  where I have to prepare all my the stuff for my students to
• 7:31
  finish up the semester. So that's a lot of writing to
• 7:34
  do, lots of presentations to do, and that is very monotonous
• 7:38
  work. So I during these kind of
• 7:41
  things, I usually have a second monitor on with Age of Empire
• 7:44
  streams where I don't look at, but I just listen to.
• 7:46
  And even that I grew tired of and I switched to some, I don't
• 7:52
  know, lo fi Zelda, YouTube Music.
• 7:58
  Yeah, it's necessary sometimes. It is, yeah, But that's just
• 8:03
  because these qualifiers were so intense.
• 8:05
  So I've written down some talking points, and I guess we
• 8:09
  can start with the first one, which is, and this is probably
• 8:13
  something everybody wants us to talk about.
• 8:16
  Viper didn't make it to the main event.
• 8:19
  Is that a surprise to you? Yes, yes, Even though honestly,
• 8:27
  I didn't expect him to make it in the rank leather qualifier,
• 8:32
  but I had some hot takes in there like I had, I had some
• 8:36
  engagement baiting there, but. Oh yeah?
• 8:39
  Do you mean the fact that you thought that Lewis was going to
• 8:42
  make it? In all seriousness, I, I didn't
• 8:46
  expect him to make it then, but I was sure he's going to he's
• 8:50
  he's going to make it there. Like the, the qualifiers are
• 8:52
  just so much different. There's a draft, there's a sift
• 8:55
  draft, a map 1. There's, you know, some skill
• 9:01
  going into how you prepare for those events, how you, I don't
• 9:07
  know. They're they're, they're just, I
• 9:09
  don't the pressure is different. You had a lot of players going
• 9:12
  into those qualifiers that are, you know, up and comers very
• 9:15
  good new players that not necessarily have that
• 9:19
  experience. So when it comes to Viper and
• 9:24
  the qualifier, the final of the qualifiers of an STR tournament,
• 9:29
  I pretty much think everyone expected him to make it.
• 9:35
  Yeah, so do I. It was a shock, it was a shock,
• 9:38
  but props to say about for an amazing set.
• 9:41
  Like if we're to think about it, a couple of last STR tournament
• 9:46
  was QTD, they faced each other into a banger of a set as well.
• 9:50
  Went to Game 7 and Viper took it but couldn't this time.
• 9:57
  Yeah, there's something about this match up that makes it very
• 9:59
  interesting and I can't really pin it to anything specific, but
• 10:03
  it seems like Viper and Sebastian, usually Viper comes
• 10:08
  out on top, but they still have a great duel that is worth
• 10:11
  watching. Absolutely, absolutely.
• 10:13
  And it's been getting closer and closer and this is the first
• 10:16
  time Seba takes it. And this is Viper's first LAN S
• 10:22
  tier tournament that he's not participating as a player in a
• 10:27
  lot of years. Forever, Yeah.
• 10:30
  If not, if not the first, yeah. Yeah.
• 10:33
  So did that do something to you? Did did you were you like
• 10:39
  indifferent to it and just happy for Sebastian or did you
• 10:43
  actually feel something that Viper is going to miss out on
• 10:46
  the tournament? I don't think I'm that much of
• 10:53
  A, you know, die hard, die hard fan to any of the top players to
• 10:57
  be to be honest, like I after that I had a lot of people
• 11:03
  coming to my chat and saying like, oh, I'll sell my tickets.
• 11:10
  Well, someone did say that, but a lot of people were like I'm
• 11:14
  not even going to watch that like Viper is my favorite
• 11:17
  player. I'm not going to watch Red Bull
• 11:18
  if Viper's not going. And I do think that right now,
• 11:21
  if you are Red Bull, you want Viper there no matter how.
• 11:25
  No, as an analyst, as AI don't know water boy something you
• 11:30
  want him there because and otherwise I I do think that he
• 11:37
  does bring a certain something to the scene.
• 11:39
  He he is one of the players that have been around for the longest
• 11:45
  in the scene that have been there when not too many others
• 11:49
  were that performed well. That we all know that about the
• 11:57
  big Viper era where he was just unbeatable and he he created a
• 12:04
  big, big fan base that will be extremely happy to tune in if
• 12:09
  their favorite player will be there.
• 12:11
  And Red Bull probably knows that I'm, I'm certain they will
• 12:16
  probably think about something to, to sneak him in somehow.
• 12:20
  I don't know how, but to me personally, it didn't like, I, I
• 12:26
  kept talking the previous podcast how big of a heart fan I
• 12:29
  am. I can't say that.
• 12:31
  Oh my God, I would not have watched Red Bull if Hart would
• 12:33
  not have made it like I was rooting for him.
• 12:36
  I, I like Hart as a player, but well, I, it's all, it's all the
• 12:42
  merit to, to say bye to, to playing fantastic and to
• 12:48
  preparing. And I'm, I'm, I'm not happy that
• 12:53
  Viper didn't make it. I'm happy that there's new
• 12:55
  players raising to that level, if that makes any sense.
• 13:02
  It, it makes a, it makes a ton of sense.
• 13:05
  So for me, for some reason, while I was watching that set
• 13:10
  throughout the whole set up until like the mid of the 7th
• 13:13
  game, I was, I had this deep, unlike unshattering trust in the
• 13:22
  fact that Viper is going to win no matter how far he's going to
• 13:26
  be behind in game, game #7 he is going to find a way to be in the
• 13:30
  main event because he's always in the main event, yeah.
• 13:33
  Yeah, yeah, he's he's always, he's always funny a way, right.
• 13:36
  Like Viper not being in like, is it say, is it 44 last game
• 13:45
  incoming? Viper's got this man.
• 13:47
  Like it's impossible for Viper not to make it.
• 13:50
  There was no way I could imagine this to go any other way.
• 13:55
  And when it happened I kind of felt, and this might sound so
• 14:01
  stupid, but I was a little bit shocked to be honest because I
• 14:06
  didn't want to realize that something was happening that was
• 14:08
  going completely against my expectations.
• 14:11
  So it took me literally a few seconds, like 3 or 4, where I
• 14:16
  was very conscientiously realizing that I am not able to
• 14:22
  understand that Sebastian actually won against the Viper
• 14:26
  and that clearly there must be a mistake, which there wasn't
• 14:30
  because Sebastian won fair and square.
• 14:32
  And that was a feeling I was not prepared for.
• 14:36
  And I am not one of those people who say that I'm not going to
• 14:40
  watch watch Red Bull wallow because I am definitely just as
• 14:44
  much as I would watch it when Viper was there.
• 14:48
  And I'm not even, I don't even think that there is something
• 14:50
  going to be missing because for me, Red Bull is more about the
• 14:55
  games and less about certain players.
• 14:59
  But but it's not so much about Viper not being in their, in
• 15:04
  their main event. For me, it's more about this
• 15:07
  feels like something important, like like a paradigm shift, you
• 15:12
  know what I mean? You were saying about the shock.
• 15:18
  I'm looking at the talking points, you know, at the bullet
• 15:21
  list. I've had it at maybe maybe I
• 15:25
  wasn't that shocked because I had a a bigger shock and we're
• 15:28
  going to get to that in a bit. But my biggest shock of this
• 15:33
  last chance qualifier is in that talking point.
• 15:37
  Don't worry, we're going to get there.
• 15:39
  OK, Well, I think it just goes to show that Viper is still a
• 15:45
  very popular figure in the whole scene.
• 15:50
  And I'm sure, as you said, that Red Bull are going to try to
• 15:54
  find a way to get Viper into the event.
• 15:57
  I mean, they've always had that analyst position in Spain.
• 16:01
  It was Jordan who was acting as the analyst.
• 16:04
  That might just be Viper this time, but I'm not even sure if
• 16:08
  Viper is. Would he accept that kind of
• 16:12
  position? What do you think?
• 16:15
  As an analyst, I'm sure he will. I'm sure.
• 16:21
  Because doubt, you know, doubt sometimes says these things
• 16:24
  where if he's not participating as a player, he's not really
• 16:28
  interested in participating in the event in any other capacity.
• 16:32
  And I'm never quite sure whether he means it or the OR whether
• 16:37
  this is just like a defence mechanism.
• 16:41
  But if you're like a full blooded player, you probably
• 16:44
  don't want to do anything else, but you want to focus more on
• 16:48
  playing. But I don't know, analyst is as
• 16:50
  close to a player as you can get in a different kind of position
• 16:52
  I guess. Yeah, on on the other side, this
• 16:57
  would be in my opinion a pure marketing strategy from from Red
• 17:04
  Bull because honestly, if you need an analyst, like just take
• 17:09
  one of the people that are not playing that day, you know?
• 17:13
  That's true. You don't need a dedicated
• 17:14
  analyst. Then again, maybe players don't
• 17:18
  want to do that because they want to be mentally fully
• 17:21
  focused on being a player and not different kind of roles.
• 17:24
  But I don't know. I've never been promise you, I
• 17:27
  promise you that. But like everyone will be
• 17:30
  watching those games anyway since you kind of want to study
• 17:33
  your opponents, check the threads, check what they're
• 17:37
  doing with certain saves on certain maps.
• 17:39
  Like everyone. Everyone is kind of like doing
• 17:41
  the analyzing for themselves to begin with.
• 17:45
  Like a 2 minutes interview afterwards like oh what do you
• 17:49
  think that person went wrong? I don't think it's that big of a
• 17:54
  deal in my opinion. That's true.
• 17:56
  It's not justifying flying someone paying thousands for for
• 18:02
  to bring an extra person. But I'm telling you, this might
• 18:05
  be just a, like I said, a marketing move from them, if
• 18:12
  that makes any sense. Because there's a lot of people
• 18:14
  that bought their ticket to go set up a community meet up with
• 18:19
  Viper, to take a picture, to sign their T-shirt, their mouse
• 18:22
  pad. There's something he's going to
• 18:26
  have a lot of fans there to begin with.
• 18:27
  And those fans will be extremely happy if Viper will be there.
• 18:33
  Yeah, I think that makes perfect sense.
• 18:35
  So, Danielle, tell me, what was the shocking moment for you?
• 18:39
  No, no, let's go. OK, What do you think in the
• 18:42
  shocking moments? Let's start like this.
• 18:44
  I'm sure it must be something with Lewis.
• 18:47
  No. No, it was not MBL defeating
• 18:50
  Lewis. No, it wasn't.
• 18:52
  It wasn't. That was kind of heartbreaking,
• 18:54
  man, for not necessarily for me, but like I feel like first of
• 19:00
  all for Lewis, I think that loss affected him a lot.
• 19:07
  I think everyone will will tell him something like, you know,
• 19:11
  don't worry, buddy, you're still new.
• 19:13
  You're going to have your chance and be all this strong.
• 19:17
  He's like a pillar in this community as he is, etcetera,
• 19:22
  etcetera. But to be in such a good spot
• 19:25
  from three one to go to 3/3 and then to lose the last game, it's
• 19:32
  very rough. It it's hard on the mantels
• 19:34
  because you can look at this from the other side.
• 19:37
  This was his first huge chance into getting into a land event
• 19:43
  in to to AI don't know to a great potential result and he
• 19:49
  blew it. So I think he was very
• 19:54
  disappointed in himself. I I think he also was kind of
• 19:59
  like encouraging his chat or his supporters to start this Lewis
• 20:06
  propaganda, you know, the chest, like we were Omega rooting for
• 20:10
  him and I think they got very disappointed as well.
• 20:15
  But it, it, it wasn't that much of A shock to me in that case
• 20:19
  because MBL is kind of, it feels like MBL sometimes is forged
• 20:24
  under that kind of pressure. He kind of has this freaking
• 20:29
  history of just, I don't know, making it in the last second.
• 20:33
  Like that's also, he has this history with Red Bull.
• 20:37
  He participated to every single Red Bull.
• 20:39
  I think the last one, he made it in the last five seconds of the
• 20:44
  latter qualifier. It seems like the empire was
• 20:47
  setting is benefiting him probably because he's less of a
• 20:53
  well. I wouldn't call him an off meta
• 20:55
  player because he is the guy who insists that meta beats
• 20:58
  phosphorus but he does like to not follow specific build orders
• 21:05
  to the greatest detail but improvise a lot.
• 21:09
  Even in feudal age he usually over invests in like trash army
• 21:14
  so he likes to make things messy and maybe that is something
• 21:18
  that's easier to be done in empire wars because it's not
• 21:21
  punished that hard. Maybe also he's super aggressive
• 21:27
  early on. Like the way he started to come
• 21:32
  back into the set was with snapping out of the, you know,
• 21:37
  usual meta and going forward, towers, Spears, germs.
• 21:42
  And that felt like a strategy that Lewis was incredibly
• 21:46
  uncomfortable playing against. And you?
• 21:50
  Can't blame the guy. Yeah, it, it, it was fine.
• 21:56
  One time it worked a second. So then Ambiel continued to to
• 22:01
  do it and do it, and Lewis just crumbled under the pressure.
• 22:05
  And. Darcy.
• 22:07
  Probably. Maybe yes.
• 22:09
  Maybe it was the experience after all that helped him to
• 22:13
  pull through the set. It was impressive and it was for
• 22:19
  me personally, the Viper Sebastian set was even like
• 22:23
  probably the best set in the whole qualifier just quality
• 22:26
  wise. But MBL Lewis had a certain
• 22:30
  flair because of how close Lewis was to actually get to London.
• 22:36
  And then MBL doing that almost reverse sweep, that was just
• 22:41
  very impressive. So maybe that's my second
• 22:43
  favorite set of the whole qualifiers.
• 22:45
  Yeah, probably. Also I gotta say that's during
• 22:50
  this they hosted the last game without spectators.
• 22:53
  Oh God. So all the casters were just
• 22:57
  waiting for them to finish the match up and send their
• 23:01
  recording or or something, while they didn't even know that they
• 23:05
  were not answering. Of course, the admins, they had
• 23:07
  to do not disturb on this court. So when the admins were trying
• 23:12
  to reach out to them, they couldn't.
• 23:14
  You see, this might be, again, another bit of a criticism to
• 23:19
  Red Bull. Only having one admin, it's hard
• 23:22
  to enforce all of those rules. Like, to me, it's surreal that a
• 23:26
  qualifying match is not. It's not organized while both of
• 23:34
  the players are in a voice channel where the admin can just
• 23:36
  hop in and say like oh yo you're missing a patch of gold, You
• 23:39
  don't know that yet but restart the map.
• 23:42
  Yo, you hosted this without spectators so there's 20,000
• 23:47
  people waiting for you guys that can't see the game, you know,
• 23:51
  things like this. Look, yesterday evening I was
• 23:55
  playing in a tournament match. This is a low key German
• 24:02
  community event. It's called Noobs of the Desert
• 24:05
  3. So it's basically King of the
• 24:07
  Desert just for mid low and mid E low players like me.
• 24:11
  And it is a requirement for each and every player when they are
• 24:16
  in a match for this tournament to be in the official discord in
• 24:20
  a separate room, mute yourself, and to be there with your
• 24:24
  enemies. So if we can do that, why on
• 24:30
  earth aren't they doing that as well?
• 24:32
  That seems just so profoundly unprofessional to me that I'm
• 24:37
  actually quite shocked about it. Yeah, I agree 100%.
• 24:42
  But that's still not the shock you were talking about.
• 24:45
  Correct. And we're getting to it because
• 24:47
  the the next two bullet points, maybe this, maybe this is where
• 24:52
  my shock came from. Because like you said earlier,
• 24:56
  there were a lot of things happening at the same time and
• 24:58
  it was impossible for a caster to watch all the games.
• 25:02
  So while I was casting God knows what, Nikko versus Tokao was
• 25:07
  happening at the same time. And to me Nikov was in the same
• 25:13
  bracket with Doubt, MBL and Lewis.
• 25:16
  And I said any one of those four can make it to me.
• 25:22
  There was no, there was no doubt that we're going to see Dal
• 25:28
  versus Nikov winner versus Lewis winner versus MBL.
• 25:33
  Like there was no chance whatsoever.
• 25:37
  We're going to have a different scenario.
• 25:40
  Well, and then while I was trying to, you know, do
• 25:45
  something else, you know, hop into another game or something,
• 25:51
  I, I open Wikipedia briefly and then I see Nikov lost and I'm
• 25:56
  like, what? So that's, I still haven't seen
• 25:59
  that set at all. I still don't know what
• 26:02
  happened. Maybe that will maybe because I
• 26:05
  was so convinced that the role doesn't even have a chance
• 26:09
  against Nikov. Nikov played fantastic the last
• 26:11
  couple of tournaments, even made it to Ling Yong Cup last year.
• 26:17
  Last year tournament Len event. He had great performances in
• 26:21
  other tournaments. I I was like, oh, he, he can't
• 26:25
  even go to the qualifying match. He if he's going to face Lewis,
• 26:29
  even beat Lewis in Tele soccer C Cup.
• 26:32
  He has out of those four, any one of those four could make it
• 26:35
  to the line event and for him to go out to Dugao, Dugao must have
• 26:40
  prepared some crazy threats to take him by surprise.
• 26:44
  That was my biggest shock of the tournament.
• 26:48
  Yeah, OK, that makes sense. It wasn't so much a shock for me
• 26:51
  because I I didn't really realize it at the time.
• 26:58
  I realized it later on in a in like on the second day of the
• 27:02
  qualifiers because I felt like where is Nikov?
• 27:07
  I. Can't seem to find Nikov.
• 27:08
  Where is he? Did he not play?
• 27:11
  Did he decide not to play in these qualifiers?
• 27:13
  And then I was looking at the bracket and thinking, wow, he
• 27:16
  lost against the Gao, how is that?
• 27:17
  No, I I don't think anyone expected that.
• 27:21
  Oh God. Yeah, but I haven't seen the
• 27:25
  set, but I see that Dugao won with Kitans against Italians.
• 27:31
  So somehow Nikov let's Dugao play with probably one of the
• 27:35
  strongest sifts and then he won with Bulgarians against Inca,
• 27:39
  which is which, which I don't know how that's possible on
• 27:42
  Volpine. Must have been some like really
• 27:46
  aggressive things. Yeah.
• 27:48
  So the only game he Nikov won against the guy was with
• 27:52
  Georgians against Berbers on Rampart and then he lost again
• 27:55
  with Mad Jazz on Crownwood against the Vietnamese.
• 28:00
  Which? Should be a 5050 match.
• 28:02
  Yeah, that was such a banger matchup.
• 28:03
  Make your Vietnamese on Crownwood.
• 28:06
  I really enjoyed seeing those games.
• 28:10
  Yeah, why? I like the map.
• 28:13
  It was aggressive. It was there's.
• 28:17
  There's no water. Yeah, but like, OK, OK, people
• 28:21
  have to understand that I like playing water and I don't
• 28:24
  necessarily want to watch islands 24 hours per day.
• 28:28
  I would love to play islands for 24 hours per day.
• 28:30
  Just like with aggressive map. I love watching aggressive maps
• 28:34
  now God forbid you're putting me to play them.
• 28:36
  EW, like cancer. No, I can't.
• 28:40
  I can't breathe, I can't think, I can't react, I can't do
• 28:44
  anything. But if I'm watching, to people
• 28:47
  going through all that process, that's entertaining.
• 28:50
  Yeah, yeah, I think that's why you enjoyed King of the Desert
• 28:53
  so much as well, because it was so aggressive.
• 28:56
  And this was definitely probably the best map in the game because
• 29:01
  it was so aggressive. Rampart was super aggressive as
• 29:04
  well, but MBL made me hate Rampart in the first two weeks
• 29:10
  because he would only play that in Burgundians mirror.
• 29:13
  You mean during the ladder qualifier?
• 29:15
  Yeah. Yep.
• 29:17
  Yeah, I think the latter qualifier took a toll on all of
• 29:21
  us in many different ways. I hope I don't have any issues
• 29:25
  with the sound like I'm ADHD being so bad right now.
• 29:28
  I just keep jumping around the microphone and like going back
• 29:31
  and forth and left and right. I'm so sorry.
• 29:34
  Oh you know what Daniela? You did this All in all other
• 29:37
  podcasts as well. Oh my God I'm so sorry but I but
• 29:41
  I fixed it in post production so don't worry.
• 29:44
  Thank you SO. Much people are not going to
• 29:47
  notice. Oh thank God, thank God.
• 29:50
  They're like I I'm doing that during the stream sometimes so
• 29:53
  much. And someone just asked me like
• 29:55
  stream is quieter than usual and I've just realized that I'm 3
• 30:01
  meters away from my mic from my mic.
• 30:03
  So I was like, ah, maybe that's why.
• 30:07
  Oh, OK. But still, it's interesting to
• 30:09
  me that this was the the biggest shock to you.
• 30:12
  It's totally understandable for me, I don't really have any
• 30:18
  connections to Nikkov like as in I'm, I'm, I'm quite indifferent
• 30:24
  to him. I'm, I'm never really following
• 30:26
  his journey and I, I just know he's a great player.
• 30:29
  And you know, I grew up with Nikkov losing every single match
• 30:34
  against Viper and not researching any eco upgrades and
• 30:39
  he's still that guy for me, even though that is not true anymore.
• 30:43
  But I just can't keep up with all those players.
• 30:46
  You know, back in the day before DE, there were basically, let's
• 30:52
  say 6 players that were pretty much always the top six players.
• 30:58
  And everyone else was kind of like the gap between the top six
• 31:03
  players and everyone else was so big that, for example, Nikov
• 31:07
  would practically always lose against those players.
• 31:09
  So they were not really interesting to me.
• 31:12
  And now and, and you could easily keep up with those top
• 31:15
  six players. You could just follow every
• 31:17
  single match of them and keep up with their journey.
• 31:19
  Now this is just not true anymore.
• 31:22
  Now we've got top 20 players who are everywhere in every
• 31:26
  tournament. They are fighting for everything
• 31:28
  and they actually go deep into tournaments.
• 31:32
  You can't even call that an upset anymore because they're
• 31:35
  just that good. So I'm kind of overwhelmed with
• 31:38
  all these players, new and old, and have a hard time, so I'm
• 31:42
  sticking with the same six players from 7 and eight years
• 31:45
  ago. Makes sense.
• 31:49
  It makes sense. OK, so getting back to the
• 31:53
  brackets, there were a few other surprises.
• 31:56
  So doubt lost against Lewis, probably not really a surprise
• 32:02
  only to doubt. I don't know.
• 32:05
  Doubt was so happy that he has Lewis in his bracket.
• 32:08
  Yes, I think I heard him somewhere say that there would
• 32:13
  be no way he would lose against Lewis because he's just that
• 32:16
  young and unexperienced. But there you go.
• 32:18
  I think that was, I don't quite recall the whole set, but what I
• 32:24
  remember is that Doubt never really had a chance.
• 32:27
  I I believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:28
  It was quite brutal. Oh my God.
• 32:31
  Last game. At some point, I think in the
• 32:34
  last game, doubt went down. He went all in with vulgarians
• 32:39
  and he killed a lot, but he lost a lot as well.
• 32:43
  I think it was Meggers Bulgarians.
• 32:45
  I'm not exactly sure if it was Meggers from Lewis on Dorothy
• 32:49
  Aquarium, which to me that was my favorite map because then I
• 32:52
  had water and doubt had dropped to like 21 villagers again.
• 33:01
  Went for like 40 minutes. Oh.
• 33:03
  Yes. And a doubt is like, I hope you
• 33:05
  have the same amount of vils that I do Louis, whether like
• 33:10
  the double the Ville numbers and Louis is like, I hope I don't.
• 33:14
  It was, it was really funny. Yeah, and Villessa, he is
• 33:25
  completely under the radar ever since he stopped being like a
• 33:29
  pro player. And I, I'm not even sure what
• 33:31
  he's doing. He's probably just working and
• 33:33
  you know, playing Age of Vampires on the side.
• 33:37
  But he was, he was formerly a top eight player, I believe.
• 33:42
  He was basically always the guy who would just make it into
• 33:47
  major STR events back when there weren't so many up and coming
• 33:52
  talented players. And he was also at Red Bull
• 33:55
  events and all these things and now he's just completely gone
• 33:58
  from the scene. But he does participate
• 34:02
  tournaments and he would, and I think this would have been a
• 34:07
  real upset because he was almost winning against Mr. Yo.
• 34:11
  I heard about that as well. Like people were always, you
• 34:16
  know, keeping me updated and people were like, Oh my God,
• 34:20
  Villas is winning right now against Yo, Oh my God, it's
• 34:25
  equal again and all of this things.
• 34:29
  And I, I was really surprised again, let's say someone that I
• 34:33
  haven't seen around that active lately.
• 34:35
  And again, you had some really tough journey to to take from
• 34:41
  scratch again in the qualifier. And oh man, I was surprised.
• 34:48
  It was, it appears to be probably the toughest game for
• 34:51
  him in the whole last Chance qualifier because after that he
• 34:55
  beat Kapoch 3 O and Tato 3 O and bars 4/2.
• 34:59
  So yeah, everyone in that bracket, by the way, must have
• 35:04
  been so pissed because Yo was not one of the guys in the with
• 35:11
  the major ladder advantage, but had to go through those people
• 35:15
  who they would have otherwise probably evaded.
• 35:19
  So yeah, people are very unhappy with that because they felt like
• 35:23
  the 100 point deduction from Yo is actually punishing other
• 35:26
  players as well. Yeah, One other thing that we
• 35:30
  didn't mention here, well, a bit obvious, we didn't mention who
• 35:35
  made it. Tato is not in the main event
• 35:37
  either. As a matter of fact, none of the
• 35:40
  previous you know OGGLS are not there.
• 35:46
  You mean the OG tyrants, right? I I keep saying this Tyrant,
• 35:50
  what was tyrant? Who was in there?
• 35:52
  I don't know what tyrant is. Oh well, that's Jordan Viper
• 35:57
  Tato doubt and if you go way back, what were they called
• 36:02
  before tyrant? I've or was team secret after
• 36:07
  tyrant? I keep mixing it up, but in the
• 36:10
  IT like back in the very early days, it was also fire and you
• 36:14
  know some of these other players who were part of that team, but
• 36:19
  those four players, Jordan Tarto, Doubt and Viper, they.
• 36:23
  OK. But you add, yeah, you add slam
• 36:26
  in there as well. And that's the the GL that I
• 36:32
  knew when I joined the scene. That's true, it's it's hard to
• 36:37
  say who are orgy and who are not.
• 36:39
  That's true, but you're completely right.
• 36:41
  Everyone's talking about Viper not being at the main event.
• 36:44
  Tarto, a former Red Bull Wololo champion, also didn't make it.
• 36:49
  But somehow I was never favouring Tarto when it comes to
• 36:56
  a match up against Yo. I just feel like Yo has the
• 36:59
  upper hand against him. It's tough, tough.
• 37:04
  Tarto even 1 the Red Bull event 2 events ago.
• 37:10
  Tarto and Viper were invited last year and again like to not
• 37:15
  make it this year. It feels a bit shocking.
• 37:20
  Well, but isn't the results that we've gotten throughout these
• 37:24
  two qualifiers kind of proving them right not to invite players
• 37:29
  again? Absolutely absolutely.
• 37:32
  Like I've been enjoying the non Invitational format quite a lot.
• 37:39
  I'm against it. OK, yeah, me too.
• 37:42
  I, I think that's, I think we're at the point where Hera's still
• 37:47
  probably what Viper was a few years back.
• 37:50
  So he's the guy to beat and he's set.
• 37:53
  But you don't want to invite only one person.
• 37:56
  This is not Age of Empire four with Marine Lord.
• 37:58
  So it, and I don't think there's a clear #2 maybe leery, but
• 38:07
  that's, that's a big maybe. So if it's not clear, then I
• 38:12
  think it's the best decision not to invite anyone.
• 38:14
  And this proves that it works. Yeah.
• 38:17
  OK, OK, so one last topic about this qualifier, but that's just
• 38:22
  a personal one because I am to this day, just a nerdy little VV
• 38:29
  fanboy. Oh true, props to my boy VV.
• 38:33
  Oh sorry you were you were about to say this but Oh my God what a
• 38:38
  crazy. You guys run, dude.
• 38:40
  I know I was so happy. So I I was kind of confident he
• 38:46
  would beat Jordan just because Jordan felt very
• 38:51
  underperformative during the letter qualifier and I was
• 38:56
  actually surprised that it went to the game five in that best of
• 39:00
  five. I was more sceptical about Sora
• 39:03
  Kuma because Sora Kuma is just such an insane player that he
• 39:06
  might just upset people when you don't expect it.
• 39:09
  But when Vivi was facing frickin Andy in the minor LED around, I
• 39:14
  did not expect him to win. Win against Frickin Andy 3 to 1.
• 39:19
  Yeah, yeah, even the said versus sorakuman was such a good one.
• 39:24
  Did you see both? Aw man, don't remind me of Vivi
• 39:28
  frickin Andy. I missed the first two games
• 39:32
  just because I, I don't know, I woke up without half of my brain
• 39:37
  and I, I, I thought the set is going to start one hour later.
• 39:42
  So then I didn't put it, it, it started at like 7:00 AM for me,
• 39:46
  I think. But I was convinced that it's
• 39:50
  going to start at AM, 8:00 AM, just like the previous day.
• 39:53
  So I was like set up on that, woke up, was just chilling.
• 39:58
  I said like, oh, let me just open Twitch really quick and I
• 40:01
  see everyone casting freaking and DVV and like wait, what?
• 40:04
  It was Oh my God, it was so annoyed that day.
• 40:11
  No, I didn't see the first. I saw the last two games of
• 40:14
  which I didn't see the 1st 2:00. Well the last two games were the
• 40:18
  better ones. I believe in game three he
• 40:21
  played with Spanish. That is just the OG VV
• 40:24
  civilization. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 40:27
  Seeing Vivi play with the Spanish just really melts my
• 40:30
  heart. It's usually a bad idea, but I'm
• 40:33
  still happy when he does it. He's like seeing Huang playing
• 40:37
  girls. Not so much for me.
• 40:41
  I've seen that one too many times.
• 40:44
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but Vivi with Spanish is
• 40:48
  like yo with his unique units. It's just something that feels
• 40:52
  like you. You just identify with that,
• 40:55
  that with a player. For Vivi, it's Conchs and it's
• 40:59
  Towers. It's just tower rushes.
• 41:01
  Whether it's a good idea or not, he just tower rushes.
• 41:04
  At least that's what he did back in the day in Arabia and he was
• 41:07
  terrorizing everyone. So that's what that's my
• 41:11
  association with, with Vivi, which is why I hold him so
• 41:15
  dearly. There was something that we
• 41:18
  didn't mention and I just it just flashed in my mind right
• 41:22
  now. Maybe it's worth mentioning.
• 41:24
  Maybe some viewers were more invested with this.
• 41:28
  I don't necessarily consider this too big of a drama.
• 41:31
  I saw it was kind of firing get up on Reddit at some point.
• 41:38
  The whole doubt. Classic Pro versus Viper
• 41:44
  delaying his set. Classic Pro wasn't delayed his
• 41:47
  set. This whole thing, you know what
• 41:50
  I'm talking about. Yeah.
• 41:51
  So to sum it up, there's been two delays or rather to like.
• 41:57
  These two instances are unrelated to each other, but the
• 42:01
  way you can relate them is that Classic Pro gave Doubt an admin
• 42:06
  win because most likely because of the Russian invasion, he got
• 42:12
  a power outage so there was no way he could continue playing
• 42:16
  and he gave the admin win to doubt.
• 42:18
  This is what I know. So he came forth and saying that
• 42:22
  he would give doubt the admin win and the admins agreed to it.
• 42:25
  I don't think this is something that the admins did, but they
• 42:27
  just said, OK, then we'll do that.
• 42:29
  Correct. Worth mentioning that doubt was
• 42:32
  already 20 a head at that point and I think either before or
• 42:38
  during game #3 in a best of five classic pros.
• 42:43
  Internet hit the fan, yeah. So that's the one part and the
• 42:49
  then the second part is that Viper was sick during these
• 42:53
  qualifiers and apparently he asked for a post like to
• 42:58
  postpone his set for another day and the admins decided that that
• 43:03
  was OK. So now people stirred up some
• 43:06
  drama and said why did Viper get that treatment and why didn't
• 43:10
  Classic Pro? And I think the easy answer is
• 43:12
  that Classic Pro just voluntarily gave the winter
• 43:15
  doubt, whereas Viper was asking for a delay or a postponement
• 43:19
  and he got that. So I think it's very hard to
• 43:23
  compare you comparing apples with oranges.
• 43:26
  But I do understand that it would be like, I don't know,
• 43:32
  just to be sensitive about this whole thing.
• 43:34
  Maybe the admins could have told Classic Pro, hey, we know about
• 43:40
  that situation. How about you finish up the
• 43:44
  sets? I don't know, once your power
• 43:46
  goes back on and you know, you do it off stream or whatever,
• 43:50
  they could have offered it. They don't have to because
• 43:54
  Classic Pro is proactively for fitting.
• 43:56
  So admins don't have to offer anything for that.
• 43:59
  But they could have. And I think that's the the most
• 44:02
  you can get out of this whole drama thing.
• 44:05
  Correct. It's.
• 44:06
  I think it's very important to state that Viper asking for a
• 44:12
  delay. He basically delayed one single
• 44:17
  set. That was it, one single set.
• 44:21
  I think the admins wanted to save another one as recordings
• 44:26
  and play it before. Just so you know have the
• 44:29
  viewers TuneIn earlier have you know the hype build up for the
• 44:35
  last set of the qualifier Tarana.
• 44:38
  So you're delaying one single set compared to if classic pro
• 44:42
  set would have been delayed. Then Dogao versus well, we don't
• 44:47
  know who is delayed. Well then Louis versus we don't
• 44:51
  know who is delayed, NBL versus we don't know who is delayed.
• 44:56
  So that's 1-2, three sets delayed because of that.
• 45:01
  Yeah, again, I think there's a point to be made that that's OK,
• 45:07
  because that is just a horrible situation that classic prose in.
• 45:11
  Absolutely. But it it, it just wasn't really
• 45:15
  an option because he forfeited. Yeah, exactly.
• 45:18
  He wasn't. Yeah, asking for that.
• 45:22
  Exactly, but this once again does show that the like there is
• 45:27
  nothing unpolitical in the whole world and not even Age of
• 45:30
  Empires 2 even if even though we try to keep politics out of it,
• 45:35
  it is the the sad reality that classic prose playing under and
• 45:40
  props to him to performing this role still.
• 45:45
  I agree. Yeah, it must be, must be
• 45:50
  gutting there's. No way to imagine that, yeah.
• 45:53
  Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
• 45:55
  All right, so that's it for the Red Bull Bull Low qualifier,
• 45:58
  right? Yeah, only an extra hour or two,
• 46:01
  or the previous two hours. Yeah.
• 46:05
  So let's move on to the next few topics.
• 46:08
  I don't think we'll get to talk too much about that.
• 46:10
  But hey, actually, you know, I'm enjoying myself way too much
• 46:14
  with these discussions with you, so I don't even mind.
• 46:17
  For sure. So next topic is Team Vitality
• 46:21
  joining the scene, and I mean there's been lots of rumours
• 46:25
  about a new team entering the scene and now we finally know
• 46:28
  what's happening. It's not Team Liquid, it's Team
• 46:31
  Vitality and they have signed Hera, Leary and Hart as their
• 46:37
  three pro players, giving most of the former Aftermath team
• 46:42
  except for MBLA. New home.
• 46:43
  Oh I'm sorry, once again I forgot Niekov.
• 46:46
  I think Niekov was also an Aftermath, right?
• 46:48
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 46:49
  Sorry, Nico. Poor Nico.
• 46:52
  So Team Vitality is a French E sport organization.
• 46:57
  They are based in Paris. Of course they are more global,
• 47:01
  much more global now, but their roots are in in France and they
• 47:06
  are competing in many major E sport games such as League of
• 47:09
  Legends, Counter Strike, Valorant, Tekken.
• 47:14
  At first I was writing FIFA, but it's actually called EAFC now.
• 47:18
  Rocket League of course, which is where I know them from and
• 47:22
  some more. I also know them from Clash
• 47:24
  Royale, but I think they stepped down from that as well.
• 47:28
  The Scene was founded in 2013 and they have established
• 47:31
  themselves as one of the most successful E sport organizations
• 47:34
  in the world. So All in all, this must be a
• 47:38
  big win for The Scene. What's your take on Team
• 47:42
  Vitality joining us? I'm, I was extremely happy to,
• 47:49
  to find out about it. I, I think it's going to be very
• 47:54
  healthy for the scene to have so many eyes turning to us.
• 47:58
  You know, I think they have a huge viewership base and, you
• 48:04
  know, introducing that many people to AOE 2.
• 48:08
  I I I don't think it can have too many downsides.
• 48:14
  It's hard to see any downsides, right?
• 48:16
  I mean, the worst that could happen is that it has no effect.
• 48:20
  Yeah, no, I don't think so. I don't think so.
• 48:23
  We've seen how much only from Harrah's collaborations with
• 48:26
  other big streamers in the last year.
• 48:28
  We've seen how much his community grow and how many
• 48:32
  people he brought to AOE. Only from those.
• 48:35
  It's hard to, it's hard to see it not working in in that
• 48:41
  regard. Yes, I'm still curious about how
• 48:45
  much Team Vitality is going to be visible in the scene and how
• 48:49
  much they are going to shed some spotlight on Age of Empires 2
• 48:54
  within their universe. Because until this day, the Age
• 48:59
  of Empires Two team is not on their website.
• 49:01
  So seems like it's not the first priority of course.
• 49:06
  Do you know the background on how Team Vitality got into Age
• 49:11
  of Empires 2? No.
• 49:17
  So so basically. Heard rumours, but I can't.
• 49:21
  I. Well, I don't know.
• 49:22
  Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
• 49:24
  So this is a very interesting story because I knew about this
• 49:32
  from a completely different perspective, which is from
• 49:36
  StarCraft 2. So.
• 49:38
  OK, Yeah. Because I'm following the
• 49:41
  StarCraft 2E sports scene as well.
• 49:43
  And there's like, very, very famous content creator
• 49:47
  Tasteless. He was part of the best casting
• 49:51
  duo with the whole entire universe, which which was
• 49:54
  Artosis and Tasteless. Together.
• 49:56
  They were called Tasteosis. I grew up with them.
• 49:59
  I love them both. So tasteless.
• 50:02
  He's actually doing still doing StarCraft, especially StarCraft
• 50:06
  2 things. He's trying to revive the scene.
• 50:08
  He's been doing that for a couple of years now because the
• 50:11
  E sports scene in StarCraft 2 is it's not exactly dead, but it's
• 50:15
  it's not supported in any shape or form.
• 50:20
  It's basically almost at the stage where Age of Empires 2 was
• 50:23
  for the most time. Everything comes from the
• 50:25
  tournament except for a couple of things.
• 50:28
  And these things are, for example, the World E Sport
• 50:33
  Championship. This is something that was
• 50:38
  bought or organized by Saudi Arabia as part of their sports
• 50:43
  washing campaign and these kind of things.
• 50:46
  And StarCraft 2 was part of that.
• 50:49
  But it's turned out that StarCraft 2 would would be
• 50:53
  discontinued as a as a game that would be played at these World
• 50:58
  Cup championships. So that's a big deal because
• 51:02
  basically everything StarCraft 2 was based on being part of that
• 51:07
  World Cup. Because all the major StarCraft
• 51:11
  2 events were basically qualifiers or is somewhat some
• 51:15
  kind of way related to the players getting to that World
• 51:19
  Cup. And that means that the Saudis
• 51:24
  were actually giving prize money for the StarCraft 2 events to
• 51:28
  then lead into the main event at that World Cup.
• 51:31
  So it was a really, really important part of that whole
• 51:34
  community and and especially the professional E sports scene.
• 51:38
  And now that they are not part of that anymore, there was of
• 51:42
  course the question, what game would be at the World Cup
• 51:47
  instead of StarCraft 2? What game would be the new game
• 51:50
  in in that whole roster of games and being at that World Cup?
• 51:55
  As bad as it is sports washing wise, usually the prize money in
• 52:02
  pretty much every game that is played there is 7 numbers or
• 52:08
  higher. So they start at $1,000,000
• 52:11
  prize pools which is a big deal of course.
• 52:16
  And there were lots of rumors about Age of Empires 2 being the
• 52:20
  replacement for StarCraft 2. And that's led to the major
• 52:27
  teams to think about forming an Age of Vampires 2 team to be
• 52:33
  then able to participate in Age of Vampires 2 at the World Cup.
• 52:39
  And this is what I meant by I knew that StarCraft 2 wouldn't
• 52:42
  be part of the World Cup because I was following the E sports
• 52:46
  scene. And through that, I knew about
• 52:48
  the rumors that E sports teams like Team Liquid and Team
• 52:53
  Vitality and others were scouting for Age of Vampires Two
• 52:57
  players. Because for them, even if they
• 53:00
  would just get that team and pay them to play in the World Cup,
• 53:06
  it would be a huge financial success.
• 53:09
  Especially in a small dense scene like Age of Vampires 2
• 53:14
  where if you're signing Hera and Viper and Leary, you are almost
• 53:20
  guaranteed that you would get that huge prize money.
• 53:23
  So it's worth for a team in a small E sports scene like Age of
• 53:28
  Vampires 2 to get a team you know, And this is this is how I
• 53:33
  knew that the major E sports teams were looking for Age of
• 53:37
  Vampires two players. But then it turned out that it
• 53:39
  would not be an RTS replacing StarCraft 2, but it was
• 53:44
  Trackmania, so a. Oh, so OK, these are already
• 53:49
  decided for. This is all decided.
• 53:51
  Yes, yes, yes, this is all decided.
• 53:53
  Is there any small chance that a we will still be in?
• 53:58
  Definitely not in 2026. OK.
• 54:02
  And most likely not in the future as well.
• 54:06
  All right. Well, there's always next year.
• 54:08
  No, no, I mean it's pretty unlikely that Age of Empires 2
• 54:12
  will get into that next year as well.
• 54:14
  Yeah, OK. I, I, I don't know, it's a whole
• 54:18
  different topic about the morals of being in that because of the
• 54:22
  whole sports washing thing. But we don't have to do that
• 54:27
  discussion because we're not in it.
• 54:29
  But the reason why the E sports teams were interested in Age of
• 54:32
  Empires 2 is solely because of that reason.
• 54:34
  There's no other reason whatsoever.
• 54:37
  So. OK.
• 54:38
  So do you think that if that turned out not to be the reason,
• 54:44
  do you think vitality is just going to say like go well?
• 54:47
  Pretty much pretty much like all the other teams did.
• 54:51
  So here's the thing Hera, did he say that on the town centre
• 54:57
  podcast or in one of his streams?
• 54:59
  I'm not even sure yet, but he, at some point, he did tell the
• 55:04
  story of how Team Vitality was interested in signing an Age of
• 55:08
  Empires team. And once it was clear that Age
• 55:11
  of Empires Two would not be at the World Cup, he kind of
• 55:14
  convinced them to still, you know, invest into Age of Empires
• 55:19
  2 with I, I don't know, he must have been so smart about this
• 55:24
  because he probably convinced them by telling them that it's a
• 55:27
  low investment for them, but they get a lot of publicity.
• 55:29
  And you know what? Everybody says that it's with
• 55:32
  very little investment in Age of Empires Two, you can actually
• 55:36
  reach a big audience, and Hera called this that a that team
• 55:41
  Vitality is taking a chance on their team in Age of Empires
• 55:45
  too. Oh, that's pretty cool.
• 55:48
  I mean, yeah, good for him. It is.
• 55:51
  And he got to and he got to sign a team with his best friends in
• 55:56
  the scene as well. Yes, so there is an event coming
• 56:04
  up. I don't know if you know about
• 56:05
  that, but that is going to be like a content creator event
• 56:10
  that's going to be a one versus 7 that Hera's going to do
• 56:12
  against other content creators. I only know about this because
• 56:16
  I'm also following Grubby who's an ex Warcraft three player and
• 56:20
  a big content creator on Twitch and takes some.
• 56:23
  Rumours. Yeah, I've heard some rumours
• 56:25
  about this, but, well, just. Yeah, well, it seems like all
• 56:32
  these content creators are using February as a month to prepare
• 56:37
  for this match against Terror. Since I'm watching Tasteless.
• 56:41
  I knew about this like in January when Tasteless said that
• 56:45
  he's going to be playing Age of Empires 2 throughout the
• 56:48
  February. And naturally, if you put one
• 56:51
  and one together, and Grubby is doing this as well, you kind of
• 56:53
  know that what's the taster is going to participate in this as
• 56:56
  well. And I'm really glad about this
• 56:59
  because this is going to be probably the same thing that
• 57:02
  Grubby did with his Warcraft 3 Invitational when Viper was
• 57:06
  playing Warcraft 3, just the other way around.
• 57:09
  Now that people are playing Age of Empires 2, which is great,
• 57:11
  this is going to put a lot of attention on Age of Empires 2.
• 57:15
  And I believe this is all part of the greater plan of Hera of
• 57:25
  trying to put as much attention on Age of Empires 2 by doing
• 57:29
  lots of content in order to keep vitality in the scene and
• 57:34
  showing them that there's a lot of potential.
• 57:37
  So what I'm basically saying, and I'm going to stop rambling
• 57:40
  now, I believe that Hera is almost single handedly trying to
• 57:46
  secure a future for Age of Empires 2.
• 57:49
  They couldn't be more happier. Absolutely.
• 57:52
  I think time will tell, but I think they have a great things
• 57:58
  line up. I think when there was the
• 58:01
  announcement here, I was hinting at a lot of team games, events.
• 58:08
  They were saying like they're trying to revive the the team
• 58:11
  game scene maybe, maybe trying to organize a land event, which
• 58:16
  would be huge for a. Team game, yeah.
• 58:19
  Yeah. So we'll see.
• 58:22
  So I guess I I don't even know what to expect to be honest.
• 58:29
  What I do realize is that it seems to be Hera that is doing
• 58:36
  all this and not so much Team Vitality, if you know what I
• 58:38
  mean. It's not like Team Vitality is
• 58:40
  putting a lots of money and publicity into all these kind of
• 58:43
  things. It feels more like Hera is
• 58:45
  trying to prove that their investment is worth it.
• 58:49
  So he's probably working his ass off trying to prove that, which
• 58:55
  again, I think that's so admirable and it's, it's a great
• 58:58
  thing to do for him. But it's also, I don't know, I'm
• 59:01
  kind of worried about the guy. I don't want him to collapse in
• 59:05
  a year and burn out. I don't think so.
• 59:10
  I don't think so. I think he has a very healthy
• 59:12
  balance. He does a lot, but he also knows
• 59:16
  where when to step down. Like Harrah's determination is
• 59:22
  unmatched in the scene. I, I swear, I, I think he knows
• 59:27
  what he does pretty well. He's doing it well and I I
• 59:32
  personally think that he has a really solid balance.
• 59:36
  Like how did he get so professional in his work life
• 59:40
  balance? I, I think, I think there's also
• 59:45
  a lot of work behind all of that.
• 59:47
  I, I, I don't think he always was like that.
• 59:50
  I think I think Roxy helps him a lot as well in that regard.
• 59:57
  I think she has a lot of credit from behind the scenes for his
• 1:00:03
  progress. That is not necessarily, you
• 1:00:07
  know, seen it. It's, you know, that behind the
• 1:00:11
  scene type of effort that goes into.
• 1:00:16
  Keeping such a professional set up of everything basically.
• 1:00:21
  Yeah. I think she helps him a lot and
• 1:00:23
  props to props to her for doing so.
• 1:00:25
  Yeah, well, again, Harris just a great guy.
• 1:00:30
  It's, it's amazing what he does. I'm, I'm very thankful for the
• 1:00:35
  effort he's putting into it. I'm also very curious about the
• 1:00:39
  future of Age of Empires 2. Viper has also been teasing that
• 1:00:43
  he's in talks with new teams. Well, since since you brought
• 1:00:47
  that up that oh, a new well, I guess there's no reason for big
• 1:00:51
  teams to join the scene. I I was going to ask you this
• 1:00:56
  when you would bring this up like Oh, Viper said that he has
• 1:00:59
  something in the works as well. Would you say that other big
• 1:01:03
  teams might be joining the scene or do you think?
• 1:01:06
  I wouldn't know why. No, I think.
• 1:01:09
  I can't fathom why because I don't see what's in it for the
• 1:01:14
  teams. These huge teams, they are
• 1:01:17
  basically companies. So they are investing into these
• 1:01:21
  players, but they are signing huge deals with sponsorships and
• 1:01:27
  all these kind of things. And also the prize pool for the
• 1:01:29
  games that they are competing in are so big that when their team
• 1:01:33
  is actually winning something or placing high in the the like the
• 1:01:39
  final results, they get a significant amount of money.
• 1:01:43
  Usually we say that E sports teams are more in it for, you
• 1:01:48
  know, because it's a passion project or, and they're not
• 1:01:50
  really, they're probably not making any money on it.
• 1:01:53
  This is true for Age of Empires too, but not necessarily for
• 1:01:57
  other games. And Team Vitality is actually a
• 1:01:59
  perfect example for this because they have been part of lots of
• 1:02:03
  other games, but they have dropped those games the moment
• 1:02:06
  they were not financially sustainable anymore.
• 1:02:10
  So my guess is that Team Vitality is taking a big chance
• 1:02:14
  because Harry convinced them and they are probably scouting out
• 1:02:21
  whether it's worth to keep investing into Age of Empires 2
• 1:02:24
  or not. And other professional teams
• 1:02:27
  joining the scene would certainly change something about
• 1:02:30
  that. But I'm not expecting Team
• 1:02:32
  Vitality to actually put tons of money into it and make it a E
• 1:02:36
  sport as big as the other E sports they are in.
• 1:02:40
  And I don't know, an indicator is that they are still not part
• 1:02:43
  of their website. If that was important to them,
• 1:02:46
  if they were planning on doing big publicity about that, that
• 1:02:48
  would be the first thing they would do because they want to
• 1:02:51
  sell the jerseys and all these kind of things.
• 1:02:53
  But they are not. So we'll see.
• 1:02:55
  I'm I don't know. What do you think?
• 1:02:57
  What's the team Viper is going to join?
• 1:03:01
  Has to be, I don't know, Probably only matter, right?
• 1:03:08
  Like who? Who else?
• 1:03:10
  That's that's the thing wonders maybe depends on what are the
• 1:03:15
  offers to make because like he's probably not going to join the
• 1:03:19
  Chinese one or I mean, I don't know.
• 1:03:24
  Well, maybe tag. I mean Tag has MBL and Stowe.
• 1:03:30
  That's true. I think for Viper, a main
• 1:03:33
  criteria will be that he is getting a salary.
• 1:03:38
  So I think on Imaru, somebody in my community said that they
• 1:03:44
  heard that on Timonimaru was basically financed by a Japanese
• 1:03:51
  person living in Brazil. Yeah, Tom.
• 1:03:55
  'S oh, you know, you know him. OK, great.
• 1:03:57
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I collaborated a lot with
• 1:03:59
  them for casting as well. So they gave a a Donald to
• 1:04:08
  Midwick Madness prize pool as well.
• 1:04:10
  So yeah, they they are supporting the scene a lot.
• 1:04:14
  So it's really nice to see. They are probably also paying
• 1:04:18
  their players I guess. Yeah.
• 1:04:21
  Also now while we're talking about them making changes
• 1:04:24
  recently I've seen not one, but two changes in their in their
• 1:04:31
  line up. First, Fire is no longer with
• 1:04:36
  them and second, Goku stepped down from pro player to content
• 1:04:43
  creator role so that could also be, you know, a hint that 2 new
• 1:04:51
  pro player spots are open. Yeah.
• 1:04:55
  So that might just be Dowd and Viper, and Jordan is also part
• 1:05:00
  of Onimaru so. That's.
• 1:05:03
  I I that must mean something to Viper.
• 1:05:06
  What about Tato? Where?
• 1:05:08
  Where does Tato go then? I don't know.
• 1:05:10
  Tato also hinted that he has something lined up.
• 1:05:12
  How did he? I remember.
• 1:05:15
  So he he said something like when when he announced that he's
• 1:05:18
  going to leave GL, he said something like maybe soon I'll
• 1:05:24
  join a new team. Nothing confirmed for now,
• 1:05:29
  something along those lines. And now I'll just focus on Red
• 1:05:31
  Bull. And that was about it.
• 1:05:33
  Oh yeah, that was right after they announced they were
• 1:05:37
  quitting jail. That's true.
• 1:05:39
  I don't know, I think Doubt is more interesting to teams than
• 1:05:44
  Tato is. First of all, because Doubt has
• 1:05:46
  a certain reputation and by now he's actually a good content
• 1:05:50
  creator if he does participate in contents.
• 1:05:53
  And Tato is always streaming in Spanish, so not sure how how
• 1:05:58
  interesting that is for then again, for a Brazilian team.
• 1:06:02
  Maybe it is, even though that's not Spanish, right?
• 1:06:06
  That's Portuguese. So I don't know.
• 1:06:07
  I don't know. Yeah.
• 1:06:09
  Also, can we just appreciate how how wait a second actually,
• 1:06:15
  because now that you said the the Spanish, Portuguese type of
• 1:06:18
  thing, they posted something I remember on Twitter since last
• 1:06:25
  time I watched it because I deleted my Twitter.
• 1:06:29
  Something like we're learning Spanish, we're preparing.
• 1:06:34
  Onimaru did. Yeah, so I was thinking like who
• 1:06:39
  else to sign? If not, I don't know.
• 1:06:43
  Could be, Could be a couple of players, could be Tato, could be
• 1:06:49
  Seba, could be Lucho. Could be Nacho as a content
• 1:06:52
  creator. Right, right.
• 1:06:59
  Who knows? I don't know.
• 1:07:02
  Who knows, We'll see. Yes, I believe it's going to be
• 1:07:09
  a team that already exists. I don't think it's going to be
• 1:07:11
  another team. If, for example, a Team Liquid
• 1:07:16
  or Team Queso or whatever would join Age of Empires 2, that
• 1:07:21
  would completely blow my mind. Then something else must be
• 1:07:24
  brewing in the background, because otherwise it would not
• 1:07:27
  make any sense whatsoever. I agree.
• 1:07:31
  We'll see, hopefully soon. Hopefully soon I'm.
• 1:07:34
  Curious when it comes to these things.
• 1:07:37
  OK so another topic throughout this month was of course the
• 1:07:41
  Viper GL drama, which is actually not a Viper GL drama
• 1:07:45
  but rather a Viper Tato Doubt Terror GL drama.
• 1:07:52
  Sensitive one sensitive. So I want to give credits to a
• 1:07:58
  member of the podcast community is also active on Reddit and
• 1:08:01
  that is Longinator because once that stuff started to stir up,
• 1:08:06
  he did a comprehensive list of all the things that have
• 1:08:11
  happened, or rather that Viper has stated during one of his his
• 1:08:17
  twitch streams when he made public about the mismanagement
• 1:08:21
  at Gamer Legion. So credits Longinator again, who
• 1:08:26
  kept me posted in the podcast community and everyone on Reddit
• 1:08:32
  and I'm going to go through his list because I feel like this is
• 1:08:36
  very brief and comprehensive. So in that said stream, Viper
• 1:08:42
  listed all the good things that came to be while he was involved
• 1:08:46
  in GL and then he explained that in Gamer Legion, much like in
• 1:08:53
  most E sports organizations outside of Age of Empires 2 at
• 1:08:56
  least it is, it was common practice that Gamer Legion would
• 1:09:00
  actually collect the prize money that the players have earned
• 1:09:03
  from tournaments and then they would pay out the players after
• 1:09:09
  the players would have given them an invoice.
• 1:09:11
  But it seems like the salary and the prize money and the payouts
• 1:09:16
  of these kind of things were delayed by in some instances a
• 1:09:22
  little while and in some instances it seems like
• 1:09:25
  apparently more than a year. And that just got worse over
• 1:09:30
  time. So, for example, Viper, back
• 1:09:34
  when he was doing this Twitch stream, he still hadn't had
• 1:09:38
  received the money from his earnings from El Reynado, which
• 1:09:42
  was in October 2024, the last Red Bull.
• 1:09:46
  And this is something that has not only happened to Viper, but
• 1:09:49
  also to other players, as those players have confirmed.
• 1:09:52
  In the meantime, Viper has also stopped doing the podcast, the
• 1:09:56
  Town Centre podcast with Majmora because he said that he couldn't
• 1:10:01
  continue because the the GL was still not paying him for
• 1:10:06
  different kind of things. Viper was also getting a lawyer
• 1:10:11
  involved in it to make sure that he would get his payment from
• 1:10:15
  GL. Then it was also discussed that
• 1:10:20
  GL already knew that Hara would leave the team.
• 1:10:24
  This is something that happened in May 2025 I believe, because
• 1:10:28
  Hara said so that he informed GL about that.
• 1:10:32
  He was very transparent about that by the way.
• 1:10:35
  Again, very professional, I don't know how he does this with
• 1:10:39
  all the drama involving all these kind of things, but he
• 1:10:42
  seems to be very professional everything he does.
• 1:10:46
  Anyway, so there were talks about how GL would continue
• 1:10:51
  being in the seam and they even offered Viper a renewal of the
• 1:10:54
  contract, but Viper would only agree to that if the money
• 1:10:58
  situation would be cleared, which was not happening.
• 1:11:00
  So he felt like it would be wrong to re sign the contract
• 1:11:07
  and also that, as you said already, that Viper has offers
• 1:11:10
  from different kind of teams and he also has one that he prefers,
• 1:11:14
  but he didn't mention this. A day later, Viper gave an
• 1:11:18
  update and said that GL came through and paid him all the
• 1:11:23
  money that he was owed, which is, I mean, it's a it's a nice
• 1:11:28
  thing, right? It's it's a it's a great ending.
• 1:11:31
  It appears to be the case that Viper had to threaten them with
• 1:11:36
  a lawyer for that to happen. I don't know, but well, Viper
• 1:11:41
  got his one. I'm pretty sure they knew
• 1:11:44
  already that he has he has a lawyer.
• 1:11:46
  Probably they had multiple discussions about this.
• 1:11:51
  Yeah, it's pretty sad that he actually had to, well, you know,
• 1:11:58
  actually go public and through all of this mess for them to pay
• 1:12:03
  him. Like they could have just paid
• 1:12:06
  him straight up. But yeah, that's that's the sad
• 1:12:12
  part of E Sports. Well, I think there's a lot of
• 1:12:15
  sad parts as well, one of good ones too.
• 1:12:18
  But one of the the saddest is that, yeah, basically it's very
• 1:12:23
  hard to nearly impossible to make any profit and seems that
• 1:12:27
  one way or another, bankruptcy is coming, to put it delicately.
• 1:12:38
  I don't know. I mean GL is kind of successful
• 1:12:41
  with Counter Strike, so I don't know about the other things.
• 1:12:45
  And they also bought that Dota 2 team and Dota 2 has a lot of
• 1:12:49
  money involved, so. Yeah, well, but well, I don't
• 1:12:54
  know why. I don't know.
• 1:12:56
  I don't know. I don't know because until like
• 1:12:59
  last year, you would have said GL is very successful in AOE as
• 1:13:04
  well. No.
• 1:13:05
  Are they? I don't think A-Team can be
• 1:13:07
  successful in Age of Empires 2. Well, maybe that's the issue.
• 1:13:12
  Yeah, they were. Well, I was living under the
• 1:13:15
  assumption that they were beneficial for Age of Empires 2
• 1:13:19
  because they are actually giving players a salary so that they
• 1:13:23
  can focus on being pro players. But that seems to be a big
• 1:13:27
  truth, big lie. So what good did they do?
• 1:13:32
  I don't know. They did organize events.
• 1:13:35
  They did the game of Legion, the the what?
• 1:13:38
  What's called the Noble Apartment Cup, but they also
• 1:13:41
  didn't pay their players, so I don't know if it's a net
• 1:13:45
  positive or not. We are, just to put this into
• 1:13:49
  perspective, we think that a E sport organization like Gamer
• 1:13:56
  Legion is beneficial for us because they are giving players
• 1:14:01
  a salary that is probably not a very big salary, but we consider
• 1:14:07
  that as something special because we don't really, we are
• 1:14:12
  not comparable to other E sports where people are getting, I
• 1:14:19
  don't know, like 100 times that salary and lots of benefits and
• 1:14:24
  they are not required to be also content creators, but they are
• 1:14:28
  solely pro players. That's where we are at.
• 1:14:32
  So I don't know. Yeah, I don't think, I don't
• 1:14:38
  agree with you that they're paid poorly.
• 1:14:44
  I think they have a very decent salary if they can afford that
• 1:14:48
  salary or not. Yeah, I I don't know, Apparently
• 1:14:53
  they can't afford it. But I think because, well, I I
• 1:14:58
  don't know from the way Viper was talking, he was talking
• 1:15:01
  about, he was talking about a big number.
• 1:15:07
  He didn't say exact number, but I I think is multiple zeros,
• 1:15:15
  multiple multiple ones. And you know, if you just look
• 1:15:18
  at the earnings, I mean, yeah, he had some good earnings from
• 1:15:25
  SU tournaments, from Red Bull, from what was next after
• 1:15:29
  Garrison. What else?
• 1:15:32
  Warlords QTD Sarah, but I also think that their salaries were a
• 1:15:39
  good part of all of that because like for them to take a cut out
• 1:15:46
  of their earnings, they have to compensate that through a bigger
• 1:15:51
  salary basically. Well, I don't know.
• 1:15:54
  I don't know what the salary is, but what I know is that most pro
• 1:15:58
  players say that there's one or two players who can live off Age
• 1:16:02
  of Empires 2 and those two are also content creators and Vibe
• 1:16:08
  and Hera said that he considers himself more a content creator
• 1:16:13
  and then a pro player competing in tournaments, but without that
• 1:16:19
  he would not be able to sustain his livelihood.
• 1:16:22
  So if Hera, the top player, could not sustain his livelihood
• 1:16:26
  with salary and the prize money he should be getting, then it
• 1:16:31
  can't be that big. Well, I, I, I believe that you
• 1:16:35
  can't do that if you're not being paid on time.
• 1:16:39
  Like none of the, none of us would be able to live with any
• 1:16:44
  job if we get the payment once in two years.
• 1:16:50
  Like, it's crazy. I mean, yeah, I, I agree with
• 1:16:55
  that. I I also think that Hera could
• 1:17:00
  live a decent life with his salary and his tournament
• 1:17:04
  earnings. I do think that would probably
• 1:17:07
  be no sustainability or no long term plan.
• 1:17:12
  Probably, yeah. Because like right now, hair is
• 1:17:18
  hair is doing pretty good. And I do believe that he's
• 1:17:22
  earning way more from content creation than from tournaments.
• 1:17:28
  I do believe that's his main income, the content creation.
• 1:17:33
  But yeah, I I don't think they have like a €300 salary.
• 1:17:40
  Per month, yeah. But you know, I'm I, I, I
• 1:17:43
  certainly hope so. But if we're talking €1000
• 1:17:48
  salary, that is still very low. If we're talking €2000 salary,
• 1:17:52
  that's still very low because half of that goes to taxes and
• 1:17:56
  insurance and, you know, other stuff.
• 1:17:59
  And part of your income should not only be to survive a month,
• 1:18:03
  but also to, you know, save up money and all these kind of
• 1:18:07
  things. So I consider AI consider a fair
• 1:18:13
  salary something that is comparable to, you know,
• 1:18:16
  salaries from other jobs that would give you the same
• 1:18:18
  benefits. And again, it's kind of
• 1:18:23
  pointless to talk about this when we don't know what the
• 1:18:25
  salaries, at least I have no clue whatsoever.
• 1:18:28
  I'm just going off what players are saying, that it's basically
• 1:18:32
  not something they can live off. And that's usually an indicator
• 1:18:36
  for me that their salaries can't be that good.
• 1:18:39
  Yeah. Yeah, well, I don't know, I've
• 1:18:42
  heard rumours, but. Please tell what are the
• 1:18:48
  rumours? I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't like
• 1:18:51
  to say that you know what number because I'm not sure.
• 1:18:54
  I'm not sure that's the case. I also think they have all
• 1:18:57
  different contracts and different agreements.
• 1:19:01
  But I'll just say it's bigger than 2000 because you said that
• 1:19:08
  it's 2000. That's still very low and
• 1:19:11
  etcetera. Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:19:15
  Yeah, it's, it's definitely a difficult topic, but what we can
• 1:19:19
  say is that this whole Gamer Legion drama kind of tainted the
• 1:19:25
  reputation of Game of Legion, right?
• 1:19:28
  Because for sure. Until now, they were the heroes.
• 1:19:31
  They were coming to our scene. They were so selfless when they
• 1:19:34
  took upon themselves to pay these players and to you know,
• 1:19:40
  kind of keep the torch up for the Age of Empires 2 scene and
• 1:19:43
  are they were probably the only real professional organization
• 1:19:48
  in the E sports scene in Age of Empires 2.
• 1:19:50
  And now it turns out they haven't played the pairs for 1
• 1:19:53
  1/2 years and withheld money from them and there's lawsuits
• 1:19:56
  against them from their own team members.
• 1:19:59
  GL are not what I thought they were and this really taints
• 1:20:02
  their reputation in my opinion, and I was.
• 1:20:05
  I was also a little bit insulted when both players and Neely in
• 1:20:12
  his YouTube video were at at the same time very grateful and
• 1:20:16
  thankful. What for?
• 1:20:17
  What the GL team has done or the GL organization has done for the
• 1:20:22
  scene? And at the same time criticizing
• 1:20:25
  that they have basically exploited their members.
• 1:20:28
  I don't. I don't understand how that's I
• 1:20:31
  would not be grateful for my employer if he withheld 1 1/2
• 1:20:36
  years worth of my salary and other benefits from me just
• 1:20:41
  because he is important in the economy.
• 1:20:46
  I wouldn't care less about that. I can understand them being
• 1:20:51
  grateful for the opportunity because maybe at at that time it
• 1:20:57
  was a big opportunity. Maybe this didn't start.
• 1:21:02
  I don't know. I, I, I do think that overall GL
• 1:21:05
  and their members had a good run in the sense that they, they had
• 1:21:11
  good moments together. They formed lifetime
• 1:21:15
  friendships. If you are looking at, you know,
• 1:21:17
  like I said, the Ogs, they're still incredibly close to each
• 1:21:22
  other and, and good friends and they, it did help them get
• 1:21:30
  better opportunities, better sponsorships through GL I, I'm
• 1:21:36
  certain of that as well. Now, in the same time, I, I do
• 1:21:41
  think that you cannot be, you know, fully grateful.
• 1:21:47
  You, you have to, you have to show the downsizes as well.
• 1:21:50
  And the downsizes in this scenario were pretty bad.
• 1:21:54
  I don't necessarily mind that there, you know, they said at
• 1:21:59
  the end of the day, GL gave me a lot of chances, but they were
• 1:22:04
  kind of assholes too. I can, I can't vibe with that.
• 1:22:07
  I can understand that point of view.
• 1:22:09
  My experience with GL. Now I'll tell you this, I'm very
• 1:22:13
  grateful to GL for all. I've been casting on their
• 1:22:17
  channel a lot. I've been invited to host things
• 1:22:23
  on their channel. I collaborated with them.
• 1:22:27
  I'm not going to lie to you, that was beneficial for me.
• 1:22:32
  But even a small event like that, I was getting my payment
• 1:22:35
  after four months, but I never imagined it would be such a a
• 1:22:41
  big, such an on on a big scale towards the player with the
• 1:22:48
  payment delays, you know? Yeah.
• 1:22:52
  So, OK, obviously I can't even begin to compare my experience
• 1:22:56
  with the players experience. But you know, at the end of the
• 1:23:00
  day, I can say, you know, I'm really grateful to GL for giving
• 1:23:03
  me the opportunities they gave me.
• 1:23:06
  But yeah, they're kind of holding onto their payments.
• 1:23:11
  You had some downsizes as well. And obviously I can't, I can't,
• 1:23:15
  I can't talk about a couple of hundreds of dollars.
• 1:23:19
  I can't compare them with. I can only imagine the amounts
• 1:23:23
  that they're owing to the players.
• 1:23:25
  Like, again, I can't compare any of these.
• 1:23:28
  Yeah. To be honest, it's really
• 1:23:31
  shouldn't matter how much it is, it's more a question of
• 1:23:34
  principle. Of course, yeah.
• 1:23:37
  And I saw I saw people like poor Viper, he's a new dad struggling
• 1:23:45
  with this and that and stuff like this on, on, on Reddit.
• 1:23:50
  Circumstances don't don't matter at the end of the day.
• 1:23:52
  Like poor Viper, a player that should have been played paid and
• 1:23:57
  he wasn't paid money. Where like it doesn't matter if
• 1:24:01
  you're a young dad, an old dad, if you have kids like adult has
• 1:24:07
  his kids in school, We think he doesn't need his salary.
• 1:24:12
  Again, I doubt didn't make any statements, but I'm just going,
• 1:24:17
  you know, by the by the principal that probably all of
• 1:24:21
  them are owed money at this point.
• 1:24:22
  Maybe the rest just didn't commented anything like Bahara
• 1:24:27
  said in his podcast, with much more that he's owed money as
• 1:24:31
  well. Yeah, I would assume so.
• 1:24:35
  Yeah, so, and it's equally as awful.
• 1:24:42
  It's like you say, it's, it's a matter of principle.
• 1:24:44
  It's equally as awful what they're doing, no matter who
• 1:24:47
  they're doing it to. Like, it's not that I don't
• 1:24:52
  know. I, I, I'm thinking back at, at
• 1:24:55
  Viper, Viper's the millionaire Viper took the Facebook deal
• 1:24:59
  which he got millions from. You can't just say like a poor
• 1:25:04
  fresh dad, whatever he he has money.
• 1:25:07
  It's still bad. It's still bad though that
• 1:25:10
  they're owning him money. It is.
• 1:25:14
  I mean it would be different if they would delay for a month or
• 1:25:18
  two and then keep their word when they promised to pay it
• 1:25:21
  back in time of. Course, of course, that's the
• 1:25:24
  that's the big issue, right? So I don't know.
• 1:25:27
  This is why I felt a bit insulted by these comments when
• 1:25:31
  they were saying that they are also grateful.
• 1:25:33
  I felt insulted because I felt like they are trying to convince
• 1:25:36
  me not to feel or not to think too badly about GL when I am
• 1:25:41
  perfectly capable about forming an opinion about an organization
• 1:25:45
  that is withhelding money from their employers and promising
• 1:25:50
  them under false circumstances that they would pay them back.
• 1:25:53
  That is just extortion in my opinion, and that's why I'm
• 1:25:56
  saying that I don't really see a reason to think very positively
• 1:26:02
  about GL anymore, especially as someone who is invested
• 1:26:07
  emotionally into these players who are keeping the scene alive
• 1:26:11
  and who have apparently also gone well above everything that
• 1:26:18
  is that that one can expect from them when being patient with
• 1:26:22
  their employer. Yeah.
• 1:26:25
  Understandable, absolutely understandable to have that that
• 1:26:30
  taken. I get it.
• 1:26:32
  OK, so that got way more dramatic than I expected it to
• 1:26:36
  be. To be honest, no man, again, the
• 1:26:40
  longest month with the most amount of drama, the amount of
• 1:26:43
  drama that we had in our small scene in January is just
• 1:26:49
  hopefully we're going to start, we're going to continue the year
• 1:26:53
  on a more positive note because it was just too much in my
• 1:26:56
  opinion, for this month. Like everything was just
• 1:26:59
  exploding day after day and. I I agree 100%.
• 1:27:04
  So let's move on to a different topic that is our outlook for
• 1:27:09
  the upcoming months which is T-90 Titans League.
• 1:27:14
  So far the Silver and Gold league have started and contrary
• 1:27:19
  to what is said on Wikipedia, I saw a stream today from T-90
• 1:27:24
  where he stated that the Platinum league will start off
• 1:27:28
  this Friday. So has not begun yet Silver and
• 1:27:33
  gold league. I would just like to remind you
• 1:27:36
  that I had not watched any competitive Age of Vampires 2
• 1:27:42
  aside from Red Bull Wallolo. So I have no idea what's going
• 1:27:45
  on in silver and gold league. And I put this on this podcast
• 1:27:49
  because I was kind of hoping that you could tell me a bit
• 1:27:53
  about silver and gold because you were very excited for these
• 1:27:55
  leagues. Yeah, I was very excited.
• 1:27:58
  You know what I didn't take into account my burnt out after
• 1:28:01
  Redbook also paired up with I'm I'm seriously so upset with my
• 1:28:08
  capture age crashes and and everything.
• 1:28:12
  Like I'm, I'm saving now to get a new GPU.
• 1:28:14
  Like whenever I'm gathering the energy like OK, TTL hype,
• 1:28:19
  starting my stream, boom, firing up cartridge.
• 1:28:23
  I cast one set and then it crashes and it crashes my OBS
• 1:28:26
  and my entire PC and it's so annoying.
• 1:28:29
  So yeah, I'm saving now to get a a new GPU and it's I can't wait
• 1:28:34
  to to change it. But is that?
• 1:28:37
  Still going to be. I I like.
• 1:28:39
  I am no expert whatsoever on any technical stuff with computers,
• 1:28:42
  but I've heard people in the community say that it is not so
• 1:28:46
  much about your GPU, but it's just a very poorly optimised
• 1:28:51
  program. It is poorly optimised, but
• 1:28:54
  that's why it's so poorly optimised because it eats so
• 1:28:57
  much of the RAM memory of the GPU of the VRAM.
• 1:29:03
  Yeah. But what I'm saying is that
• 1:29:05
  getting a new GPU is that is that actually going to guarantee
• 1:29:08
  to solve your problems? Or could you just have?
• 1:29:10
  Some problems it is not guaranteed is going to make it
• 1:29:12
  better because I'm going to have more VRM.
• 1:29:15
  It's still for instance, T-90 has a 4080 Super, I think, which
• 1:29:23
  is, if I'm not mistaken in the top 4/5 of in terms of
• 1:29:28
  performance of GPUs, it's an incredibly good GPU and he still
• 1:29:35
  has issues and he's still crashes.
• 1:29:38
  So the The thing is that he has 22 PCs set up.
• 1:29:45
  So if his capture H crashes, it doesn't crash his OBS because
• 1:29:49
  his OBS is on a different PC. That's the main difference.
• 1:29:53
  So yeah, it's it's it's a bit annoying, especially now because
• 1:29:59
  I am so eager to get a new GPU and I just imagine the first
• 1:30:02
  crash with the new GPU, I'll lose my mind.
• 1:30:05
  Yeah, V RAM is something that I I need to increase.
• 1:30:09
  OK. Well, it's the perfect time,
• 1:30:12
  right? It's not like prices have gone
• 1:30:14
  up or anything, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:30:16
  It's not like everything is this world.
• 1:30:20
  Yeah, but to answer your question, I have been tuning in
• 1:30:24
  here and there. I unfortunately not been able to
• 1:30:28
  keep a a close eye as I would have wanted to on on these two
• 1:30:35
  leagues. I will throw in a shout out to
• 1:30:39
  Gabby's games it it just happened for me to cast some of
• 1:30:46
  her sets I like. She's such a good player too to
• 1:30:49
  watch. She's so aggressive.
• 1:30:52
  Her sets versus Thunderbolt and who CL were really, really good.
• 1:30:59
  One of them with a a big surprise as well.
• 1:31:02
  Like I players are really putting in the effort and are
• 1:31:06
  very competitive about this. And that's what's great about
• 1:31:09
  it. It's it's a big, big tournament.
• 1:31:14
  You have a lot of opportunities. You This is your chance to send
• 1:31:18
  out to, you know, get a bit into the spotlight.
• 1:31:25
  It's getting late. Yeah, players are players are
• 1:31:30
  are delivering great content. I I really recommend tuning in.
• 1:31:34
  A lot of all the casters are just doing that now on.
• 1:31:39
  Yeah, you're going to be casting Silver and Golden League as
• 1:31:41
  well. Oh yeah, for a while.
• 1:31:43
  And now platinum. And that was 3 leagues
• 1:31:46
  overlapping starting on Friday. It's going to be fun.
• 1:31:51
  Good thing January was such a light hearted month so you can
• 1:31:56
  get into February and all these leagues with so much energy,
• 1:31:59
  right? Yep.
• 1:32:04
  Oh. Yeah, as I mean, I knew this all
• 1:32:08
  along. I knew that Silver and Gold
• 1:32:10
  League would just be too much for me, so I would probably stay
• 1:32:12
  clear of them, which I have done so far and I'm still planning to
• 1:32:17
  do that. I mean no disrespect to any of
• 1:32:19
  the players on those leagues. I mean, Doubt, come on, Doubt is
• 1:32:25
  in Gold League. I would love to watch his games,
• 1:32:27
  but I just can't. In every other tournament I
• 1:32:29
  would never try to miss a Doubt game, but it's just too many
• 1:32:33
  games with Platinum League coming up, which is something
• 1:32:36
  we'll talk about in a moment. So I guess we don't have any
• 1:32:41
  real recommendations apart from Gabby.
• 1:32:44
  Gabby is 11 in the Silver Rig right now, so if you are
• 1:32:47
  cheering for Gabby, it probably couldn't be more suspenseful.
• 1:32:53
  I'm also seeing you Pudding. He's always entertaining.
• 1:32:57
  Stark, my man. Stark is number one in his
• 1:33:00
  group. That's amazing.
• 1:33:03
  A lot of surprises for sure. Yeah, did I?
• 1:33:06
  Have I ever told you that Stark was the player that has taught
• 1:33:10
  me to play Age of Empires competitively?
• 1:33:13
  I I think you mentioned if I'm not mistaken.
• 1:33:16
  I mean, he didn't do so in a in a coaching or anything, but I
• 1:33:19
  was, he was one of the few content creators that have put
• 1:33:23
  up videos back in 2017 or so with build orders on YouTube.
• 1:33:29
  So I was watching his, I was following his guidance
• 1:33:33
  basically. That's why I have a weak spot
• 1:33:36
  for Stark. OK, yeah, I guess so much for
• 1:33:42
  that, right? Games to look out for in
• 1:33:44
  February. On another topic, we've had the
• 1:33:48
  we have, we had official news from the developers about the
• 1:33:52
  naval rework and the DLC preview.
• 1:33:56
  More specifically about they were previewing and highlighting
• 1:34:00
  different aspects of the new civilizations that will come to
• 1:34:03
  the game on February 17th. So along with that DLC, but not
• 1:34:11
  part of that DLC is the naval rework.
• 1:34:14
  So if you are not buying the DLC, you will still get to
• 1:34:17
  experience the naval rework that is part of the free update.
• 1:34:20
  But the DLC is all about the three new American
• 1:34:25
  civilizations. To be honest, we've already
• 1:34:28
  talked about the naval rework. We haven't talked about the DLC
• 1:34:32
  though. But in our pre discussion of the
• 1:34:36
  show we've decided that it's probably not really worth
• 1:34:40
  talking about this service in great detail because we can do
• 1:34:44
  that once they have actually been released and we got to play
• 1:34:47
  with them. I'm guessing you're going to get
• 1:34:50
  the DLC right? Hopefully I haven't reordered it
• 1:34:55
  because I'm hoping for a a code a code from Microsoft, but but
• 1:35:02
  if I won't get the code I'll definitely get my hands on it.
• 1:35:08
  So do I, I've pre-ordered it already and I'm actually excited
• 1:35:14
  for the DLC. So let's talk about not so much
• 1:35:21
  the details because this is something the listeners can read
• 1:35:24
  up on the developers news. You just go to the official Age
• 1:35:27
  of Empires 2 website and take a look at all the great things
• 1:35:31
  that they have posted. They've posted design documents
• 1:35:34
  about how they have rendered the whole buildings of the
• 1:35:38
  civilizations. They've posted in depth
• 1:35:42
  information about what inspired the civilizations and what,
• 1:35:46
  what's their historical background and even the tech
• 1:35:48
  trees have been previewed. We don't know the stats of all
• 1:35:53
  the units, but we do know what upgrades they can get and all
• 1:35:56
  these kind of things. You can read up on this.
• 1:35:57
  We, we don't need to discuss that here, I believe.
• 1:36:01
  But your overall, let's say, expectation for the DLC, where
• 1:36:09
  do you stand on it? On the new Sims, Kind of excited
• 1:36:17
  to get new Sims like novelties always exciting in my opinion,
• 1:36:22
  but it also comes with a downsize.
• 1:36:26
  I feel like. I feel like the news is again
• 1:36:30
  are going to be too OP and it's going to be just a pain to play
• 1:36:35
  against them on the ladder or to just.
• 1:36:39
  They come in the middle of TTL as well, right?
• 1:36:42
  So I think there's definitely some OP aspects from the early
• 1:36:47
  releases of the of the saves. Now you're going to kind of have
• 1:36:52
  to enforce some bans from the players on those saves if they,
• 1:36:58
  you know, don't want to just crumble under their their
• 1:37:01
  pressure pressure. I understood that there's some
• 1:37:05
  settlements as buildings at work, like, you know, an
• 1:37:09
  economic building as a drop of one for everything, but they can
• 1:37:14
  produce Spears and skirm and skirms.
• 1:37:16
  So that's crazy for defense to just defend yourself while going
• 1:37:20
  up fast or that's crazy for rushes.
• 1:37:23
  Early on you had the the tower rush, the classic tower rush,
• 1:37:28
  when you would, you know, send four wheels forward, let's say
• 1:37:32
  make a couple of towers. When you're aggression dies, you
• 1:37:38
  keep them forward on a mining Cam.
• 1:37:40
  Now that mining camp is a settlement.
• 1:37:42
  Now you can add military from that settlement.
• 1:37:45
  It, I don't know, it's going to be, it's going to be tough.
• 1:37:52
  I can understand that, but then again I felt like this was
• 1:37:56
  pretty much every DLC you know? Sicilian Dungeon rush would
• 1:38:00
  probably be so Opie. They can produce units and they
• 1:38:04
  are much stronger than towers and nobody does that.
• 1:38:07
  Poles tower rushes are not really a thing.
• 1:38:10
  I feel like I on a regular basis when these DLCS come out with a
• 1:38:15
  new civilizations I just don't comprehend how they would fit
• 1:38:18
  into the matter. So I tend to think they are all
• 1:38:22
  Opie and then it turns out they are not.
• 1:38:25
  Unless they're of course Ketan and you know the three Kingdom
• 1:38:28
  civilizations. They are still Opie, but the
• 1:38:31
  rest I don't know. So my problem is a whole
• 1:38:34
  different one. I still haven't learned to with
• 1:38:41
  certainty, say what's the unique unit of the shoe and what's the
• 1:38:44
  unique unit of the woo. Yeah, there's just so much
• 1:38:48
  information, right? I can't keep up with the three
• 1:38:52
  Kingdom civilizations. I at one point I just resignated
• 1:38:58
  and I felt like it's OK to have 3 sieves in the game that I am
• 1:39:03
  not very familiar with because what are the chance that I get
• 1:39:06
  them when I get random sieve and if so then well, bad luck.
• 1:39:10
  But now there's three other civilizations that I have to
• 1:39:14
  learn, and they feel so alien from what I've seen to compare
• 1:39:19
  to other civilizations that it feels like I have to really put
• 1:39:23
  some effort into learning them with the settlements and all
• 1:39:26
  these kind of mechanics that they have.
• 1:39:29
  For sure one of them is not even getting access to the militia
• 1:39:34
  line is completely replaced with something else, but that's
• 1:39:39
  something else is not even countered by The Archers.
• 1:39:43
  So a lot of like it stop, stop giving units so much Pierce
• 1:39:51
  armor like hell, look how Tiger cab is doing look how He Guang
• 1:39:57
  he Guang compensates in not too much HP, but like even white
• 1:40:02
  feather guard from from the shoe.
• 1:40:04
  Their unique unit, it has a lot of Pierce Armand they kind of
• 1:40:11
  gain HP as well if from the unique unit and they're just not
• 1:40:16
  dying like units running everywhere without being able to
• 1:40:20
  kill them. Just stop.
• 1:40:22
  I hate House Carlos as it is. I'm anticipating that I'll have
• 1:40:27
  the same problem as I had when the Chronicles DLC came out and
• 1:40:32
  you got those three Greek civilizations.
• 1:40:35
  And they were so inherently different from everything that I
• 1:40:39
  knew from Age of Empires 2 civilizations, that even though
• 1:40:42
  I had completed the campaign and most missions even twice or
• 1:40:46
  three times, because they were just so much fun.
• 1:40:49
  By the end of that campaign, I still didn't know what unit did
• 1:40:54
  what exactly and how they would be counted most efficiently.
• 1:40:58
  Because because it was just too much time to understand that
• 1:41:03
  this is basically a militia, but it looks completely different.
• 1:41:07
  And, you know, I could have done that, but it would have taken
• 1:41:12
  too much time for me. And I felt like if I I just want
• 1:41:16
  to finish the campaign and have some fun with it and it's not
• 1:41:18
  worth it to do so. And I felt a kind of fatigue and
• 1:41:22
  wasn't motivated enough to do that.
• 1:41:24
  And I'm, I feel stupid saying that, but I kind of anticipate
• 1:41:28
  the same feeling with these new 3 civilizations.
• 1:41:31
  I really want to play them in their campaigns but I'm too lazy
• 1:41:35
  to learn them probably. I, I was the same and and it's a
• 1:41:40
  shame because I'm I'm a content creator here.
• 1:41:43
  I already has a a video up on their description and thoughts
• 1:41:49
  about it and this is going to be a lot of content farming for all
• 1:41:53
  the all the content creators and and such.
• 1:41:56
  I've always been so uninterested.
• 1:42:02
  Like it takes me, I'm, I'm ashamed to say this, but it
• 1:42:06
  takes me weeks as well to actually learn things about it
• 1:42:10
  after casting them a lot of times or I have to play with
• 1:42:14
  them in order to do so. Like to me just opening the tech
• 1:42:18
  tree and going through them that that that's not doing it.
• 1:42:21
  That's not doing it. Like I'm very uninterested to do
• 1:42:24
  that. I'm very.
• 1:42:26
  That doesn't catch my interest at all.
• 1:42:28
  Yeah, yeah, 100%. I, I feel exactly the same.
• 1:42:33
  I I lack the motivation to put the put the effort into that.
• 1:42:37
  And the difference between these civilizations and the 1st I'm
• 1:42:42
  going to say 45 S without the three Kingdom civilizations is
• 1:42:46
  that the 1st 45 civilizations were close enough to one another
• 1:42:52
  that all I had to learn were the few details where they deviate
• 1:42:56
  from one another. But the but the rest was
• 1:42:59
  basically I could just use whatever I've learned before and
• 1:43:03
  compare that to the new civilization.
• 1:43:05
  And I'm not even sure if this is true with the three American
• 1:43:09
  civilizations, where maybe they are just the same as the first
• 1:43:12
  45, but I'm under the impression that they're not.
• 1:43:16
  So my motivation is very low to put that effort into learning.
• 1:43:21
  Yeah. But since you mentioned the
• 1:43:24
  milking the content, and I'm curious what you think about
• 1:43:28
  this. I'm growing tired of opening up
• 1:43:32
  YouTube in the morning and seeing that there's three or
• 1:43:36
  five or 10 new videos from 10 different content creators with
• 1:43:40
  the same content when they are almost live reacting to
• 1:43:44
  something that has been dropped. Some new information snips.
• 1:43:49
  It's too much content for me. Yeah, it can keep up with
• 1:43:53
  everything, but I feel the same. But I just say, well, I read the
• 1:43:57
  notes yesterday, yeah, but I don't really care about their
• 1:44:00
  opinion, so I'm just going to do my thing.
• 1:44:02
  Yeah, yeah. It's just because, you know,
• 1:44:06
  we're both content creators with the podcasts and with the
• 1:44:09
  streams and everything and of. Course, yeah.
• 1:44:12
  It I feel like I should talk about the new civilizations, but
• 1:44:18
  I also feel like I want to play them for a month 1st and have
• 1:44:23
  some first hand experiences and then I want to talk about the
• 1:44:26
  civilizations. But then nobody's going to be
• 1:44:28
  interested in it because they've seen hundreds of videos from
• 1:44:31
  hundreds of people talking non-stop about the civilization,
• 1:44:35
  you know? You are absolutely correct and I
• 1:44:38
  feel the same, but just so you know, people are interested,
• 1:44:42
  like people that listen to you, people that are in your
• 1:44:44
  community absolutely do care about your opinion because like
• 1:44:48
  I, I feel the absolute same and I'm like, you know what?
• 1:44:51
  I'm I'm not going to bother. Like I'm going to get reviews
• 1:44:53
  anyway on on YouTube. I don't have a big YouTube
• 1:44:56
  community. I'm going to get reviews.
• 1:44:58
  I'm going to put a lot of effort into it and everyone already
• 1:45:01
  knows what Hera in spirit of the law said.
• 1:45:05
  So then I'm not even going to bother.
• 1:45:07
  But then I have people popping into the the chat asking like,
• 1:45:12
  oh, Danny, have you talked about the water we work yet?
• 1:45:14
  What are your thoughts on it? So I'm like, maybe I should have
• 1:45:18
  done the video. Yeah, yeah, maybe it's so
• 1:45:22
  difficult. Yeah, it's decisions, decisions.
• 1:45:26
  OK. But I'm taking away that you are
• 1:45:29
  you. You have kind of the same
• 1:45:31
  experience with the new DLC, Kind of excited, but also a bit
• 1:45:34
  afraid of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 1:45:38
  OK. Great, I think that's going to
• 1:45:41
  do it for the news finally after almost two hours.
• 1:45:45
  Man, I did not see this coming. What?
• 1:45:49
  That we're going to yap again for two hours.
• 1:45:51
  Yeah, I, I don't know why, Chris, I am so naive.
• 1:45:55
  I, I realized I'm saying it now, but still thankfully no
• 1:46:02
  franchise news. So let's move on to the podcast
• 1:46:05
  news, which there are none of. Again, great news, but we've got
• 1:46:09
  some emails. Once again, thank you for
• 1:46:12
  everyone who wrote in, for everyone who sent an e-mail to
• 1:46:16
  ageofcast@gmail.com that's age of cast at Gmail dot dot com.
• 1:46:22
  By the way, I got an e-mail asking why I would always repeat
• 1:46:28
  the e-mail address 3 times. And I mean ageofcast@gmail.com
• 1:46:35
  and that's because I have some. Let's say I know a little bit
• 1:46:40
  about the psychology of audible information and how human brains
• 1:46:48
  process it and when I I want people to write in.
• 1:46:53
  And if I say that e-mail just once, they would have to
• 1:46:57
  probably skip back a few seconds to so they can save the the
• 1:47:05
  e-mail address in their memory, which nobody does because that's
• 1:47:09
  too much of an inconvenience. And if I repeat it three times,
• 1:47:13
  then people have enough time to memorize this because they are
• 1:47:16
  not caught by surprise anymore. So with that, I've already
• 1:47:20
  answered one of the emails that I've gotten.
• 1:47:23
  I'll also can I can I complete that answer really quick.
• 1:47:27
  He also has a Co host that every single time when I have to send
• 1:47:31
  him my recording ask him what's the e-mail address I think.
• 1:47:36
  I think he just hopes eventually I will learn it.
• 1:47:39
  I did that. I did that before you came onto
• 1:47:41
  the show. OK.
• 1:47:44
  But if that helps you remember it, I'm also glad.
• 1:47:48
  It's a it's a bonus, yeah. I'm also excited, by the way, to
• 1:47:52
  tell you, Daniela, that some of these emails have been sent in
• 1:47:55
  only to compliment my wise choice of bringing you into this
• 1:48:00
  podcast. So my thanks go out to Rachel
• 1:48:03
  and Zandro for your or Sandro probably for your kind words.
• 1:48:09
  I'm happy that everyone's enjoying Daniela joining me on
• 1:48:12
  this podcast. I'm really glad about that.
• 1:48:14
  That's so nice actually, thank you, I feel honoured.
• 1:48:20
  Oh, oh, I can give you. I can do you even better.
• 1:48:24
  I'm getting more messages about how great it is that you're on
• 1:48:28
  the show than actual questions. Oh, that's so cute.
• 1:48:33
  Actually, I I thought you were going to say I'm getting more
• 1:48:37
  messages, more positive messages and negative.
• 1:48:41
  No, no, no, no, no. I'm.
• 1:48:45
  I have yet to get a negative message I believe.
• 1:48:48
  Oh yeah, time is young. Don't worry about it.
• 1:48:52
  No, I'm quite positive because with the podcasts, it's not like
• 1:48:56
  the audience is super big, so people are probably, if they
• 1:49:01
  don't like it, they're just not going to listen to it.
• 1:49:04
  It's not like a Twitch stream or something where you have hardly
• 1:49:07
  any alternatives. With the podcast, if you don't
• 1:49:09
  like it, you just don't listen to it and you're not really
• 1:49:11
  missing out on anything because as we've said, there's hundreds
• 1:49:14
  of other videos that have already been published.
• 1:49:18
  OK so I've got 3 emails here I think.
• 1:49:26
  Yeah let's just start with the first one because this was
• 1:49:28
  already sent in last month so I would feel bad if we would skip
• 1:49:31
  this. This is from from a person
• 1:49:33
  called Garnut. Garnut.
• 1:49:36
  He or she says I suffer from a bad case of ladder anxiety and
• 1:49:40
  the new system is making it worse.
• 1:49:43
  Before I could queue up and I had a minute or so to back out
• 1:49:47
  if the anxiety got too much for me.
• 1:49:49
  But with the new system I get a game a few seconds after hitting
• 1:49:52
  the search buttons. Add me advice for that.
• 1:49:56
  Oh my God, I feel this person so much.
• 1:50:01
  I hate the new system. I hate like even as a streamer
• 1:50:04
  if I want to play a couple of games I you know which is kind
• 1:50:09
  of funny. All the pro players that are
• 1:50:11
  streaming their games are usually complaining about long
• 1:50:13
  queues. I love long queues.
• 1:50:15
  The, the sucky part would, it would have been that you know
• 1:50:19
  that after a long queue, you either get a really high
• 1:50:22
  opponent or a really low one that's a downsize.
• 1:50:25
  But I, I get to chat with the viewers.
• 1:50:30
  I, I, I get to interact with my stream like I, I don't know, I,
• 1:50:36
  I don't just want to play the game non-stop and people watch
• 1:50:39
  me. The first of all, that's
• 1:50:40
  exhausting. First of all, you need a break.
• 1:50:42
  You need a breather. You need to like I, I love
• 1:50:45
  interacting with my community. Now when I said that on stream,
• 1:50:48
  some people were like, OK, but you can just not queue and do
• 1:50:52
  that. Yeah, but then like you, you get
• 1:50:54
  new viewers. 14/14/14 Queuing Queue up Queue up.
• 1:50:59
  Also true. OK, so like I'm queuing up, but
• 1:51:03
  then instagame then I'm like I, so I, I, I kind of feel that,
• 1:51:09
  you know, it. It's that compared to, well, not
• 1:51:14
  compared, but piled on leather anxiety as well.
• 1:51:18
  It's tough to deal with. So my advice would be to kind
• 1:51:24
  of, you know, keep in mind that when you queue up in a couple of
• 1:51:29
  seconds, you know you're going to get a game.
• 1:51:31
  So you try at home to take those couple of moments, just make a
• 1:51:36
  team, don't queue up yet open the tech tree.
• 1:51:41
  Think about what map you would like to play.
• 1:51:43
  Think about what's if you would like to play.
• 1:51:47
  Just do your small ritual before actually clicking the queue
• 1:51:51
  button, but kind of preparing yourself to get hit with the
• 1:51:56
  insta match of when it when, when you do not a big fan of it.
• 1:52:00
  Not a big fan of it either because that's also incredibly
• 1:52:03
  inconsistent in the sense that especially when it was
• 1:52:06
  introduced, that almost made me stop playing the game together
• 1:52:10
  altogether. I hated it so much.
• 1:52:12
  Absolutely. I it was the first time ever
• 1:52:15
  when I felt like I'm going to stop playing this game
• 1:52:19
  altogether because it was very frustrating.
• 1:52:21
  I would only get opponents in like 2-3 hundred ego gap.
• 1:52:25
  So either I would either get it, I would either get stomped or
• 1:52:31
  stomped myself. So it was just, I don't know, I
• 1:52:37
  hated it. I kind of got used to it in the
• 1:52:39
  beginning in in in the end, but. Has that been improved or do you
• 1:52:44
  still experience that you are playing against people who are
• 1:52:47
  way below or above you? I think it's gotten a bit
• 1:52:52
  better. That also might just be because
• 1:52:57
  of my big ELO fluctuation. Like I, I, I don't really care
• 1:53:02
  my, my ELO goes up and down to 100, you know, with the new map
• 1:53:06
  pool or with a new, I, I don't know, I, I have to feel the vibe
• 1:53:12
  to play and sometimes I play just to play and I'm not feeling
• 1:53:16
  the vibe. So then I drop a lot, then I
• 1:53:18
  feel the vibe. I get a new map, I get a good
• 1:53:21
  map, I got a good save, then you know.
• 1:53:25
  That sounds great. Yes.
• 1:53:29
  You kind of make me want to queue up now.
• 1:53:32
  Yeah, yeah. So when I'm, I don't know, maybe
• 1:53:38
  I, when I'm dropping back down to 15116 hundred, I, I feel like
• 1:53:43
  it's not as bad. But as soon as I'm getting close
• 1:53:46
  to 1700, boom, 181519 hundred. OK, OK, let me be.
• 1:53:53
  And it's one of those guys that you like that Mike was their
• 1:53:56
  scout in Dark age. And when as soon as I see that,
• 1:53:59
  I'm like, it's one of those so, so my mental game is already
• 1:54:05
  lost. That's like that.
• 1:54:08
  Then I'm getting leather anxiety.
• 1:54:10
  It's like, OK, in the second screen, I already opened spec
• 1:54:13
  dashboard. What can I cast next?
• 1:54:17
  Is someone playing? Is there a TTL happening?
• 1:54:21
  OK, so before I answer that question, Daniela, what else are
• 1:54:25
  you doing in Dark Age if not my crying?
• 1:54:27
  Your scout, I'm just. Muttering my lumberjacks.
• 1:54:35
  Maybe there's more important things to do.
• 1:54:41
  I send I send this skull behind a deer and then I forget about
• 1:54:44
  it and deer goes back three times, like get tilted and that
• 1:54:48
  deer, Oh my God. OK.
• 1:54:51
  So Garner, thanks again for that question.
• 1:54:55
  I think that's a very important question because there's so many
• 1:54:58
  people suffering from letter anxiety.
• 1:55:00
  When I was thinking about how to answer this question, I at one
• 1:55:04
  point I realized that what you're really saying is that you
• 1:55:07
  had a way of coping with letter anxiety during that time when
• 1:55:13
  you waited for a game and you could decide whether you would
• 1:55:16
  quit out or not. And you had used that time to
• 1:55:20
  activate your coping mechanisms and get into that.
• 1:55:26
  You know the basically the same thing that Daniela said before
• 1:55:29
  when she said make a tea or something.
• 1:55:31
  You, that's why your advice is so good because you said, OK,
• 1:55:35
  you had a coping mechanism. Try to find a new way to use
• 1:55:39
  that same exact coping mechanism.
• 1:55:41
  Buy yourself some time, for example, by manifesting a new
• 1:55:45
  ritual like making the tea. I would like to add to that that
• 1:55:50
  if you want more than just a coping strategy, then usually
• 1:55:55
  with all kinds of anxieties, what you usually do is to try to
• 1:56:01
  understand what causes the anxiety.
• 1:56:04
  So the worst advice one could give you is that it's just a
• 1:56:08
  game, because apparently it is more than just a game for you.
• 1:56:14
  And for whatever reason that is, I think it's worth exploring.
• 1:56:18
  So for some people, I would argue letter anxiety comes from
• 1:56:23
  they have a fear of being judged by other people.
• 1:56:28
  I don't know, random spectators or your opponents.
• 1:56:35
  That is, that is a whole different story.
• 1:56:38
  I, I think that is a very, very that, that is a fear that is
• 1:56:43
  actually that has a reason that is rational.
• 1:56:51
  So maybe that fear of judgement, another source of fear that
• 1:56:57
  causes the anxiety could be not that you fear to be judged by
• 1:57:00
  others, but more that you have expectations of your performance
• 1:57:04
  and that you are afraid of not being able to perform that way
• 1:57:09
  and then be disappointed by yourself.
• 1:57:11
  And you don't want to face that disappointment, which is also
• 1:57:14
  something that many people suffer from, not just when
• 1:57:17
  queuing for H of a bias 2, but in many, many different
• 1:57:22
  contexts. So, and these are just two
• 1:57:25
  examples, there could be lots of other reasons.
• 1:57:27
  So I think my advice is apart from, you know, find a new way
• 1:57:32
  of using coping mechanisms. If you want to get rid of the
• 1:57:35
  anxiety or at least lower it a little bit, it's worth exploring
• 1:57:39
  what causes the anxiety. And that is, again, something
• 1:57:42
  that is highly individual and not something that other people
• 1:57:47
  have to share with you. Yeah, I guess that's my answer.
• 1:57:51
  And also if you find a way to lower it, can you resend another
• 1:57:54
  e-mail explaining us how you manage?
• 1:57:57
  Just asking for a friend. Asking for a friend because when
• 1:58:00
  it comes to anxiety it's I have my struggles.
• 1:58:05
  Let's just put it this way. Yeah, I think most people do.
• 1:58:08
  It's just often very private and not visible to other people.
• 1:58:12
  Yeah. Of course.
• 1:58:14
  Yeah. But you're doing great, buddy.
• 1:58:16
  Like don't my, my God, my heart goes to them because it's.
• 1:58:23
  We've got another e-mail by Benny.
• 1:58:26
  He writes with Viper Tato and Doubt not qualifying qualifying
• 1:58:30
  for Red Bull Wallolo. Does this mean that the Tyrant
• 1:58:33
  Dynasty is finally coming to an end?
• 1:58:36
  Finally, we spotted the hate listener.
• 1:58:43
  I was just kidding. Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:58:47
  I don't know. Whatever the Tyrant Dynasty is,
• 1:58:51
  I'm assuming this means that we are not putting Viper as one of
• 1:58:55
  the favourites anymore. Maybe that's what he means,
• 1:58:59
  right? Yeah, maybe.
• 1:59:01
  Yeah, do you agree? Is Viper not one of the
• 1:59:03
  favourites anymore? I think he's just slightly
• 1:59:07
  washed. I don't know, man.
• 1:59:08
  It's it's tough to say with a lot of things going on in his
• 1:59:14
  life right now. He has a kid now kind of, you
• 1:59:21
  know, testing the fatherhood. He's at the beginning.
• 1:59:24
  Then all of this issues with, you know, JL not paying him
• 1:59:30
  lawyers. He mentioned three lawyers.
• 1:59:33
  So I don't know if all of those are for JL or for other things,
• 1:59:38
  but he has a lot of stuff to to deal with, obviously.
• 1:59:43
  So I'm not sure if the Viper air is over or just on a pause, on a
• 1:59:53
  temporary pause. I don't know thing where time
• 1:59:56
  will tell. But you know, we talked about
• 1:59:59
  this previously the the younger players that, you know, look,
• 2:00:04
  I'm not even sure I can refer to her as a younger player.
• 2:00:08
  But compared to the tyrant line up, he was definitely the kid
• 2:00:12
  among them as well. You know that that hunger, that
• 2:00:17
  preparation leery say by Lucho. Lucho is 19.
• 2:00:23
  It's crazy but then again he's like 6 years older than leery
• 2:00:28
  and heroin. They started out being almost
• 2:00:30
  professional, so he's basically old.
• 2:00:34
  Yeah, Well, yeah, yeah, coming from 29 years old and.
• 2:00:42
  Yeah, go ahead, Daniela. Guess my age.
• 2:00:45
  Well, I don't know. I don't want to.
• 2:00:49
  I'm sorry. I sense that.
• 2:00:51
  I sense that a lot. I'm I, I just had my birthday.
• 2:00:55
  I'm 38 now. Oh, happy birthday.
• 2:00:59
  Thanks, When was your birthday I?
• 2:01:01
  Didn't 29th. You should have let me know.
• 2:01:02
  So what 29th? No, I I usually don't tell
• 2:01:05
  people but now I told everyone so so I'm stupid.
• 2:01:11
  You're just going to edit it after.
• 2:01:13
  True, I could actually edit it out, but I well, I forgot to put
• 2:01:17
  down the time stamp and I'm probably too lazy to look it.
• 2:01:20
  Up too late now, Too late now. Yeah, I'm entering my my 30s
• 2:01:25
  soon as well. So yeah, yeah, for us to call it
• 2:01:29
  19 year old old, yeah, bit of an overstatement.
• 2:01:36
  True. I agree.
• 2:01:38
  Yeah. I I don't think I have anything
• 2:01:39
  to add to what you've said. I don't think the Tyrant dynasty
• 2:01:43
  existed probably for the past five years.
• 2:01:47
  So I believe maybe you're right. You know, if if things settle
• 2:01:55
  down for Viper, I mean, he got his money from GL, that's a
• 2:01:59
  probably a big, big relief for him.
• 2:02:02
  His son's only getting older and making things easier with that.
• 2:02:05
  Maybe maybe in a couple of months some things calm down and
• 2:02:11
  he gets calmer and can focus more on being a pro player.
• 2:02:15
  There's no denying that Viper is still one of the best, so why
• 2:02:19
  not? Boot camp in Germany organized
• 2:02:23
  by Viper incoming with the GL money soon to be announced.
• 2:02:31
  I don't know. With him having three lawyers, I
• 2:02:34
  feel like the GL money is going straight to the lawyers.
• 2:02:37
  But yeah, yeah. True.
• 2:02:40
  Oh God. OK, so last e-mail, I think this
• 2:02:43
  is going to be a fun one. Let's try to make it quick, Sam
• 2:02:47
  wrote in and says in a recent episode.
• 2:02:51
  I sensed some tension between Daniela and Chris when it comes
• 2:02:54
  to what maps you prefer. So I would like to cause some
• 2:02:58
  trouble and ask if you were in charge of the one V1 map pool
• 2:03:03
  with its current settings, so 3 bands and one favorite map,
• 2:03:07
  which maps would you choose? Daniela, please go first.
• 2:03:12
  Some tension. Well, I don't.
• 2:03:16
  I don't even think we need to hear Chris's opinion because I
• 2:03:20
  bet I bet Chris's opinion have been probably the last couple of
• 2:03:24
  my efforts, especially the one that I even posted on Reddit
• 2:03:29
  that I hate with all Arabia. That was awesome, yes.
• 2:03:33
  Yeah, yeah. You see.
• 2:03:34
  See, I'm telling you, we don't need to hear.
• 2:03:36
  We know his opinion. I don't know, probably Migration
• 2:03:41
  islands, Nomad, Aquarena. OK, joke aside, joke.
• 2:03:56
  OK, no joke. Those are my favorite maps.
• 2:03:58
  But I do. I am reasonable.
• 2:04:01
  I am reasonable. I know that not everyone is
• 2:04:05
  weirdo like me. And you know, my ideal world and
• 2:04:12
  my ideal map is a category from each.
• 2:04:19
  Type of map. Yeah exactly.
• 2:04:22
  You know how Mam does with warlords.
• 2:04:24
  He has open closed, nomad water semi open and plan missing 1
• 2:04:33
  whatever. Chaos.
• 2:04:34
  Chaos. Chaos scales scales exactly.
• 2:04:37
  So yeah. Bring me Arabia Arena always
• 2:04:41
  there. Mega random nomad, nomad,
• 2:04:47
  African clearing, whatever, a nomadic map, migration islands,
• 2:04:53
  northern Isles, a water one, Socotra.
• 2:05:00
  And I think I'm missing 1:00 but you get my point.
• 2:05:02
  My point is we should have a rotation with every single one
• 2:05:06
  of these categories. You know, visible.
• 2:05:11
  Don't bring me fortify, clearing arena, Black Forest, like
• 2:05:17
  whatever 4 closed maps, 3 open ones or the other way around and
• 2:05:22
  call it a day. Like there needs to be some I
• 2:05:27
  don't know, some variation, some variety.
• 2:05:33
  And what baffles me the most when it comes to Maple, this is
• 2:05:36
  something that I will never be able to understand.
• 2:05:39
  Usually every people, every person, all the people are
• 2:05:44
  usually the Arabian lovers that complain about the Maple when
• 2:05:49
  Arabia is always there. Always.
• 2:05:54
  If they don't get for Arabia, they're sad.
• 2:05:56
  Yeah. Because you only had three bans
• 2:05:58
  you need for Arabians. You will, I promise you.
• 2:06:01
  I promise you, you will have. 90% of the community loves
• 2:06:05
  Arabia, I promise you that. Even if you don't ban all of
• 2:06:11
  them, the chances that you get a different map are like one in
• 2:06:14
  five or, or lower than that one in five is.
• 2:06:20
  And I actually think they're lower.
• 2:06:21
  But I, I am trying to be, you know, objective here.
• 2:06:28
  There's always going to be someone that will want to play
• 2:06:30
  Arabia. Arabia's way too popular for
• 2:06:32
  people to, to ban it. It's me and probably some other
• 2:06:35
  3 weirdos at Ban Arabia. You know what I'm inclined to.
• 2:06:42
  I'm inclined to agree with you, no.
• 2:06:47
  But this dude wanted tension. Yeah, I'll give him tension.
• 2:06:50
  Wait, wait. I'm just saying that what you're
• 2:06:53
  saying is the reasonable thing to do.
• 2:06:55
  That would be well, but there's only one good map and that is
• 2:07:00
  Arabia. But, but what you're saying is
• 2:07:04
  actually the reasonable thing. However, I would change one
• 2:07:07
  thing. I would say that pure water maps
• 2:07:12
  should not be part of the map pool just because they're crap.
• 2:07:22
  Also, what I would like to see is that whenever there is a
• 2:07:30
  tournament going on an STA tournament and that tournament
• 2:07:34
  is in its last week, if it's longer than a week, well last
• 2:07:39
  two weeks, then the tournament map should be in the map pool.
• 2:07:44
  That's. What tournament maps should be
• 2:07:46
  in the map pool? It's something that I would like
• 2:07:48
  to see way more implemented. And they kind of started to dip
• 2:07:52
  their toes. I my, my impression is that they
• 2:07:58
  have to change them. For instance, look at stranded
• 2:08:00
  in a tournament versus stranded on ladder.
• 2:08:02
  There's way too much stone. I have no idea.
• 2:08:06
  But I believe you on ladder. Yeah, but because on one of the
• 2:08:10
  things in tournaments about stranded, it was voted one of
• 2:08:13
  the viewers favorite, by the way, it's that you only have one
• 2:08:18
  tile of stone here and there. So to go FC castle drop or
• 2:08:24
  something. Nah, because you have to go
• 2:08:28
  through two patches of stone. Also if you sell your stone it's
• 2:08:34
  incredibly hard to to get it back and yeah it will help your
• 2:08:38
  timing, but it it's mostly just focusing on heavy siege pushes
• 2:08:43
  through the middle rather than castle unique units etcetera
• 2:08:48
  etcetera. It's very hard for the
• 2:08:50
  tournament players to just drop a castle.
• 2:08:52
  Sometimes you see them even buying an entire castle.
• 2:08:57
  It takes a while to move throughout the map to to get
• 2:09:03
  stone for a castle, whereas on the ladder it's there's stone
• 2:09:08
  for days. It's just a castle Fiesta on
• 2:09:11
  that map. Again, I do think that someone
• 2:09:14
  that's 5600 ego would struggle on a map like that with no
• 2:09:20
  access to stone. They like to Stonewall.
• 2:09:23
  They're basically like to drag the games for a long game.
• 2:09:26
  Like someone might like the map, but someone that has been having
• 2:09:31
  a, you know, full long day at the office isn't feel the need
• 2:09:35
  to put more stress and, you know, sweatiness into a game.
• 2:09:42
  They just want to play 2 hours of SIM City, make their little
• 2:09:47
  village Stonewall the entire map big three castles, 2 fortified
• 2:09:51
  wall towers like they've seen in the campaign.
• 2:09:55
  I don't know things like this. And that's perfectly fine.
• 2:09:58
  But they can't do that on a tournament.
• 2:10:01
  Map. Yeah, it's it's hard to satisfy
• 2:10:04
  everyone, but hey, Sam wanted to know what kind of maps we would
• 2:10:08
  put it in. So the balance is most
• 2:10:11
  important. What I would like is to have
• 2:10:16
  force choose the map if I want to play a water map.
• 2:10:24
  I don't mind staying 10 minutes in the queue.
• 2:10:26
  I really. Don't.
• 2:10:27
  Like you could like you force pick a sieve.
• 2:10:30
  You have you. I feel like it only makes sense
• 2:10:33
  to force pick a map as well in that case.
• 2:10:35
  In that case, I wouldn't mind if I say 10 minutes in the queue.
• 2:10:37
  If I really want to play, I don't care.
• 2:10:40
  If I play versus someone higher on on water.
• 2:10:44
  I don't care because that's I actually enjoy that and I can
• 2:10:48
  even learn from well technically I could learn from all my games
• 2:10:54
  if I want to improve, but I I don't care too much for all
• 2:10:57
  those games. Like if it's if it's water, if
• 2:11:00
  it's something that I really enjoy.
• 2:11:02
  And yet, let me say 20 minutes in the queue if I only have time
• 2:11:05
  for one game, I don't want to be stomped 3 times on a super open
• 2:11:11
  map that I don't want to play any anyway because that's going
• 2:11:13
  to kill my enthusiasm, is going to ruin my evening, and that's
• 2:11:18
  about it. I completely agree with you
• 2:11:21
  there, but that would mean that the settings were different and
• 2:11:26
  you know, for this question, we had to stick to the settings.
• 2:11:30
  OK, that's it for the emails. And Next up is the tournament
• 2:11:36
  outlook for January 2026. As of Friday this week, the
• 2:11:43
  Platinum League of T-90 Titans Leagues will have officially
• 2:11:48
  started. The Platinum League is the most
• 2:11:50
  prestigious of all the T-90 leagues with the total price of
• 2:11:53
  $64,000. It starts off with a group stage
• 2:11:57
  that is set to last until March 16th, then moving over to a
• 2:12:01
  playoff stage. There's four groups with six
• 2:12:04
  players each. Each map win scores them one
• 2:12:07
  point, so everything is played as a play.
• 2:12:09
  All three set during the whole entire group stage. 1st place of
• 2:12:14
  each group advances to the quarterfinals, second and third
• 2:12:18
  advance to the round of 12, and the fourth place won't get to
• 2:12:22
  play the playoffs but gets to stay in Platinum League for the
• 2:12:25
  next season. Whereas the bottom two players
• 2:12:28
  of each group, Greg, get relegated to Gold League for TTL
• 2:12:32
  6. There's tons of maps of old and
• 2:12:34
  new with endless amount of variety, so the next two months
• 2:12:38
  will be packed with TTL games. Initially, Daniela and I had
• 2:12:44
  planned to discuss the Platinum League in our expectations, but
• 2:12:47
  I'm afraid Daniela had to leave because this podcast was once
• 2:12:51
  again way longer than I was expecting.
• 2:12:54
  So I'm just going to run through this last section of the podcast
• 2:12:58
  before I send you off. Apart from T-90 Titans League,
• 2:13:03
  there's also going to be a Community Cup, and that's very
• 2:13:06
  interesting. It's called the Six Nations Cup
• 2:13:09
  and it will feature the six American civilizations, which is
• 2:13:13
  the Aztecs, Maya, Inca, and the new civilizations Mapuche,
• 2:13:17
  Muiska, and Tupi. This is a community tournament
• 2:13:21
  hosted by the Lo ELO Legion and sign ups are open until February
• 2:13:27
  the 27th. So if you're looking for a fun
• 2:13:29
  way to try out the new civilizations, this is the
• 2:13:32
  tournament for you. There is no tournament going on
• 2:13:37
  in Age of Empires 4 except for the extensive qualifiers for Red
• 2:13:41
  Bull Wollo Lo Londinium because at this tournament, Age of
• 2:13:44
  Empires 2:00 and 4:00 will be present.
• 2:13:48
  These qualifiers have already started and are played out in
• 2:13:52
  four different rounds. The first two rounds were won by
• 2:13:55
  Marine Lord and Wham. The third round will be played
• 2:13:58
  the next weekend on February 7th and 8th, and the final round
• 2:14:02
  will be played the week after. Edge of Mythology will get into
• 2:14:07
  a new STI tournament called Pandora's Box 2 at the end of
• 2:14:11
  February starting on the 28th. And if you want to participate
• 2:14:14
  and compete for the $10,000 worth of prize pool, you can
• 2:14:18
  still sign up until the 20th. The first iteration of the
• 2:14:21
  tournament took place about 3 years ago and had a price pull
• 2:14:25
  of $1200 back when AOM was still played on Vubli.
• 2:14:31
  And that is it for this month's magazine.
• 2:14:34
  If you want to become a part of the podcast community, join the
• 2:14:37
  podcast Discord server. And if you want to get in touch
• 2:14:40
  or your message read in the next magazine, write an e-mail at Age
• 2:14:45
  of cast@gmail.com. I can't thank her in person, so
• 2:14:48
  I'm going to thank her from here.
• 2:14:50
  Thank you Daniella, once again for joining me on the podcast
• 2:14:53
  and spending more than two hours with me discussing all things
• 2:14:56
  that have happened in January. And if you want to pay your
• 2:15:01
  respect to Daniella, just go and watch her cast.
• 2:15:05
  Pretty much anything that will be castable for TTL for the next
• 2:15:09
  coming months. Just head on over to
• 2:15:12
  twitch.tv/daniella under score AOE, that's twitch.tv.
• 2:15:17
  Daniela under score AOE, or if you're too lazy to memorize
• 2:15:22
  that, just click on the link that I'm putting into the show
• 2:15:24
  notes. Thank you everyone for listening
• 2:15:26
  to this podcast and once again, I will see you in the next one.