Welcome to the second edition of “Battle X-Ray”, a series of articles devoted to meticulously analyzing thrilling and fiercely contested battles. Within these pages, the community will find insightful commentary and critical observations on the outcomes of these epic clashes. In today’s edition, Advisor Orange explores the particularities of the battle between the Army of Club Penguin and the Elite Guardians in the Final Round of the Around The World Cup.

Designed by Edu14463

Hello all, my name is Orange. I joined armies back in 2012 when I was a little boy, so I have seen the overall evolution of how we as children battled with penguins. I am excited to be the very first guest writer for this column.

Today I shall be reviewing the inaugural Around The World Cup finals between the Army of Club Penguin and the Elite Guardians. Shoutout to the Admins for bringing a brand new tournament to the table that I am sure will survive the test of time. We see two modern-day juggernauts, ACP and EGCP, clash it out in the finals. I predicted EGCP to win this battle 2-1, so let’s see what happened!

INTRODUCTION

Now, we do not have a video of this battle and I was unfortunately not in attendance, so I will be doing my best to review this battle based on pictures and word of mouth. With it being picture-based, I will be primarily analyzing the FORMATIONS. So sorry if I am missing out on creative tactics and speed, that’s just something I cannot do without a video.

However, from the judges’ point of view, it seems like speed was similar for both armies while there was no mention of creative tactics. I am not sure if this is just a judging decision to not look at creative tactics (they have mentioned in the past that wipes and bunches do not help with battles, which is RIDICULOUS in my opinion. Way to get rid of something that showcases creativity and intelligence). If you disagree with anything I said, please DM me at @edu14463. On to the battle!

ROOM 1 – ICEBERG

Ah, the Iceberg. The feeling you get when you hear the judges say “Iceberg” for a room is similar to opening your presents on Christmas morning. The joy is unparalleled. There are two reasons why I love the Iceberg. The first is that, in my opinion, this room is the biggest without any obstructions. This allows armies to be more creative in the formations they can use.

Second, if you are the bigger army in this room, you have a huge advantage. With there being so much space, you can strategically pick formations to cover up the opposing army. However, if you do not cover it, it can be pretty embarrassing. The last thing I want to say, Room 1 is by far the most important room of any battle. There is a huge psychological advantage if you can win Room 1; it sets the tone for the rest of the battle. Troops can get discouraged by a poor Room 1 performance!

Now onto the battle, EGCP entered with 41 troops while ACP had 27. Remember what I said about 30 seconds ago about creativity and using your size advantage in the Iceberg? It seems like the EGCP leaders were able to futuristically read my mind as they went straight into a Z while ACP made an upside-down T. In my experience, there are better formations out there to counter a Z, so EGCP was able to take the first third of the battle. It seems like ACP knew this, as they resorted to many big-word bubble tactics. However, the Z provided enough space for EGCP to not get covered.

In the next formation change, we see EGCP change into a Triangle and ACP making a Plus. At this point, the sizes began to even out, so creativity and speed of tactics play a huge role here. This is also a risky counter by ACP, because they’re letting EGCP take the outside. A plus doesn’t really overlap a triangle, so EGCP would LOOK bigger, even though the size is similar. Though both forms were messy, EGCP took an edge with creativity here.

Lastly, we saw EGCP make a V with an underline, while ACP made an X. I like this for ACP as the X is a great counter for a V. However, that did not last for long as EGCP moved into an upside-down T, which is an even better counter for the X.

The theme of this room was that EGCP wanted to take risks while ACP wanted to play it safe. If you enter the room as the smaller army, you NEED to be willing to take risks to make up for the disadvantage. From my point of view, it seemed like EGCP had practiced on their formations beforehand knowing that the Iceberg is a popular room for tournaments, which is why they were able to do so many creative formations. EGCP was also not scared to move out of a formation if they were getting covered, however we didn’t see that sense of urgency from ACP. I never understood why armies would just be okay with being covered. If you know a counter formation, change into one instead of staying put! The judges ruled this room an EGCP win and I agree.

ROOM 2 – STADIUM

Now we are in Room 2. With EGCP taking the lead will they play it safe? Will ACP begin taking risks to tie things up? The stadium is a good room to showcase your creativity. I especially like formations that bleed outside of the ice rink itself because it shows that you can use the whole room to its advantage. Let’s take a look to see how things played out.

EGCP began the room with a Trident Formation!? Just kidding, the judges thought it was a trident but it seems like they do not know what a trident is. EGCP made what looks like a sideways E. Very ballsy play as I have never seen that before. You can tell EGCP really wanted to win this battle as they are pulling all the tricks out of the bag. ACP countered with a V. EGCP has the size advantage here 42-31. With the size advantage and more creative form, it’s looking like an EGCP win right? WRONG!

The next formation change, ACP goes into a circle. And EGCP makes an underlined plus. The circle here is HUGE for ACP as they begin to cover EGCP. This is where the tide was beginning to shift in ACP’s favor, however, ACP switched out first into a triangle. WHY would they switch first when this is the first time they are dominating in the battle? Don’t fight battles so rigidly that you HAVE to move at :03 and :07. My personal tip is: if you are winning with a specific formation, stay in it! Get comfortable! The longer both armies remain in that formation, the bigger advantage you have.

The last formations were ACP into the triangle and EGCP in an X. From the pictures it looks like the X looks nicer while the triangle has gaps. An X is a better counter to the triangle than the Plus, because the X is shaped in a way to where you can cover the triangle. This was a good counter by EGCP, seeing that they needed to shift the tide back their way.

This room was ruled a tie. This is a good result for ACP because there were times when they were dominating. If they can continue that throughout the whole room, they can take victory. I can see how this is a tie, however, I am slightly surprised that EGCP wasn’t able to take the win based on the 1st third and the last third of the room. EGCP is still operating with a size advantage so it would be tough for ACP to replicate their performance that made it a tie. Let’s take a look at the next room.

ROOM 3 – SNOW FORTS

Shoutout to Super for making the Snow Forts battle usable. EGCP entered with 38 while ACP had 28. ACP has their back against the wall right now, however they’ve shown that they can pull off victories with less size. EGCP utilized an Arrow formation while ACP made a backwards L. I can’t really tell what’s happening in the pictures with these formations, so let’s go to the next forms.

The ACP tried to counter the arrow with an upside-down T, but they countered themselves by getting covered. Another small mistake made by ACP. EGCP then changed into a capital I which was a good choice to showcase your size advantage. Once again, shoutout to EGCP for utilizing different formations throughout the whole battle.

In the last stretch, we saw ACP make an X and EGCP make a Z. The top of the forts is shaped weirdly, so it made the top of EGCP’s Z look odd. I give them props for trying the formation out, but I think they could have definitely won the room if they utilized a form that would counter the X, such as a plus with a line at the bottom perhaps.

The judges ruled this room a tie… Which seems weird to me. This is where a video would have been very helpful because based on the pictures and the judges’ review, it seems like both armies were similar in terms of speed while EGCP had more creative forms, albeit slightly messy. However, EGCP having a +10 size advantage over the whole room though, it should have definitely been an EGCP victory in my eyes. It seemed that the judges wanted this room to be a tie for whatever odd reason, maybe to make it seem like the finals were closer than it really was. Which really is a disservice to both armies in the finals. That being said, congratulations on EGCP winning the battle and tournament!

FINAL THOUGHTS

When I made my prediction for this battle, I said EGCP would win because I thought they were more hungry to get that trophy that has eluded them so far this generation. And, I am glad to say I believe they proved me right. You can tell they took preparation seriously as they pulled off a lot of creative formations. They knew how to counter and were not scared of taking risks. The only piece of advice I would have for them is that sometimes the basic formations are okay. If you have the size advantage, use it! Don’t feel married to the idea that you need to use your whole war chest of creative forms for the sake of it.

As for ACP, I do think their inexperience showed here. They made too many mistakes in formation choices and transitions that hurt them more than helped. It also seemed like they did not practice as much as EGCP did going into this battle. EGCP was not perfect, however, I believe ACP did not take advantage of the mistakes EGCP was making and that is ultimately why they lost this battle. ACP has a rich history of veteran leaders who have excelled tactically and strategically in battles, so I expect them to continue to improve going into the Legends Cup.

I asked the leaders a simple question to obtain their perspective on their performances.

What do you think went well in the battle? And what do you think could have gone better? 

Lass, EGCP Leader: Our strongest point was, of course, the size. We managed to succesfully display ourselves better throughout the battle due to our innovative formations, which helped us win. My only complaints were instances of troops not being as smooth as they should be. Evidenced by some parts of the battle, especially during room 3, where they were scrambled in the room.

Ugly, ACP Leader: I think what we managed to do best in this finals is stay consistent regardless of the intensity. We managed to keep a close battle in the finals despite the huge size advantage, something we really lacked before in our army. Our tactical performance has improved a lot and the results only prove so, of course we lost but regardless the battle was very close with 2 ties and was super close to going to overtime. I think what we could’ve done better mostly relies on our size, besides the ‘max’, something we also lacked way before was our average size, while before the tournament that wasn’t really an issue but of course the higher you max the more likely you’ll drop in size and that is something we haven’t been used to in a little while and logically we dropped size throughout the battle. As a leader personally I’ve learnt a lot and studied a lot throughout my time, I still have issues and errors but with each loss I learn even more. In terms of choice of formations I think we did fairly well, there was some errors from my part not regarding the choice of formations but for how long I kept a formation, for example the circle in the stadium, even though it has been 3 minutes I should’ve stayed longer since we held a dominating position. It’s always the little things like that in the battles that can turn everything around, and even though we sadly weren’t able to have everything go our way despite the challenges we faced before the tournament, I’m very proud of our performance during this tournament and even though I think positively of how well we did that does not mean we will train or prepare less for the Legends Cup whether we won or lost this finals.

How do you plan to address your weaknesses heading into the Legends Cup?

Lass, EGCP Leader: Retaining those troops and training them

Ugly, ACP Leader: ACP lacks in some areas, it’s not secret for a major army to have some of their weaknesses be clearly shown and some weaknesses not shown at all. I’d say ACP’s weakness is it’s leadership, normally for an army seeing they’d battle against only one guy leading, they’d logically think it’ll be way easier than having to face 2 or 3 leaders. I won’t say I’m perfect nor the worst, nor I’ll sit and say I’m not gonna do any errors going forward, and I might even repeat mistakes I did, but as far as it goes for a solo leader like me especially in times like this to be able to learn so many things in so little time and lead so many minutes and hours of constantly highly intense battles of wars and tournament finals at a distinctly professional level is something I’m proud of personally. A problem we had before was our performance, with still having a massive size advantage the battle still goes super tied. Right now I think it’s the complete opposite, what we lack on a little is our sizes. The moment we get hold of that again, it’ll be a different game, but as of now that’s ACP’s biggest weakness.

That concludes my analysis. If you made it to this point, I appreciate you for reading all these words. Thank you to Edu for asking me to be a guest for this column. Let me know if you would like me to continue writing these posts or if I should never write again. That being said, what were YOUR thoughts on the battle? Do YOU agree with the analysis provided? What tip would you give both armies?

Orange
Advisor

Edu14463
Associate Editor

More Information

Edu14463

Army Legend. Former Water Ninjas leader. Founder and Former Leader of the Elite Guardians of Club Penguin. Current Club Penguin Armies Editor-in-Chief.