The first round of the playoffs for WANsanity will be an action packed one, with both close matches to come as well as blowouts. The teams will attempt to make their mark on the scene, to proclaim themselves as serious contenders while leaving other teams in their path with nothing but a tissue to hold on to. I will start off in the Eastern Conference, the division of blowouts.

Stickmen vs Track 5

The Stickmen, ever since their exhibition match with Abuse before the season began have been one of the favourites to win the championship. Their mid season battle with the highly touted team Abuse, which ended in victory for the stickmen, only further cemented their position as THE team to beat. They were the best team in the league, managing to be the only team to break the 60 point barrier and only drop 1 map all season long. The one map they have dropped was cpm18 against Abuse, and the consensus seems to be that this is their weakest map, if you can call it that. Led by Northman, Su1cidal, Fiend and Lagwagon, this is a fearsome squad of players that Track 5 will have to deal with in this match.

Track 5 have been kind of inconsistent during the season, both in their play and who actually shows up for their matches. Their two best players are Jaydee and FFSmasher, both of whom are pretty experienced players in cpm. FFSmasher is best known for his dueling, but he has carried that talent over to tdm pretty well. Robnoly has really started to develop into a top player for t5 and tends to bring in some teamplay experience the team needs. T5 and stx played back in week 5, where the stickmen trounced over T5's top lineup with relative ease. If Track 5 wishes to keep the score decent or perhaps even take a map, they will need their top players to have the best games of their career in cpm tdm.

Prediction: The stickmen should make short work of track 5, sending them packing on a 5 track train ride.

Alliance of Pain vs Snot Nosed Brats

Alliance of Pain are a top team made up of players from various backgrounds such as CTF and RA3. They all have one thing in common though and that is aim. AoP can lay claim to something no other team can in the league, and that is the best aiming team in the league. If you take a look at the weapon stats from the WANsanity regular season, AoP owns just about all of them. They are the top team in accuracy with the PG, LG, RL, SG, and MG. They also have the highest Net frags out of all the teams with a +1935 net, a HUGE 600+ frags over the second best team in the league. They also have the most quad pickups of any team in the season, with 173 quads. And of course they own the award of most damage given by any team during the season. Want another stat to quench your thirst for numbers? They are the top team in total amour collected. These guys definitely know how to lay the smackdown. So you may ask yourself how the heck do they manage to lose? Well, aim is only half the equation. In the teamplay department is where they hurt the most, aim will only carry you so far. While they don't seem to have a weakest map, they just don't have the overall teamwork and communication of the top few teams in the league. They certainly don't lack any experience though, going the distance in the last cpm tdm league in North America, the q3Alliance league. In that league, they went to the finals where they went toe to toe with Abuse only to come up short.

The snot nosed brats made it into the playoffs with a last map victory over Track 5 at the end of the season, led by their two best players, Mame and Detonator. The snot nosed brats don't own any stats like AoP, but don't own any negative stat either, making them an average team that manage to get the wins it needed. SNB's best map of the season has been cpm4, only dropping it once all season long and that was back in week 1 when they were a bunch of OSP players trying to learn cpm. Their weakest map on the other hand seems to be cpm21, losing it 4 out of the 7 times they played it during the season.

Prediction: AoP shouldn't break a sweat in this one and should sweep the series. snb will simply be out gunned in this one.

Styles Unknown vs Team Chatkill

Styles Unknown is another team that has been probably the quietest east contender so far, led by players like Lsv, Gradius, elpajuo, and Menace. S? only dropped 5 maps all season long, with 3 of the loses coming on cpm4. They are a solid team on the two cpm maps, only losing once on each, and that was to the mighty Stickmen. They will be entering into their match though with a bit of rust, having last played 2 weeks ago against the stickmen and their last victory was 3 weeks ago. Chatkill will be looking to capitalize on what they hope is a rusty s? squad after their little bit of a layoff.

Team Chatkill are led by two great players who have managed to carry their team through the season. AlaskaDan and Deth are by far their two best players and will have to be on fire in this one if they hope to knock off the #3 seeded Styles Unknown. Alaskadan and Deth both have some incredible aim which is the main reason why Chk managed to hop in the playoffs at the end of the season, after going the most of the season outside of the top 8 in the standings. AlaskaDan and Deth both cracked the top 10 in LG acc, while soup and berzerk were both in the top 10 with RL accuracy. As a team, they are ranked in the top 3 for most of the weapon acc stats, which shows they certainly have the individual talent. However they really stumble when it comes to teamwork. They dropped 8 maps during the season and like a lot of the pure cpm teams, their weakest map is cpm4. However the most disturbing fact though is that they only played 2 playoff teams during the season and they were swept in both of them by Delta 4 and *69. If they wish to have a chance against Styles Unknown they will have to start practicing as a team a lot more. They lose out on the advantage of s? being weak on cpm4 though as they themselves aren't very good on it. If s? or chk are worried about how they will do, perhaps practicing cpm4 like mad to become the better team on it might payoff.

Prediction: Styles Unknown should win this at worse 3-1, they have some solid teamplay and shouldn't be rattled much by chk's aim.

Darkside vs Delta 4

Darkside came into this as a very strong OSP team that everyone thought Apheleon would have to carry through the league. Well they have certainly dispelled that notion with all their players showing they are just as good as Aph, if not better. Darkside is a really solid, well rounded team that features no weak player in their lineup. Their lineup consists of Apheleon, considered the best cpm dueler in North America, backed up by Cha0ticz (top 4 OSP dueller), Alias and Mahmood. To my surprise when I first saw them play, Darkside is in my opinion one of the best teams in the league when it comes to movement. And to complement their impressive movement, they have some pretty sick aim. While they maybe the 4th seed in the east, they certainly have proven that they are a team not to be taken lightly, having finished off the season with an impressive performance against the Stickmen when they were missing one of their key players, mahmood. The one thing they need to work on though is improving their teamplay, as that seems to be the only thing lacking. Darkside should actually probably be ranked higher than they are, having only dropped 1 series all season long (AoP dropped 2 series) and also defeated the #2 seeded AoP.

Delta 4 is what I consider a bunch of 'nobodies' that have some how managed to put together a lot of solid performances throughout the season, surprising many who shrugged them off at the beginning of the season as newbs. They are a pretty well rounded team that puts a lot of emphasis on great teamplay rather than aim. Darkside and D4 squared off way back in week 2, where D4 managed to surprise D|S on the first map to take a map in that series. However, on the next two maps D|S woke up and delivered a severe beating to D4, capped off with a 271-47 win on cpm4. Both teams have improved over the course of the season, but D4 will be really hard pressed to take a map this time around.

Prediction: Darkside should sweep this series if they practice a bit, if they slack off they may drop a map but shouldn't lose either way.