On Latam playday #1 for S11, INTZ pulled off what many think is near impossible on Clubhouse, a successful bar/stock defense. It has happened a handful of times in previous seasons, but they pulled this off against Team Liquid (in a 4v5 no less) in round 3 of their defense (vod embedded at the end). Below is a bit of a diagram of the defensive setup using blueprints provided by Sternab (contact him for purchase) with a bit of photoshopping.
A couple of notes:
- I was unable to find the 3rd castle barricade and it's possible he died with it still in pocket
- I make some conjecture below, but I feel it's inappropriate to ask the team to explain certain details of a strat I'm revealing publicly just to verify them, so feel free to ask INTZ 😉
Explanation to follow the images (open them in a new tab to view larger).
Firstly the top floor setup as it's shorter:
- Both top hatches are reinforced to prevent easy access for the attackers. The defenders only have stairs and garage to rotate with.
- Server external wall is reinforced to prevent easy access to cash (these get thermited).
- A crouch rotate hole is created to rotate in and out of cash to top of cash stairs behind a Goyo vulcan shield and with intel from a Maestro evil eye above it.
Main floor setup:
- Destruction
- The entire stage wall is destroyed to give full view and access to stock.
- There is some soft destruction on the wall near bathroom to provide some line of sight.
- There is some foot level holes in a wall in strip to provide some angles on an entering attacker.
- The hatch in bar is opened to allow for a quick rotate downstairs as necessary.
- Reinforcements
- Garage walls going to lounge are reinforced to prevent easy access to lounge (these get thermited).
- Kitchen hall walls are reinforced nearest kitchen door to prevent easy flank access to Bar.
- Strip club external walls are reinforced to prevent quick soft access to strip. There is also a Kaid electroclaw on them.
- Castle barricades are placed on the kitchen hall door (gets destroyed by an impact from Lesion) and main door (gets destroyed by Zofia) to stage to slow access and cut off angles. Both barricades also were placed at elevated positions where feet could easily be seen.
- Barb wire in various entryways to slow access from outside.
- Goyo vulcan shields
- A vulcan shield are placed in the doorway to the bathroom to help fight kitchen hall.
- A vulcan shield is placed on stage to provide some cover when fighting the stock external doors. The bulletproof cam and evil eye can see over it as well.
- A vulcan shield is placed at the cash rotate at top of cash stairs to allow fighting access from servers and protecting the rotate.
- Maestro evil eyes
- One is above the cash rotate at top of cash stairs to provide into on the cash stairs flank and top floor control.
- One is on the wall facing towards stage to provide into on stock during smoke and plant attempts (this is the most common site to plant in, especially near the far door).
- A bulletproof cam is next to the evil eye in bar, this may have been a mistake that castle was unable to correct as he died prematurely .
One of the ways I like to look at how defending players play a setup is what I think of as zones of control, these are the areas of the map that each player is responsible for, usually with some overlap.
- Maestro controls the bar, primarily on the east side. He is anchoring.
- Goyo controls the bar as well, primarily on the west side as an anchor.
- Kaid controls the west side of the map, primarily strip club as a flex.
- Lesion controls the lower main stairs and basement as a roamer.
- Castle was likely going to control top floor, primarily cash as a roamer.
Unfortunately Castle was killed from a window wallbang on main stairs while still rotating around. He also may have died with his final barricade in pocket to be setup upstairs.
Finally lets talk about how things played out during the round after Castle died.
After Thermite opened garage and server walls for his team mates, Sledge took control of above stock as is standard for attack. The defense played passively not looking for any engagements until attackers started going for a plant. Zofia took control of main door and opened the castle barricade with a lifeline and then destroyed the stage vulcan shield to cut off defenders physical access to stock. Thermite then went for a plant in the corner of stock nearest stage and lounge with cover from Thatcher in stock, Hibana outside north stock door nearest kitchen, Sledge above and Zofia prone at main door.
The defense then reacted with a flurry of kills, starting with maestro using a long angle from near the castle door that was destroyed all the way out the north stock door to kill Hibana. Lesion then impacted the kitchen hall castle barricade (safe now that Hibana was dead), then ran outside and killed Thermite and Thatcher through the north stock door. Maestro swung around the corner to engage Zofia and lost, but the information was relayed to Kaid who lept out the pool window and shot Zofia from behind. During all of this, Goyo rotated downstairs then up through new blue stairs and finally to cash stairs to lastly kill Sledge.
Overall this was a great setup in terms of angles, coverage and execution from the defenders in a 4v5 on one of the most difficult sites in the game at the moment. This was also an example of Goyo being primarily used for line of sight shields and one of them almost backfiring on the defense.
Hope you enjoyed a deeper look at the setup and we see more attempts at this tricky site defense. Thanks INTZ! - mzo
Special thanks to Justin for helping me identify a few of the trickier bits of utility setup!
