As you might have read, LoD ran into some serious roster issues and had to withdraw completely from the BEML to regroup. To the members of LoD, may I wish you the best of luck in your attempts to regroup and restructure.

To the Classic teams of the BEML, yes this creates yet another hole in the schedule and I apologize for that, however there is simply no way around it. Perhaps the teams that have the "Bye' week can get together and either scrim a TIW or meet and beat the tar out of each other for fun. Perhaps make a "Massive Mayhem" on your own.

To the Team Captains-please check to make sure that your map selection(s) used against LoD are back in your selection pool. If not, please e-mail either Scratch, Aluzion, or myself so we can correct that immediately.

Holy cow! I never even noticed that we passed the midseason and now, looking at the standings I bet there will be a lot of teams trying to step it up to attempt a run at the playoffs. Then there are a few teams that have already guaranteed themselves a post-season match or three.

At the end of the week we end up with ZH once again on the top with an impressive 12-0 record. Even more impressive is their ability to maintain a minimal amount of caps against them with a low score of 4! They took BMX down this past week and have their sights on Warlords/FS this week.

Holding at #2 is ONE, with their recent encounter with BEE, ONE unmercifully brought home the win on 2 maps, but BEE didn't give up with the last map Damnation. This map has been the bane of BEE existance for quite some time, but with an adopted new strategy BEE was able to tie the match 3-3 with some close calls, including a near last second cap. BEE has handed ONE their only non win of the season thus far, but that sure didn't ruin ONEs day. Im sure they have their eye on that number 1 spot and Week 7 will likely be the deciding factor between 1 and 2.

The Renegade Horsemen jumped a bunch of slots to take 3rd with a handy victory over 57th. They also defeated dRats the previous week 2-1. This makes Ni4Ni| 1st place in division 2.

HOR and AC battled it out big time. Judging by the caps for the match (1-0, 0-0, 1-0) I'd say those were some intense battles. HOR brings down 4th place with AC a couple of notches behind at 6.

Our 5th place spot goes to A0 with a pending match with RT. A0 can't move down, but they can take 3rd if they manage to win all 3 and get more than 16 caps against RT. Stay tuned for their progress, match tonight at 9:30 with the fast paced maps of Blue Moon and Rollercoaster supplemented by the strategic map of Arrow Pass.

Warlords ring in at #7 with a recent loss to Soup. Drumax of Soup was kind enough to provide a brief recap of the match: "FS and SOUP battled it out in Round 4 in a furious night of fragging. FS took Arrow Pass against a poorly prepared SOUP opposition, managing to keep the SOUP boys in disorder all the while getting the flag back 4 times and denying SOUP a cap, ending the map 4-0 for FS. Soup managed to bring it together on Woodymyrk and ended the map early with a 8-1 c/o. Both teams managed to up the effort on Quagmire and after an intense hard fought game Soup managed to take the map 3-0....Good Games to all involved." Thanks Dru for being the first to submit a recap!

8th place goes to newcomers to the BEML, dRats. They seemed to have a bit of a rough start, but settling in now they defeated veteran BEML'ers, KoA, with a 3-0 match. Next week they face 57th, will they be able to hold back Zaha and his rowdy crew of Phat, Carp and Shi? Check back next week to find out!

BEE seems to be content with their lower half of the standings as they haven't made any sudden moves to climb into the upper half. The severe beating they received from ONE was a bit hurtful, but BEE has some tricks up their sleeves...look for them to climb north!

Soup is clawing its way up the ladder and made it to 10th this week, unfortunately, they face ONE =)

The BMX crew drops 2 places to #11 with a tough match against ZH. The good news..BMX capped against ZH 3 out of their total 4 caps against!! Way to go BMX!

RiP finished out their match against S&M and took a 1-2 loss, dropping them one notch to 12th.

13th is 57th, 14th is S&M, 15th is RT and 16th is KOA.

And now for my match pick of the week. I have 2...Ni4Ni| vs AC (katabatic, Drifts and Muddy Swamp) and HOR vs A0 (Katabatic, Blue Moon and Minotaur). I get more chills over the HOR vs A0 match because those are some kick ass maps..Especially Minotaur. I haven't met a team yet that hasn't had an intense match on Mino..even when BEE lost like 10-1 against PM a few seasons back we still had a blast!

GL with everyone this week.

Absolut Zero and Zero Hour faced off again last season for the T2 base division championship. These two teams faced each other the prior season for the championship with ZH emerging the victor, this rematch was sure to be a close one.

Drifts:

Onslaught from AO had an early flag grab that almost resulted in a cap.

{EvilNapkin of ZH} "They made a nice sneaky grab, and sent their guy out the front. Luckily our LD and MF closed in and some HO's slowed him down. I think Fury had the nice return on that one."

ZH had their own early grab, Bobrath managed to get out the front door of AO's base and make it back for the only cap of the game. After the first two grabs, the flags didn't make it far from the stands. Drifts ended 1-0 in ZH's favor.

Quagmire:

ZH scored an early cap and held it for about 15 minutes of the map.

{Evil Napkin commented on AO's defense} "A0 played a nice D setup on Quag. I dunno how many times their missle turret on the tower got me. They kept that thing up no matter how many times we went to break it."

{Jackal from AO commented} "I was really impressed with the coordination that they had on Quagmire, two HO moving together with a mid escorting. I was really impressed"

With about 2 minutes left in the game, the teams were in a standoff. AO made a nice return to end the map with a tie.

Beach Blitz:

{Evil Napkin} "They came out firing again on that map. They had some nice shrikers up there in the air. I had a nice flag pass from Don Corleone which I skirted around the edge of the map, and was home free. Till one of their shrikers came out of nowhere and slammed me. They got the return too (After all that work ). I just think we moved the flag more and that's how we got the advantage."

{Sarxis from AO talked about the ZH offense} "They concentrated a lot of firepower on the flag area and they had very good midfield escorts. We have excellent chasers, but they couldn't handle all the chain caps."

It seems that ZH's midfield and HO pressure brought this one home for them. The map ended 8-3 with ZH winning the match.

It sounded like it was an incredible match. Congrats to both teams for making it to the championships and good luck on this season. Maybe a rematch in the future?

Thanks to Krazen of Ahirman Corps for taking the time to interview these 2 teams.

With the end of week 3 we have a few changes in the scoreboard as well as some teams hanging onto their positions.

ONE rings in at #1 once again with a victory over RiP.

A0 moves up 3 notches to #2 with a close game against 57th. I had the pleasure of subbing in this match with a couple of my BEE friends and let me tell you, matches don't come much closer then this. A0 took a 2-1, 3-1 and 4-3 victory over 57th but all 3 maps were as close as you can get, especially with the last 10th of a second cap A0 pulled off for a win on Dangerous Crossing. Lonewolf of A0 had a grab in under a minute left and toted the flag all the way back to the base only to drop it outside from the massive chaingun fire that 57th spewed forth. You could hear the dissapoint over TS but also the shouting as Otter grabbed the flag and jetted up into the flag area as you heard the game countdown 3...2...1... Score. It was incredible to witness and both of these tribes really showed their talent on adjusting their tactics and their ability to cope with everything thrown at them.

HOR climbs up 4 notches to #3 with a victory over RT.

AC moves up 2 spots claiming all 3 maps against KOA.

ZH rests at 5th with their match against Soup yet to be played. This match is set to take place tommorrow (Tuesday) and Im sure it will be a good match. Soup has some good potential to upset ZH..with maps like Drifts, Sanctuary and Gas Mask..it's sure to be a good one.

Warlords drops 2 notches to #6 with a 1-2 loss to BEE. Quite an interesting match with numbers reaching up to 16v16 on Firestorm and Drifts WOW! that was some intense action. 14v14 on Minotaur was no cake walk either, both teams fought it out to the very end, excellent games.

Renegade Horsemen sit at #7 with their match against dRats to take place tommorrow as well.

BEE ascends another 3 notches to #8.

The match of the week I picked was BMX vs S&M and BMX came out on top with all 3 maps, making their way to #9.

57th falls 2 notches to #10, Soup at #11 (match pending), dRats at #12 (match pending), RiP at #13, RT #14, KOA at #15 and S&M at #16.

Im gonna call the match of this week to be ONE vs BEE. ONE and BEE didnt get to play last season due to some technical difficulties, but with maps like Katabatic, Harvester and Damnation; it's sure to be an excellent game.

Im also curious to see the results of ZH vs Soup and then Soup vs Warlords.

The end of week 2 for the base season came to a close yesterday with some new developments I thought I might bring to you.

ONE, who fought it out with newcomers, BMX, take over the #1 spot with a higher cap count then ZH.

ZH, our #1 from last week, defeats S&M in a nice variety of maps (Dessicator, Feign and War Spring).

The Renegade Horsemen take over 3rd place with a victory over KOA.

Bringing up 4th place is Warlords (Also Fatal Shadows) who took RiP 2 maps and tied on Riverdance.

This brings us to 5th and 6th place where A0 and AC split their match 1-1-1.

HOR drops a few notches to 7th after a hard fought battle with this weeks 8th place holder, 57th.

Bringing up 9th place is Soup who took a 1-2 loss to BEE, but those matches were one of the most intense matches I have experienced. Soup got, literally, a last second cap on the first map to win 3-2 and both teams battled it out right down to the wire on the last two maps!

10th place goes to dRats who defeats RT 2-0-1.

BEE climbs out of the gutter and makes its move up the league to 11th place.

RiP rings in at 12th, followed by RT at 13, KOA at 14, BMX at 15 and S&M at 16.

Theres a lot of nice matchups this week so Im sure the standings will fluctuate quite a bit.