Rebels conquering Norway!

 

The National Championship is a prestige-tournament, it is here we official crown Norway’s best paintball-team. It has some nice prizes from sponsors like Eclipse, Anthrax, Virtue, Dye etc, but it’s definitively the glory that weighs most for the elite teams. The possibility to make it official, they are the best team in Norway.

The tournament is built of 4 categories – Xball (the title that of course weighs the most), 5man (old school 5 man format), 1 vs 1 and 3 man. Everyone can participate in all the categories besides from 3 man which is only for new players who has never played a tournament in higher than 3^rd (our lowest division) before.

The layout for NM (national masters) is always a secret before the tournament, walking the field is a skill that can separate the good from the best. The last 3 years we have been lucky to get the field designed by Paul Richards,but since he passed we had to find a new designer. And Nick Brockdorff (former pro player from Denmark) stepped up to the challenge :-) I can’t remember a field getting so good reviews, so it’s obvious that he did a great job.

Rebels wanted to play as much paintball as possible so they signed up for xball, 5-man and 1 vs 1.

First competition was the 1 vs 1, everything is a random draw, so a newbie can easily meet a pro in the first round. And it’s not always that the pro wins :-)

Kristian Helgerud was Rebels representative and he fought hard with an injured knee all day and pulled of the win after an exciting final against Solids Oiva Ranta. They had to go 4 rounds against each other to find a winner. Congrats Kristian!

Then the xball began… you could fell the tension and excitement in the air.  

Rebels first game was Rampage, a up and coming young team. Even for a team like Rebels, that have been around for some years, getting a new un-played field thrown at you makes you insecure when you’re used to walking, playing and grinding the field until you get it right. And, that’s exactly why at NM it’s always a secret field. The insecurity of the field made the game a bit more exciting than they wanted to, but Rebels won the game 4-3.

Next up was DC Devils, the field-owners of the tournament. They played well and Rebels were sometimes shot from places they didn’t see coming, win to DC Devils 4-3.  It’s always great to see the hosts play and also play well, since everyone who have arranged a tournament knows that to do that you don’t get your 8 hours rest or any of the other preparing things you want to do before a tournament, cos it’s a lot of hard work.

After a good night’s sleep, a lot of talking about the field layout, Rebels got more secure concerning lanes, roles etc and went to the field  with a good feeling.

Last prelim game was Rønholt Miners and the good feeling was justified, a win of 4-0.

Rebels came into the finals as number two in their group and that meant playing Drammen Solid.. Since Drammen Solid is reffing the regular Norwegian series, this is the only Norwegian tournament they are playing, so to beat Solid on Norwegian soil one have to play NM Xball.

Solid is a strong opponent and leaves no room for mistakes, but Rebels felt prepared and ready. It was long points between the two and Rebels was the strongest team. The score became 3-1 to Rebels when the time ran out.

In the final Xsportz was on the other side. Xsportz is a team with both young talents and “old” experienced players and have been one of the teams in top 4 this year. The game was filled with a lot of good gun-battles and ended 4-1 to Rebels  - so:

Congratulations Rebels, with the title of Norway’s best team 2015!

Rebels also played in the 5 man competition. They won 5 of 6 games in the prelims, but lost to Kristiansund Oilers in the semi. In the battle for the 3^rd place they met Fight Back Design Factory team (my factory team) and lost 2-1. So, 4^th to Rebels with a congrats to Fight Back Design taking 3^rd from the winners of the xball division :-)

All in all Rebels is well pleased with the weekend, 2 gold medals of 3 and a 4^th place is acceptable :-) And most importantly is the bragging right as the Norwegian masters of 2015 :-)

Congratulations to Rebels with the crown as Norways best team, winners of NM 2015

Rebels want to thank our sponsors for having our backs and believing in us: Planet Eclipse and Virtue Paintball for awesome equipment, Anthrax for rocking cool jerseys and coffe in their booth. Cartel for making us look good. We would also like to thank: Fight Back Design, PBgear, RVS, JKS rør, Energima and Proteinfabrikken