Rebels... End of Season Wrap Up !

NM-Norwegian Masters

NM is always an exiting tournament. The field is always secret so no one gets to practice on it before the tournament. This is also always an area for discussion, but that’s also part of the NM-warmup. This year’s field-layout was made by Nick Brockdorff. And to the oldies out there – no, it was nothing like the Amsterdam layout :-)

Rebels started a bit rough, when you’re used to playing the fields before you use them at tournaments the first game will often hit you like a cold shower. They started out against Blast who clearly have walked the field with a better precision, 4:0 to Blast.

But after a shower you will always come out fresher. The first proof of that was the next game against Oslo Embers – 4:1 with energy to spare.

Then they met Rampage, a young team with a lot of fight in them, but this time they couldn’t match Rebels at all 4:0 win.

Last prelim game was NTNUI black, a up and coming d1 team from Trondheim who have tons of reball hours split between them. It’s always great to see d1 teams stepping up to the challenge to try and take on the elite teams. This time it didn’t go all there way, Rebels won 4:0

So, the semis were up, and Blast were waiting again. This time their advantage of better fieldwalking was gone and the playingfield was leveled. It was an even game with points back and forth until it was 3:3. Rebels tried to end the game, but the time was against them and they hit the buzzer 2 seconds too late. No point instead and on to overtime. In this point Rebels manages to shoot one of their own, giving themselves a one for one, and can’t pick up the game from there. So, close, but Blast wins 4:3.

After that it’s hard to pick up the motivation again, but they try their best playing bronzefinals against Solid. This is also a tough game, and even though the motivation was low they wouldn’t let Solid get any points for free. Then at 3:2 something strange happens, the refs suddenly asks Rebels to step on with 4 players without an explanation, no one understands anything, not even Solid. This leads to Solid winning 4:2, ending Rebels on 4th place. After the game they got told that it was a technical error in the game before, a towel button malfunctioning leading to the fatal error, but the error was already done, nothing to do about it unfortunately. 4^th place is not bad in the fight to be Norways best team, but it just feels a bit hard to swallow that it could have been a different outcome if the system didn’t malfunction.

Paris, last leg of the Millennium series

At least once a year the airports are on strike, and at least once a year paintballers will have to travel precisely at that moment :)

Rebels were supposed to arrive a day before the tournament, with enough time to even go sightseeing – well, why plan on doing anything other than paintball, the flights were moved several times, but at least they made it to the tournament.

The first game was a bit messy and they were testing out a lot of things they didn’t have the time to do before the tournament. But even with people shot because of that they won over Poison Ivy 4:0. A good start to the tournament.

Razorback Saint Etienne was the next opponent where Rebels were under in points a long time before they turned it around and made the scoreboard tell about a  4:3 win. 

Saturday: Inflame Regensburg were up. Rebels have played them before and knew they were a tough opponent, but with a good gameplan and focused minds they steered the game in to a solid 5:1 win

Sunday club! So many times, but its still a great feeling! A confirmation on that what we do is right.

Sunday they started against Razorback from the prelims. The second game against them this weekend, they knew it would be a hard one. Making it harder on themselves they had a bit too few helpers in the pit, so by trying to fix a problem in the pit they didn’t manage to fill the startgate with 5 people at one point. They also tried taking a time-out which became a towel – talk about trying to give yourself the hardest match ever. Razorback was up 3:0 and it was time to wake up! And that they did. They pushed on taking back point by point going up to 3:3. Last point, it was just over 1 minute left on the clock, and Sigve managed to buzz with 2 seconds left. 4:3 and they were through!

Next up in the quarterfinal was Bandits Wels, they’ve been looking at the Razorback game so Rebels had a good mental grip on them. It was a good game, ended 4:2 with no hickups.

So the semifinal, Bad Boys Oss, the nemesis. These guys are incredible players with a stable game. Unfortunately for Rebels they were an inch better. The game ended 4:3 to Bad Boys in overtime.

After a long wait the bronzefinal was finally here. The opponent was Droogs, a team from Frankfurt with a couple of Americans attending. Rebels were prepared for a really tough game, last time they met they played overtime plus 1 vs 1 before Rebels won.

This game though, was completely different, everything Rebels did seemed to work and in under 3 minutes the bronze medal was in their hands – 4:0 in the bronzefinal, something to be proud of!

Congratulations to Rebels for a great season-ending – 3^rd place in Millennium Paris!

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. Blitzed media and Bjerke Media for making us look good. We would also like to thank: Fight Back Design, Energima, RVS, JKS rør and Proteinfabrikken

Love from Kristine Myhre Andersen