WCA 2018 .

The World Cup Asia 2018 was revived recently in the legendary resort island of Langkawi after a few years of hiatus. PALS the Organiser in close partnership with the Planet Eclipse Asia Region Distributor, Raskal Sports as co-organisers managed to pull off another successful and eventful paintball tournament in this sunny island. 

This year saw again, many international and Pro teams including for the first time, Russian Legions, Expendables from New Zealand, Breakout Spa from Belgium and the legendary Federov playing with other Pro players in a team called X-Bow. Along with Datis from Iran and Raskal Malaysia battling it out again. 

Playing comfortably inside the Mahsuri Exhibition hall with air-conditioning and not affect by any weather - come rain or shine is arguably in the most enjoyable environment. With the fields laid out and set up by Raskal Sports’s sister company Triple O Events things went nicely and smoothly. 

The Referees was a handled by Ultimate Ref, En Junaidi Khalil of the Asia Refs Organisation, the most experienced and capable Refs in Asia and well associated with the local Eclipse Paintball Series - EPS, one of the best leagues in Asia sponsored by Planet Eclipse. The Laws were laid down strict, consistent and fair and even the Pro players were not spared and none of the Refs was intimidated by these professionals. 

WCA 2018 kicked off on Friday 7th Dec with a paintball clinic by Russian Legion, spreading the knowledge and teaching their expertise to the regional teams. Nearly 30 players joined this all day training sessions and came away very satisfied. Teams were sparing on the fields, learning their zones and laning and training with jest. On Saturday, all the top regional teams got to play 2 Pro teams as part of the preliminary games and many went at it like bats out of hell. I think the Pro teams was quite surprised at the level of play of local teams as they showed no fearing just getting stucked in.

As this is a rather scaled down event in the number of teams compared to previous years at this hall, there were still many surprises and upsets. Russian Legion came away as the Pro Division Champions with Expendable in Second. Breakout Arena didn’t make the cut into the Pro division whether by choice or otherwise but then got a good run for their money by a new team from Medan Indonesia, sponsored by Planet Eclipse, team Medan Smokers in Division 1.

Breakout Arena didn’t manage to win all their preliminary games and just scrapped through into the finals of Division 1. With the caliber of the players on this team, the local just gave them a real hard time. 

Team Medan Smokers, owned by Mr Kelby Wong and the Planet Eclipse Dealer in Indonesia surprised every team this WCA  by getting into the Finals with Breakout Spa with some really brilliant plays. Well done Team Medan Smokers although they didn’t take the Division 1 Championship but showed that anything can happen if you approach the game positively. 

The newly re-formed Team Raskal Malaysia faced the Russian Legion in the Quarters and with the expected results but came away with their heads held high because they pushed the Russian all the way and losing points with very slim margin and time remaining. Well done guys. 

Over in the other field saw the old timers team from Raskal Sports, Rampaging Zebra take on other teams in the Open Mechanical and come away with 2nd Place shooting their Planet Eclipse Emek Mechanical markers. The Emeks performance was flawless and awesome. The accuracy and firepower for a mechanical marker as simply just amazing. We had one funny moment when one player borrowed an Emek marker to play in Amateur division which was suppose to shoot electronic ramping at 10.5bps and came away winning as the last person standing. He was just blown away. 

Overall, WCA 2018 was a success and we hope to build on this for 2019 with better and improved facilities, better and more advanced planning for more teams to participate. We only had 2 months for preparation and execution but the event was still a great success, not perfect and certainly room for improvement but we will learn from our mistakes and make 2019's WCA one not to miss.

Thank you to our sponsors, Proshar Paintballs, Planet Eclipse and GOG Paintballs. See you all in WCA 2019. Thank you. 

The Final results for WCA 2018 are:

Pro Division 

1. Russian Legion - Russia

2. Expendables - New Zealand

3. KTM X-Bow - USA / Malaysia

4. Datis - Iran

Open Division

1. Breakout Arena - Belgium

2. Medan Smokers - Indonesia

3. Raskal - Malaysia

4. MWB - Malaysia

Amateur Division 

1. Legio X - Malaysia

2. Project Devastation - Malaysia

3. Republik CMX - Malaysia

4. Infamy Aisawan - Singapore

Open Mechanical

1. Politeknik Kota Bharu - PKB Malaysia

2. Rampaging Zebra - Malaysia

3. MBIP Tigers - Malaysia

4. UitM Speedbull - Malaysia

Thanks to Wan Mad Photography and AXMedia for the pictures.