The NMC Cup: Review and Winners

“Welcome to the NMC cup season 1!” That was how the first official NMC cup stream opened. We did not know how it was going to work out. Would the top CoH2 players be afraid of using new strategies? Would they stick to their maxims and their German snipers? Definitely not! We have seen so much new, cool strategies while casting from top players, like: Jesulin, VonIvan, Talisman and Noggano.

The first interesting matchup was Talisman vs VonAsten. In game 1 we saw VonAsten overwhelm his foe with an aggressive playstyle. He managed to micro his T-70s so good that Talisman surrendered after 20 minutes! But we saw a totally different Talisman in game 2. With a vet 3 T-70 and a vet 1 KV2, Talisman pulled off a win after a heavy battle on Langreskaya. In game 3, Talisman showed us our first, real, non-meta strategy. VonAsten fought as the Soviets with the partisans commander. And Talisman fought as the Ostheer with the Fortified Armor doctrine. He called in a command tank to support his pak 43s, which fended off the horde of T-34s until the mighty Elefant drove onto the battlefield. The first thing it did was to kill a vet 3 t70 with one shot! The command tank and Elefant managed to secure the win in the 3rd game of round 2 after an epic fight. Talisman was set for round 3!

We decided to stay with Talisman to cast him versus Jesulin. Game 1. Soviet Talisman chose the Soviet Industry commander. Osther Jesulin decided on the Joint Operations Doctrine. Both players had a normal start, but the game changed in Jesulin’s favor when he built the 10.5cm leFH Artillery. The first shot wiped a mortar squad, and it did not stop there, it got squad wipe after wipe. Later, it was supported by PAK 43! Talisman surrendered after losing 2 KV2s. The 10.5cm leFH ended the game with 63 kills! In game 2 Jesulin made teir 1 as the Soviets! He immediately made a sniper and 5 minutes later he made a second one! He chose the Guard Rifle Combined Arms Tactics and he showed us why. The Guards Rifles protected his snipers form an early German 222 scout car! After some good building orders from Jesulin, Talisman decided to throw the towel in and surrender. Jesulin was through to the semi-finals!


We could not hop straight into his semi-final to follow him, as Jesulin was waiting for SturmTigerFrost and VonIvan to finish their games in round 3. Wouren and I decided to cast game 3 of the first semi-final between Noggano and BartonPL, while SturmTigerFrost and VonIvan were still playing. We saw BartonPL, fighting as the Ostheer, start with 2 snipers, which caused problems for Noggano. Who chose to counter the 2 snipers in a very special way. He made a Soviet halftrack and upgraded it with an Anti-Air Package! With it, Noggano rushed into the German base and killed a vet 2 sniper before it was killed. There was still one sniper left... But Noggano made a second halftrack to get him! Barton quit as soon as he saw the big flank incoming, of conscripts and the halftrack. This meant that our first finalist was Noggano!

In the second semi-final Jesulin played against VonIvan. Who were the soviets in game 1 and showed us a commander that I had not seen for a while: Tank Hunter Tactics. He used this commander to upgrade his conscripts with PTRS. Jesulin went with 2 mortars as the Ostheer and it did not work out so well for him. After 20 minutes, he surrendered. But do not be sad, Jesulin fans! Wouren and I saw a completely different Jesulin in game 2! He, as Soviets, choose the Counter Attack Tactics commander. He started with a lot of conscripts and played very aggressive. Pushing VonIvan back into his base! Because he had a lot of map control, Jesulin could call in a KV1 after 14 minutes. But you guys know VonIvan. He never surrenders, not even after the second KV1 showed up. But in the end VonIvan still lost. This meant that there would be a game 3. Jesulin surprised us again, with a heavy light vehicle strategy as the Ostheer. He played aggressively with his 2 scout cars, at 5 minutes! At 8, Jesulin had a nice flamer halftrack, that died taking out one AT gun. Jesulin called in a mechanized grenadier group immediately after he lost that halftrack, so he could continue with his aggressive playstyle. Soviet VonIvan chose Tank Hunter Tactics again and took one scout car out with a nice usage of the extra AT grenades you unlock with this commander. After 18 minutes, Jesulin made a panzer IV, which killed VonIvan’s SU-76 that just had arrived on the front. VonIvan managed to kill the panzer IV, but Jesulin had so much map control that he just made another one. It was a matter of time before Jesulin would win this game. After 20 minutes, he won, becoming our second finalist!


Barton forfeited in the 3rd/4th match, making VonIvan the winner of the 3rd place! Congratulations!

So our two finalists were Jesulin and Noggano! Jesulin played as the Soviets in game 1 and again started with 2 soviet snipers. He also chose the same commander to counter an early German scout car. But Noggano actually felt confident enough to build a sniper himself. And this worked, he got the counter snipe on one of Jesulin’s snipers! Noggano then decided to choose the Blitzkrieg Doctrine. The command tank he called in managed to kill the second sniper. After losing his SU-85, Jesulin surrendered. Noggano had won game 1! Game 2. Again, we saw a Osther heavy light vehicle build by Jesulin. This time he made 1 scout car and went for the flamer halftrack instead of a second 222. And it turned out to be an excellent choice. It made sure that all the conscripts of Noggano could not stand in cover, because of the flames. But Noggano is a very good player and only needed one mistake to make a comeback in this game. Jesulin made this mistake. Instead of going for a second scout car, or teching up to battle phase 2, Jesulin went for another flamer halftrack. This already might have been a mistake, but the real mistake was that hr rushed in with both of his flamer halftracks to get a ZiS gun. Both halftracks were killed by AT nades and a few shots from t70. Jesulin played five more minutes before surrendering with almost nothing of his army left. My congratulations to Noggano and Jesulin, winners of 1st and 2nd place!

Feedback and Acknowledgement

I want to thank all the participants for participating. I also want to thank everybody who helped me getting the NMC cup to the front page of COH2.ORG. As well as getting me this awesome green badge . Also, a big thank you to Wouren, because he wanted to cast with me!

Did you play in the NMC cup? Or did you watch one of my NMC cup streams? Please give me your feedback about this tournament, in a PM or leave a message in here!