Welcome to DPAD's GameBattles Shadowrun coverage! Each week we will take a look at the most exciting matches of the upcoming week, preview them, and give our predictions. After the matches take place, and the week is over, we will review the past week and look forward to the next. In the future, look forward to this type of coverage for GameBattles' Gears of War, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Halo 2 and Madden 08 leagues as well.

This week we're going to preview this weekend’s upcoming match between UMBRELLA CORPORATION and MLG Elite Squad and then give you our prediction.

UMBRELLA CORPORATION is currently ranked an impressive 51st on the GameBattles Shadowrun ladder, with a 20 game winning streak to boot. Their opponents MLG Elite Squad are currently unranked and are in for a tough match against what seems to be an unbeatable team.

Here are the lineups for both teams:

UMBRELLA CORPORATION

MLG TerreLL
BigBubba112be
Kurtis20111

MLG Elite Squad
Mlgspy
Mlglock
Mlgblink

The series is a best of three, with the first two games being Maelstrom-Extraction and Poco-Attrition. I don’t see this match going to a third game, not with UMBRELLA CORP’s record, but if MLG Elite Squad turns out to be superstars and actually win a game, then we’ll see the tiebreaker game, Poco-Raid.

Maelstrom being a somewhat unorthodox map, with every level divided by a player of cloud I can see a lot of long range play happening early on. Since this match will only be a 3v3 the focus for both teams will hardly be on the artifact, it will be just on eliminating the opposing teams members. Also, being 3v3, there’s a chance that neither team will have a human, therefore unlikely that enhanced vision will be used, which would force teams to play
very conservative for the first few rounds. What we can expect to see in the later rounds is some very sneaky play from either teams' elves; with the use of teleport they can take full advantage of Maelstroms multi-level layout and cloud cover and get above, or below and teleport up, or down behind their opponents to take them out.

As for Poco, being a much smaller and confined map we can expect to see a complete turnaround in play style. A fast paced melee is inevitable, with the trolls to be the centerpieces of the action. There is no doubt that both teams will be gifting their trolls at the start of each round, they must ensure that their troll has a minigun, tree of life and SmartLink if they want to have any chance of winning. However, amidst the chaos if an elf were to stray from the fight unnoticed he could really do some damage, two well placed grenades on the enemy troll could quickly turn the tide of the battle. Toward the end of this game it’s quite possible that one of each teams elves would have turned to sniping, and let me tell you, teams at the level of UMBRELLA CORP are sure to have some freak snipers, which also spells trouble for the trolls.

If MLG Elite Squad can prove their name has some meaning to it and make it to this third game they might actually have a chance to win this one. Raid on Poco is drastically different from Attrition; players on the lineage team have the ability to move around parts of the map undetected since the focus of the RNA team will just be on the artifact. If MLG Elite Squad are the lineage team and are able to grab the artifact UMBRELLA CORP will be hard pressed to defend the exit point, with several routes that the artifact holder could take they had better set themselves up for some insane team shooting.

I would like to see a close match, but with UMBRELLA CORP’s unbelievable winning streak I just can’t see a band of unknowns putting a damper on their momentum.

Prediction: UMBRELLA CORPORATION 2-0 MLG Elite Squad.

More GameBattles Coverage: Gears of War | Halo 2 | Madden 08 | Shadowrun