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This man is mesmerisingly good at Mordhau

Swordplay

If you've ever watched a professional fencing match, you'll know they kind of suck. People move too thin swords too quickly, becoming blurs that only a few can parse. You expect duels to look like sword fights in movies, forgetting that movies don't largely consist of downtime and headaches over who's even winning. Pretend swordsmen have the edge. Pretend swordsmen get to take on five foes at once, prowess unambiguous as bodies hit floors.

You should watch "Trix", below. He's a Mordhau fighter worth beholding.

Watch on YouTube

Part of why I'm so enamoured is because he never gets up to anything fancy. There are no weird movements, no erratic camera shaking, no mind-bending body manipulation. He just calmly performs moves that everyone with a dozen hours or so under their Mord-belt can pull off with ease - but usually not when vastly outnumbered. There are better players out there, sure, and duels have a more technical, back-and-forth beauty of their own. But I haven't seen many videos of people romping through battlefields as if they're Batman on a bad day.

That simplicity makes him easy to learn from, too. I played Frontline for an unholy number of hours last night, and took a brief break to watch Trix do his thing. When I came back, I'd improved dramatically - partly through a weird subconscious osmosis, I think, and partly by pinching a few specific techniques. Next time you're fending of attacks from two people, try chambering one attack (by performing an attack of your own along the blow's incoming angle), but turn round to hit the guy who you're not deflecting. It works surprisingly often, and makes you feel like a goddamn superhero.

By the way, I found Trix on YouTube because his guides are so great they've made it to the game's main menu. Here's his advanced one. It will learn you good.

Watch on YouTube

You could also pick up a thing or two from Ollie's extensive Mordhau guide. He's a good egg, and an even better swordsman.

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