Paintball Magazine March 2018 Issue | Page 94

continue for 2018, produced by GoSports, as their willingness to go “up the gut” and who provided coverage of the 2018 Combine trade bloody welts with their mirror yielded and Winter Classic held in late January 2018. applause and recognition. How layouts with a somewhat more open center-field will One of the biggest changes from 2017 to 2018 play remains to be seen, as the handful of for the NXL is their field layout, as the now- bunkers the wall will be replaced with are infamous “wall” has been removed from the certainly large enough to break up lanes and field in favor of several more modular bunkers. influence each points’ game play. While some players loved, and others hated, the large centerpiece, what is certain is that Then there are the teams. For 2018, the it was a lightning rod for fixed bayonets NXL filled their professional division out to and bloody early game moves, sometimes a whopping 20 teams, adding Sacramento resulting in game-breaking action but more DMG to the roster after their impressive 2017 often simply resulting in one-for-one trade- run, then swinging the door open for the outs leading to four-on-four game play. That ML Kings, New York Xtreme and Scottsdale said, the wall did make some players stars Elevation. These additional teams allowed 094 paintball.media magazine