The HoN Tour Grand Final is soon upon us, and the four qualified teams are preparing in a variety of ways. Trademark eSports is trying to get a little bit of tournament practice with the Serious Business Cup -- while it isn’t a major tourney, but some tough competition signed up nonetheless. Complexity Gaming has been unable to scrim with their full roster due to fan favorite MoonMeander being tied up as he travels throughout SEA, but as a team they will be arriving in Vegas early for a rigorous bootcamp cycle. For stayGreen on the other hand, they seem to be short on time. They spent an extra week in Thailand after the GSL event, and so far haven’t had time to scrim, but they are now returning to a normal training schedule and are quite confident in their grasp of the current metagame. This leaves the underdogs of the tournament, Lions eSportsKlubb. According to recent stats, the Lions have been non stop scrimming since they earned their place to Vegas. It would appear they are truly inspired, and are focusing hard on their training in order to have a chance versus the juggernauts over in stayGreen.
Lions eSportsKlubb vs stayGreen
The matchup between sG and Lions is going to be a highly volatile one. Lions is one of the only teams to make stayGreen drop a series in the last couple months, so if anyone can knock sG off of their throne the moment, I’d put my money onto the ferocious Swedes. Highlighted by peculiar picks such as Devourer, Berserker, Soul Reaper, and Monkey King -- it is clear that the Lions march to the beat of their own drummer. stayGreen’s support player, Zfreek, admitted in his team’s recent AMA session that he is scared of Superkge’s Devo – but with their recent success, who wouldn’t be?
A team that bears no speculation, however, is stayGreen. Boasting an impressive tournament win streak of 22 games (13 in HoN Tour and 9 in Thailand), a 5-0 series advantage over Lions in HoN Tour, and an impressive 73.6% overall win to loss ratio(the highest of any team), there is no question going into this event that sG is the team to beat. Their loss to Afraid seemingly acted as a wake up call, and since then they've shown incredible versatility. They have outpushed the fearsome Keeper Tempest combo twice now with suicide Warbeast and Ophelia, managed to make suicide Scout work flawlessly, and have even brought Witch Slayer back onto the scene. The results of making the commitment to the team and moving in together have shown their results – can they keep it up?
Will the eccentric tactics, team spirit, and big hooks from Lions be enough to topple sG -- or will the current HoN titans wipe any shadow of a doubt of their dominance by pushing the Lions aside as if they were little cubs? Tune in to HoNCast at 9 AM PST / 12 PM EST / 18 CET on Wednesday April 17th to find out!
Trademark eSports vs Complexity Gaming
The history between these two teams is one of legendary status. For a while Trademark eSports had compLexity’s number – taking away the Dreamhack Winter 2024 Grand Final from them, ontop of numerous HoN Tour cycles. Still, in spite of that, coL has been the champion whenever these two teams meet in recent history. Trademark seems to be entering a slump of their own, just as coL is finally recovering.
As the recent victors of the Sound Blaster Heroes League, compLexity is looking to be in impressive form. It’s tough to say how the GSL tournament affected TDM, as although they lost, they still got a proudly representable 2nd place finish. coL is looking to seal the deal with their first major LAN victory as a team, but team captain Mynuts from tdM is known for his excellent drafting and tight play when it is all on the line. Honestly, I think the end result is up in the air. A good point was brought up in the HoNcast Podcast between Breaky, Beef, and Emperor. Due to the meta shift, the days of riced up hard carries seem to be moving past us, yet that is exactly where both of these teams have their roots. Will one of these teams attempt bring back the hard carry route with NoobG on his famous Sillhouette, or Haxxeren on Draconis? Will Zai bust out another annihilation on the boys from coL, or will MoonMeander tell tdM to get on his level? Be glued to your computer screens, and catch this match when it goes live at 3 PM PST / 6 PM EST / 00.00 CET on Wednesday, April 17th.
Summary
With all of the games being a best of five(bar the 3rd place match), consistency will be key. There’s a lot less room for upset victories -- a clever strategy might net a single game, but only the strongest will survive the full gauntlet. Could it be that there is a twist ending in store?
-Minimaggot
