For all those who missed the live stream or who just want to read up on what happened again, here is the recap of the first HoN Tour Grand Finals semi-finals in Las Vegas! In this first match we see [LION]Lions eSportsKlubb playing against [sG]Stay Green in a best of 5 match. The winner will continue to the finals, the loser will have a chance to at least fight for the third place tomorrow.
(Warning, spoilers ahead!)
Game 1
In the first game we see LIONS on the Legion side with Handsken playing Keeper of the Forest, Superkge with , Krebsen with Bubbles, Sealkid on Nymphora and Flensmeister picked Armadon. On the other side, Stay Green had swindlemelonzz on Rally, KheZu with Wild Soul, sLiCKz got Demented Shaman, Zfreek played Pyromancer and Chessie selected Tempest.
The game started out with both sides playing solid but a little careful. It took nearly seven minutes until Chessie managed to kill Krebsen in the top lane, with the assistance from sLiCKz. Now the action picked up, Wretched Hag also died in the mid lane and just seconds later, the first towers were razed almost simultaneously, sG destroyed the Legion top tower and LIONS destroyed the bottom Hellbourne tower. LIONS went even further and attempted to destroy the secondary tower, but stay Green denied it without any further losses.
The game progressed in favor of Stay Green, even though LIONS got the mid tower. Several Legion heroes died in the next minutes and around the 15th minute, Stay Green felt comfortable enough for a push in the mid lane. This push attempt resulted in a huge team fight and in the heat of the battle, sG made some huge plays and came out way ahead, without suffering any more losses. At 20:30 they took out Kongor and now continued to put pressure on the weakened LIONS team.
More Legion towers were destroyed and Legion had to defend their base near the 23th minute, this time a little more successful. But SG was in no rush and retreated once again without any losses, keeping the score at a 14:2 in sG's favor. And after another very successful mid push from sG and a won teamfight, Stay Green was able to break through the base defenses and destroy several barracks, enough to force LIONS to concede the game, as this was lost for them.
Stay Green wins the first game!
Asked about his opinion of the game and why sG was so dominant in this first game, NoVa from [357]QsQ replied:
Apparently most of Lions slept around 3 hours, whereas sG took a much longer rest. They seem nervous which is understandable and they tried to play standard with only Arma being somewhat unique. sG executed their gameplan absolutely standard and overpowered Lion easily. I think Game 2 will be a very different one though, atleast in terms of picks.
Game 2
In the second game, sG is on the Legion side. swindlemelonzz picked , KheZu got Keeper of the Forest, Zfreek played Emerald Warden, sLiCKz selected Rally and Chessie got Zephyr. On the Hellboune side, we had LIONS with Handsken on Tempest, Superkge on Pebbles, Krebsen with Bubbles, Sealkid on Aluna and Flensmeister with Puppetmaster.
This second game started out even slower than the first. Bloodlust was drawn earlier, around 5:30, when Pebbles managed to take out Emerald Warden, but the rest of the game was played really carefully. The first tower, the bottom tower of the Hellbourne, was destroyed near the seventh minute. After that there were a few more kills, but until the 15th minute, nothing much happened anymore, both teams were busy farming and happy to sit back for now.
And so it took until 17:00 for the action to pick up again. Both teams now pushed several towers but avoided each other, opting to rather get more core items on their important players. By minute 25:00, it was still 1-3 in kills, but all but one outer towers were down. The safety dance of the two teams continued, at this stage the game was very balanced and no one seemed willing to risk anything. Kongor was attempted by sG in the 27th minute, but they stopped it after their bottom lane took too much pressure, once again going the safe way.
Two minutes later, sG tried again to kill the big gorilla and they finally succeeded, as LIONS did not contest it this time. Maybe they were thinking that with the speed the game was going, the token would probably wear out way before anything happened. But the token finally motivated sG to act and so they pushed the bottom lane, attempting to pick off a careless LION or to destroy the base tower. But LIONS managed to hold the line and keep the well farmed Zephyr at bay.
sG regrouped and attempted again, this time they got the tower at least, but it was still 1-3 in favor of LIONS. This changed quickly now, Zephyr managed to get off a good gust in the after math of the towerkill and several other LION players died shortly after, forcing buybacks. And although the buybacks happened, sG managed to take out several barracks. After the fight it was now 8-5 for sG and two melee and one ranged barracks were destroyed on the Hellbourne side.
sG regrouped once again, taking a moment to take a breath and then continued to pressure the Hellbourne, winning another teamfight and destroying the second ranged barracks easily. Not wanting to make any mistakes, they retreated again, waiting for Kongor to respawn. Instead of trying to fight the big ape, sG decided to go for LIONS directly, who were also gathering there, and even though Tempest got a good ultimate off, sG came out well ahead and killed Kongor right after. And after another quick teamfight after respawning, LIONS realized they could not win this and conceded.
Stay Green wins the second game as well!
Once again, NoVa from QsQ quickly analysed the game:
Despite some awkward lane assignment from sG a lot of credit has to go to Lions for finding farm on Tempest against the traps and generally being the more mobile team, netting a couple kills in the earlier stages of the game. Again, however, once the midgame rolled in, so did sG - with way superior five men decision making and always being the ones acting they forced Lions to continuously stay one step behind.
Eventually the game was decided by a single teamfight in Lion's base.
Game 3
In the third game, we have LIONS on the Legion side with Handsken on Parasite, Superkge on Master of Arms, Krebsen on Keeper of the Forest, Sealkid on Glacius and Flensmeister on Zephyr, while Stay Green was on the Hellbourne side with swindlemelonzz on Pebbles, KheZu on Tempest, sLiCKz with [UR=https://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroes/view/109/Soul%20Reaper#hero]Soul Reaper, Zfreek with Aluna and Chessie with Ophelia.
The third game started off a bit faster again, thanks to the hero picks, the game had more action by default and it also felt that way. In the sixth minute, Aluna was able to take out Master of Arms in the middle, with the help of Pebbles, while Glacius was away. And more good news for Stay Green, when Zephyr pushed the bottom tower of the Hellbourne, they were able to deny the tower, putting them slightly in the lead. And while they managed to get a tower kill and two more hero kills on their own, they also denied another tower and only lost two heroes in total until the 14th minute, when they went to kill Kongor without being contested.
With the momentum of the tower kill, Stay Green went to push the middle tower and went right through the secondary tower, forcing a huge teamfight at the middle base entrance of the Legion, where they took out three more enemy heroes while only losing Ophelia themselves. In addition they took out the base tower and dealt another demoralizing blow to the Legion. LIONS answered by pushing the top lane after both teams recovered. But it did not go well for them here either, while they did manage to kill Pebbles, they once again lost two heroes and did not get any other objectives done.
Kongor respawned shortly after and Stay Green caught LIONS off guard in the middle lane at the same time, taking out several of their heroes. Kongor died seconds later and now Stay Green prepared for the final push into the base of the Legion. The middle barracks were made history as quickly as LION heroes were killed and shortly after, LIONS conceded the game.
Stay Green also wins the third game and with this also the first semi-finals, making them the first to enter the finals. Congrats to them!
And to summarize the game in the words of NoX from QsQ:
sr farmed + sg train= win
Jonassomfan and the other QsQs agreed wholeheartedly.
Well, that's for the first semi finals of the Grand Finals, stay tuned for the second semi-final match later tonight and the finals tomorrow!
