There are a massive 1024 teams that have registered and competed in this initial HoN Tour qualifier alone. That is an insurmountable amount of games each weekend to wrap your head around, let alone take a gander at the replays or casts (if the teams were lucky enough to have their game showcased). As a result, you may be spending copious amounts of your time sifting through the brackets to see if your favorite team won as expected or got dumpstered by some 1500 nobodies.

To help prevent this needless searching, I am going to be personally following a few of the more popular teams, telling you everything you need to know about what happened with their weekend.

I’m also going to be starting with one of my personal favorite teams, Fortune Bakery. You might not be familiar with the name, but you’ll most certainly be familiar with the players that create this all-star lineup, unless you have been living under a rock for the past year. Let’s have a look at the team shall we? From Blue to Orange we have:

Kookiez
KingPlato
miesty`
ggsucka
Mookiez
Kreamz

So you’re essentially looking at the old Clan Milk brethren that have banded together to form their new side for HoN Tour. This came about after the original CM team disbanded due to several members on the team stepping away from the competitive scene (well, to the extent that they were currently playing at least) to focus on studies.

As you can see, this is no group of 1600 scrubs; they are an incredibly strong team and most definitely a force to be reckoned with over the coming weeks and months of HoN Tour. But enough about the team itself—I had the pleasure of sitting through all their games from the past weekend, and boy oh boy were there some interesting moments.

Round 1: Fortune Bakery vs Sweeds and the Loner

Game 1:



While the 2024+ mmr of the Clan Milk superstars could have easily intimidated some of the toughest opponents, the Sweeds and the loner (for the sake of this write up, let’s just call them the Sweeds!) had no such trouble as they entered an incredibly harsh first round match.

It was immediately evident that we were going to be in for an action-packed and aggressive game with Pebbles, Fayde, Torturer and Nymphora just some of the heroes snatched up by either side.

However, I don’t think anyone expected the start the two teams had.

As Fortune Bakery moved to defend their own pull camp on the Legion side, the Hellbourne force got a little bit sneaky and moved through the jungle from the middle lane, completely avoiding the courier scouting that Kookiez and Co. were utilizing.

Catching KingPlato out of position, the Sweeds wasted little time in disintegrating the puny Forsaken Archer before creeps had spawned, with Roobinz on Torturer snagging the last hit for the bloodlust gold. However, we weren’t done there—oh no.

Bloodthirsty for revenge, the Legion side moved in for the counter attack but soon found themselves retreating as miesty` on Aluna also fell. Not done there, the Hellbourne side pushed on—but perhaps overextended—as they lacked the necessary mana to finish the job, allowing Kookiez and ggsucka to even up the kill count and push away the onslaught. An intense and riveting start to a fantastic game.

As the game progressed, we saw kills left, right, and center as the high-burst heroes showed off their early game prowess. At the 12-minute mark we saw a surprising 8-6 hero kill lead in favor of the Sweeds, but the gold and experience advantage saw Fortune Bakery leading by over 1000 in each as Fayde easily surpassed 400gpm with her solid 3-0-3 score.

With this splendid early game advantage, Kookiez kept up the aggression and remained as active as possible. I’m sure you all know how horrible it is when you’ve got a farmed Fayde constantly missing from her lane, ganking you over and over again.


The power of the Nymphora Ultimate was utilized consistently with the burst from Fayde.

The game took a turn for the worse for the underdog Sweeds at around the 18-minute mark of the game. The combination of Nymphora and Fayde proved too much for Silhouette, as she died for the third time after such a brilliant early game.

The rest of the Hellbourne ported in as quickly as possible to assist their fallen carry, but the Legion heroes turned it around on them. The experience of the Fortune Bakery side proved to be the edge as they completely cleaned up the Sweeds without losing a single teammate, all while KingPlato did his thing in the middle lane and knocked back a whole lot of CS.

In the end, the professional players of Fortune Bakery cruised to victory in a 30-minute game, although it was far from the pub stomp that so many (including me) had expected. As Captain Kookiez stated in the dying moments of the game, “Yo, you guys are like not bad lol.”

An excellent effort from the Sweeds and the Loner in the first of the three-game series; let’s get to the next games!

Game 2:



The next game proved to be a lot more one-sided, as the pressure seemed to simply get inside the Sweeds’ heads. The game was still incredibly entertaining with terribly aggressive lineups chosen by both sides.

This time, however, they took it to the absolute extreme, with a 27-16 hero kill lead by Fortune Bakery only 17 minutes into the game. That’s something you’d see in a Mid Wars battle, which this game very nearly was. With allies from both sides constantly roaming to the aid of their mid hero, the game was definitely action-packed and incredibly exciting.

The main difference proved to be how the carries on both teams were laned. On the Legion side (Sweeds), we saw the powerful duo of Silhouette and Glacius face off against a suicide Wildsoul, arguably the strongest suicide hero in the game.

However, for Fortune Bakery, what started off as a Behemoth, Aluna and Chronos trilane eventually dissipated into a solo Chronos, after Plague Rider abandoned the lane, as he could not get a single ounce of experience. This led to a free farm Chronos acquiring a pre-12-minute Runed Cleaver, skyrocketing to nearly 500gpm just 15 minutes into the game. The Sweeds were definitely looking for an MSI comeback on this one, but it would be no easy feat.


Fortune Bakery had no problem diving past towers for kills, as they held an astronomical lead.

There were patches of hope that glimmered through, as Anynomous on Moraxus fought his way to a Champion of Newerth streak before he was cut down by KingPlato on that monstrous Chronos, unfortunately denying his much-deserved Bloodbath streak.

In the end, the game was all but over as Fortune Bakery camped outside the Sweeds’ base with Kookiez’s signature Monkey King wreaking havoc across the Legion forces. A commendable effort by the Sweeds and kudos to them for playing out the rest of the game, but when it’s all said and done, you just can’t stop a 700gpm Chronos.

After all of that, Fortune Bakery progressed through to the second round of the HoN Tour qualifiers. These games were highly entertaining, as they involved such a vast amount of action and countless skirmishes across the Forests of Caldavar.

Good luck to Sweeds and the Loner in the rest of the tournament; you guys certainly surprised me (and the whole Fortune Bakery team) with the level at which you played. You will definitely be a team to watch out for when HoN Tour officially gets rolling!

Congratulations to Kookiez and his team over at Fortune Bakery. Coverage of their Round 2 matchup will follow shortly, so watch this space.

Also, if there is a team that you’d like me to follow throughout the tournament, please post a comment stating who below, as I would like to have one more team in the spotlight for the duration of HoN Tour.

- YUMstix`
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