By quincy0191
But that doesn’t mean the rest of the scene is quite so assured. Reason Gaming nearly went from Gold Division to the Diamond Grand Finals, which would have been an incredibly impressive feat. As it was they had a great comeback, looking like a legitimate contender to the current #2 in willowkeeper. Oh, and Bad Monkey Gaming, they of Cycle 4 victory, are now taking Reason’s place in Gold. Worth a mention. At this point I don’t see any clearly safe prediction in matchups that don’t involve SynC, because that same willowkeeper team that finished second looked worried against Reason, while Rea had hard-fought series against both Nullstone and Prime Icarus. I don’t know what to think anymore.
Cycle MVP – Flensmeister
So we’ve completed the SynC quintet. Zlapped won Cycle 1, KheZu won Cycle 2, iNsania won Cycle 3, and after a hiccup in Cycle 4, we got m`ICKe in Cycle 5 and now Flensmeister in Cycle 6. Nobody need feel left out, you’re all getting participation trophies. You can stop taunting poor Flens for not winning an MVP yet. Honestly, there’s no desire for symmetry, it’s just how things worked out, but it’s a pretty good indication of why SynC are so good. Five different cycles, five different MVPs, one to each player. That’s a pretty good indication of a team with essentially no holes, and when that happens it’s going to be difficult to take them down.
Flensmeister’s case on the merits is pretty damned strong, and this was one of the easier choices in general. He led in K:D, K+A:D, K+A-D, kills per game, deaths per game, and XPM. He was second in GPM and fifth in assists per game (though he led all carry players). He was also a pretty impressive 5-0 on Doctor Repulsor, and then there was that ridiculous split-pushing thing in the last game of the Grand Finals against willowkeeper. After their victory Flens said he didn’t feel like that was their most dominant cycle, but I’ll politely disagree and posit that he was a big reason why SynC are looking better than ever.
Best Hero – Valkyrie, 83.3% win
This is pretty great for me, because I’ve been trying to convince people Valkyrie’s a great hero for some time now. Seems like at least two teams are receptive to the idea, which I will take full credit for, and they’ve been proving the concept. Personally I don’t see how a hero with a good stun, strong nuke, getaway/chase tool that assists allies, and excellent teamfight ultimate isn’t picked more. But she really should be – the second-highest win% of all heroes with at least 10 games (66.7%) suggests some pretty great ability. To be fair, SynC (100% win) and tree (66.7% win) are responsible for 12 of her 15 games, while Rea and NR combined are just 1-2.
This cycle wasn’t hugely different. SynC played Valk twice and won both times. willowkeeper won their solitary game with her, and Reason went 2-1. She didn’t go up against inferior competition, either, with two games against both Prime Icarus and Nullstone Gaming, and one each vs. Reason and tree. PI was actually the only team to beat a Valk. And just for good measure, we saw some pretty good versatility out of her, with three games as a suicide, two as a carry, and one as an initiator.
Worst Hero – Puppet Master, 22.2% win
Now I get to be sad, because I’m also a big fan of Puppet and have been for some time. PM’s post-Carnage decline hasn’t been as severe as Chronos’, but he’s fallen off pretty drastically from the days when he was considered a must-ban or first pick material. Reason and tree both still value him, with three games played each this cycle, but between the two them they were a pitiful 1-5 overall. Even SynC couldn’t maintain a 100% win rate, going 1-1, while the guys on Ogr fell to Gold using Puppet in Game 2 of the Loser’s Bracket Round 1.
PM managed to farm pretty well, with an average of 430 GPM that was good for 5th place among heroes that were played at least five times. Trouble is, most of the heroes below him weren’t carries, and those that were tended to lose. He was also right in the middle of the pack with a mediocre 1.17 K:D, 11th place out of 28 qualifying heroes. Not really where you want your #1 farmer to be. This is a bit uncharacteristic for Puppet overall, with a 13-8 record in the five previous cycles combined; unfortunately, the first time he was picked consistently is also the first time he lost a lot, and his overall win% is now down to 46.9%. Puppet Master is getting more popular, but we’ll see if his poor performance derails those gains.
Best Single Game Performance – Loser’s Bracket Round 2 Game 2, `Drentz on Blitz
This is a pretty memorable game, to the extent that it was still mentioned the following weekend as Nullstone proceeded to the Loser’s Bracket Semifinals match. `Drentz managed an 8/0/14 performance with 272 GPM, a very good score for a support hero, but it was his dominance all over the map that tells the story. Usually I choose a winner for this category primarily based on statistics, and while `Drentz has a very good case by the numbers, it’s absolutely bolstered by watching this game and recognizing that he more or less singlehandedly got Nullstone the win.
Regardless, `Drentz finished in the top 10 in single-game kills, deaths, assists, and K+A-D, as well as the top 15 in K:D and K+A:D. That’s out of 340 individual game performances, and considering he’s a hard support player, that’s pretty rare. By XPM (146th) and GPM (149th) he was understandably further down the list, but you don’t really expect to see support players top those charts. Among all support games he had the 11th-highest XPM and 13th-highest GPM out of 93 contenders, so by pretty much any reasonable measure this was an excellent turn.
Best Single Game K/D/A – Winner’s Bracket Semifinals Game 3, Flensmeister on Doctor Repulsor
12/1/12 is not only nice and symmetrical, it’s a damned good game for anyone. But SynC were coming off their only loss of the cycle, and this is the kind of thing that gets you an MVP award. I ranked all games by kills, deaths, assists, K:D, K+A:D, and K+A-D, coming out with this game tied for the best all-around performance with `Drentz’ Blitz above at an average rank of 5.17. In other words, if you compare all games by any of the six metrics above, you’re probably going to end up with this game just outside your top 5. This was also well-rounded, being one of five games that placed in the top 10 overall for five of the six named categories, only assists (12th) failing to reach that mark. Oh, and 553 GPM (t-18th) with 800 XPM (4th) to boot.
Best Single Game Farm – Round of 8 Game 1, baltazar` on Soulstealer
baltazar` is consistently one of the best overall farmers in HTS3, in no small part due to willowkeeper’s playstyle, but also absolutely deserving of continued recognition. 752 GPM took nearly an hour to accumulate, but it’s his highest GPM performance so far, tied for third-highest in Season 3 among all players. baltazar` finished the cycle at 514 average GPM, just a tick higher than his HoN Tour Season 3-leading 512 average gold per minute (min. 15 games). This is the kind of game that keeps you at the top of that leaderboard.
Best Single Game CS – Loser’s Bracket Semifinal Game 1, ImbaBoy on Klanx
We saw three Klanx games this cycle and it was this one that put him second overall in CK/game behind Gemini’s 532 (three games each). Reason took just over seventy minutes to pull out the win over Null, so ImbaBoy’s 695 CK and 26 denies were definitely time-aided, but it wasn’t the longest game of the cycle (1:22:36, Null vs. BMG Ro8), or even the second-longest game of the cycle. That meant ImbaBoy maintained a very respectable 9.86 creep kills per minute, third-highest in Cycle 6, behind an hour-long baltazar` game and a 30-minute baltazar` game. baltazar` also took fourth and fifth place, because he’s greedy, but still couldn’t manage to out-CS ImbaBoy in any single game. No surprise, Reason’s captain brought home the win with a fantastic 633 GPM and 9/2/10 score on top of his excellent creep farm.
Here are your leaders from Cycle 6 of HoN Tour Season 3 (all played at least five games):
Highest Win% – Valkyrie, 83.3%
Lowest Win% – Puppet Master, 22.2%
Most Picked – Magmus, 29 games
Executioner (Most Kills) – Doctor Repulsor, 9.1
Cautious (Least Deaths) – War Beast, 1.4
Savior (Most Assists) – Behemoth, 14.4
Best Farmer – Silhouette, 538 GPM
Best Experience – Silhouette, 650 XPM
Best Ricer – Swiftblade, 319 CK
Best Denier – Puppet Master, 23 CD
Highest K:D – War Beast, 3.86
Highest K+A:D – War Beast, 8.14
quincy0191 is a HoN veteran with a focus on the numbers. Fascinated by quantifying and valuing human beings, he shunned the world of finance in favor of sports and competition. When not on Honcast you can find quincy playing games like Civilization and Pokemon, or watching movies, writing, pondering, or catching a game of baseball.
