?It was a very rough start for Turtle Master into the second cycle of SEA HoN Tour's G-League, but the reinging and defending champion recovered nicely in the last three days. Still, Made in Thailand, Orange eSports leading the charge after the first full week of competition.
The storyline of the first two days of the South East Asian HoN Tour premier division G-League was without a doubt the struggle of the reigning champion Turtle Master. After finishing a nearly flawless season with a splendid victory over Neolution eSports.MRR in the Grand Finals, the Turtle started very slow into the new cycle. In the debut cycle, the Thai team only dropped three maps in the entire first 15 matches, a mark that they tied already after just two days of the competition. It served as a wake-up call though, because after that start, the Turtles finally came out of their shells and presented themselves in a better light again. Not only did they win all three of the last matches, but they also did it in an impressive fashion. Winning against Gspeed AVI, FunFunPlace and KaiD brought them nine points, three victories and back into the playoff race - finishing the first week on the 3rd spot.
Above them are only the standout teams of the individual regions of the last couple of months. One is Made in Thailand. Sorry Sorry, who finally got their act together and performed after spending the first cycle in the D1 and even dropping a game in the D1 playoffs. Some doubts were surrounding the squad in terms of their eagerness and the consistency of the results, but four victories and one tied contest after the first five days erased all the doubts.
Orange eSports didn't have to deal with those doubts at all, as the Malaysian powerhouse once again rolled through the first portion of the G-League schedule. Just like last cycle, the team around MrGhost and Shuiyu left little to no doubt out there, who is in charge of the SEA region - winning four matches and only conceding one single map thus far. The most remarkable game or stat line came out of the match against Vietnam minion Team yesterday, when Orange absolutely dismantled the squad and prevailed with a score of 43-4 after just 22 minutes of playing time. Both MiTH.s2y and ORGE are comfortably sitting on top of the brackets heading into the second week, looking at a cushion of three points already between themselves and the first pursuing teams in TurS and bRix.
One point further behind those two teams is Neolution eSports.MRR, who still haven't lost a single regular season match, but already recorded three ties in the first five matches. Negative for MRR is, that those ties occurred against mid-tier teams and not the elite squads like MiTH.s2y, ORGE or their Grand FInal rivals of Turtle Master. Those matches are still ahead of the playoff team, which could amount into a series pile of trouble with those early matches they failed to win in. Every single top team is still left and up-and-coming squads like iMpunity.Storm and Open House Party are also foes in the near future. Four points shy of the first place, one point away from a playoff spot and six difficult matches still left - the equation might end up really bad for the reigning runner-up of the G-League.
The position of Neo.MRR is still not really dreadful, as they are also three points away from every other team when they look down in the standings. This cycle the whole G-League is sort of divided after the first week. Only five teams have reached ten points or even came remotely close to that mark, the rest of the league is in a giant group around the same point standing. The sixth place is occupied by four teams with six points, the tenth place is split three ways with teams recording five points and even the 13th place is the home of two teams with four points. Everything is darn close in the early struggle against the demotion zone and almost every single team has already picked up at least one victory.
Only Vietnam minion Team and Step Gods have failed on that mission so far, but at least Step Gods got away with three points out of three draws so far. The only Vietnamese team left in the G-League is trailing behind even more, without any sort of a victory and only one won map. One point after five games and ten maps is giving them the last place after the first couple of days in the new cycle.
Before today Gspeed AVI from Thailand was facing the same issue as VmnT, but a surprise victory of that team against Open House Party boosted them up to four points and just inches away from the safe spots in terms of demotion. Ultimately they are still in the struggle and would be one of the teams that gets send down to D1, if the cycle would end today, but with ten matches left to play, the chances of the squad to retain the G-League status yet again are still more than realistic.
| SEA HoN Tour G-League Cycle 2 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place | Team | W-L-T | Points | |
| 1. |
| Orange eSports | 4-0-1 | 13 |
| 1. |  | Made in Thailand.Sorry Sorry | 4-0-1 | 13 |
| 3. |  | bRix | 3-1-1 | 10 |
| 3. | | Turtle Master | 3-1-1 | 10 |
| 5. | | Neolution eSports.MRR | 2-0-3 | 9 |
| 6. | | Anti Moon Queen | 2-3-0 | 6 |
| 6. | | Open House Party | 1-1-3 | 6 |
| 6. |  | 2nd Runner Up | 1-1-3 | 6 |
| 6. | | Insidious eSports | 1-1-3 | 6 |
| 10. | | iMpunity.Storm | 1-2-2 | 5 |
| 10. | | FunFunPlace | 1-2-2 | 5 |
| 10. | | DC Fabulous | 1-2-2 | 5 |
| 13. | | Gspeed AVI | 1-3-1 | 4 |
| 13. | | KaiD | 1-3-1 | 4 |
| 15. | | Step Gods | 0-2-3 | 3 |
| 16. |  | Vietnam minion Team | 0-4-1 | 1 |
The action in the SEA HoN Tour will take a break on Sunday, but return with great matchups on Monday. Highlight will be the battle for the playoff spots between Made in Thailand.Sorry Sorry and Neolution eSports.MRR - a matchup that provided many entertaining hours in the Grand Finals of the Thai HoN Tour a couple of months ago. In addition to that blockbuster match, iMpunity.Storm will try to take matters into their own hands against Gspeed AVI, Open House Party will face Turtle Master, Orange eSports gets to deal with Step Gods and the battle of the two promotion teams from Indonesia, Insidious eSports and DC Fabulous, will grant bragging rights on the regional level.
To keep up with all the action of the SEA HoN Tour check out GosuGamers.net for weekly updates and make sure to head over to twitch.tv/epicgamingtelevision and twitch.tv/garenahonsea to witness the casting of the EGtv crew surrounding Babael, ABSTRACT and Larcsm with two matches daily. On top of that, the Thai casting team around Winzy is streaming two games daily on their Youtube channel and Garena Vietnam takes a closer look at their representatives every single gameday on their streaming service.
