Eight teams left alive in SBHL S2

 

 

Sound Blaster Heroes League took a breather this weekend with the DreamHack Winter 2013 qualifiers taking place on those two days, but now the prestigious tournament returns for the final stretch. Eight teams with players from all across the world are still left standing, but only one squad can hoist the virtual trophy in the end. Favorites for that act are Lions eSports and stayGreen, the most recent winners of the HoN Tour Diamond Division.

 

After dropping the first Diamond Division in six editions, stayGreen looked vulnerable in the beginning of this month, but yet another dominant performance during the fifth Diamond cycle and the Sound Blaster Heroes League group stage has eliminated that thought. The team around legendary drafter swindlemelonzz is looking poised to win the Sound Blaster Heroes League this time, after coming up short in the debut season of the tournament. Back then they lost in the Semifinals to Lions eSports, who will be their biggest adversaries once again. Both teams have a long history fighting for the top spots in HoN, but the rivalry has taken center stage the last couple of weeks with Lions eSports challenging the established force of HoN in the HoN Tour Grand Finals numerous times.

 

The SBHL might have another clash between the rivals, but other teams are in the mix as well. Internet Gangsters, Too Much Sugar, Justice League and Denial eSports are all competing for the glory as well, while they also have a chance to pull the upset. iG proved to be able to defeat sG in the fifth HoN Tour cycle, Too Much Sugar might be sporadic, but when they are on top of their game, they are more than dangerous for every team, Justice League just recently had two highly competitive matches with Lions eSports - even taking a map away from them in the DreamHack qualifier. Denial eSports on the other side is one of the most exciting teams currently, after they marched from the Bronze Division all the way to Diamond with ease. They won all three divisions in a row and had massive success in other tournaments as well. The Sound Blaster Heroes League qualifiers showed their potential against top teams like Internet Gangsters, but now they are no longer a wildcard. In the last couple of weeks they established themselves and are no longer underrated by anyone. VNsensation, m`Icke, probusk, Zlapped and Flensmeister have shown that they are serious about improving and competing every single day and this tournament is their first shot at glory.

 

While those six teams are representing the pinnacle of HoN competition currently, the other two teams that made it out of the group stage have underdog chances at best. Fade To Black (also known as Team USA) is not serious about HoN as a competitive game anymore and is just here, because they qualified right away. They are not practicing for the event, but rather play Dota 2 in their time - making this HoN tournament their last hurrah. In clutch time they pulled off the victory against Orange eSports, elevating them towards the top four in the group, but the road is most likely going to end right away.

 

The same story can be told about DC Fabulous, although they are very serious about the game. The Indonesian team has made a huge impact in their first G-League cycle over in the South East Asian HoN Tour, taking maps away from basically every single top team in the division. Still, their inexperience with the international scene and the obvious ping disadvantage are hard to overlook. They had their moment against fellow SEA team New Generation and Team Excellent to get into the top eight, but as soon as they faced one of the top teams, they just were smashed completely. Now they need to go against Lions eSports first, which might be one of the shortest matches in the first round. For DCeS this is still a massive accomplishment and a huge learning experience on their way to become one of the better SEA competitors out there.