The real important part of the SEA HoN Tour playoffs is over with the four qualified teams for the International HoN Tour Grand Final teams confirmed. Orange eSports and Neolution eSports.MRR got through based on their HoN Tour rankings, Made in Thailand.Sorry Sorry and Turtle Master clinched their spot today.
Four cycles of SEA HoN Tour are in the books and so are the majority of matches in the SEA HoN Tour playoffs for the coveted International HoN Tour Grand Finals in Bangkok, Thailand in March, 2014. Eight of the 12 matches have been played, the 12 competitors are cut down to the final four and so the tickets for the big event in Bangkok are all handed out. Following the pre-qualified Orange eSports and Neolution eSports.MRR are Turtle Master and Made in Thailand.Sorry Sorry, who beat out their final foes today.
In Turtle Master's case that final foe was the NA/EU ensemble of iMpunity.Storm, who overachieved throughout these playoffs. Going into these playoffs they were lucky to even be in this position, due to the playoff ranks being extended from eight to 12. That opened the door of iMpunity.Storm to even participate in the playoffs. In those they edged out victories against Air Quality and Fanatic Five to get to the last six - where their miracle journey came to a stand still. The established Thai team was simply too much to handle for ImpS, who had literally no chance too compete with them at all. Turtle Master moves on to the International HoN Tour Grand Finals, Emperor moves back to the States for good and ending his HoN career. The future of iMpunity.Storm is foggy with the departure of one of the initiators of this program, but no official statement yet.
The second Quarterfinal set was dominated by Made in Thailand.Sorry Sorry, fighting back after an atrocious performance at DreamHack Winter 2013. Over in Sweden they got blasted off the map by Internet Gangsters, Denial eSports and stayGreen, only winning against the BYOC team DTSC - by a landslide at least. Internal struggle and rifts were mentioned as the reason for the bad performance, mostly Esc` and his team being divided. It didn't seem to have that much of an effect today against bRix, since Esc` was back in the lineup and MiTH.s2y took the series with a decisive 2-0.
With that being said the SEA HoN Tour Playoffs are once again down to the usual suspects with the four dominating teams being a part of it. Two of the four postseasons in the individual cycles were with these four squads, only the first one and the third one had bRix replacing MiTH.s2y and iMpunity.Earth replacing Turtle Master for a change. Other than that, these four teams are truly the best of the region and they are fighting for a share of $13,250 USD now. When those fights between the contestants will take place is uncertain up to this point, since Garena has not yet scheduled them to a fixed date. Approximately around January, 18th and 19th was the first official statement, but nothing is confirmed in that area. The only thing that is confirmed is the fact that the Semifinals will be played in the Best of Three format, the Grand Finals going to be Best of Five and the Third Place match is just a Best of One.
