The ninth cycle of HoN Tour's Diamond Division is in the books with Lions eSports clinching yet another victory over their nemesis stayGreen. Throughout the cycle the Swedish team played flawless, marched through the Upper Bracket and then took out sG in the Grand Finals.
The narrative of the first weekend in this HoN Tour was simple - Team Excellent was on a roll and talked the talk. For the entire first weekend the newly formed squad around Pew reigned supreme with victory over Team NK and stayGreen. On the back of those, they marched into the Upper Bracket Finals, but the storylines took a turn for the worse for the team.
Team Excellent's success took a pause and the bunch took two severe beatings today. First it was Lions eSports, who stopped the winning streak of xCet with a splendid performance. The team showed up to play, even after being called out on the Panny Show by xCet's Captain Pew. SuperKGE was the recipient of those choice words, but on the battlegrounds Lions let their plays do the talking for them. Both maps weren't really tightly contested and so xCet was all set for the rematch against stayGreen.
The storylines for that were overwhelming with Pew also putting fuel in that fire over the last couple of weeks and months. The rivalry between Pew and sG's captain Swindlemelonzz is known for quite a while now, with them exchanging words through podcasts, interviews, the forums or the in-game chat. This was the new peak of the rivalry though, unfortunately not a highlight reel for one of the competitors. sG took care of business fairly easy, putting Pew and his team in his place straight away.
That set up yet another "dream final" between the best two teams in HoN right now - being stayGreen and Lions eSports. This installment of the finals was the sixth consecutive time, the Diamond Division came down to those two competitors. Lions eSports took three of those meetings, sG could only win two lately. Still, overall sG's record of five Diamond Division titles outshines Lions accomplishments, although they added the fourth one to their resume now. Overall the regular season might as well just end like the first one with sG and another team splitting the cycle success straight in half. In the first installment of HoN Tour it was Trademark eSports getting four and sG winning four, this time the number could be five for both. The tenth and final cycle will kick off next Saturday, with sG only having limited chances of missing out on that first overall seed. Said seed would guarantee them a spot in the international HoN Tour Grand Finals later this year in Bangkok, Thailand, where $150,000 USD will be on the line.
| HoN Tour Diamond Division Cycle 9: Top 6 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Place | Team | Ranking Points | Earnings |
| 1. |  Lions eSports | 3,500 | $ 5,000 USD |
| 2. |  stayGreen | 2,700 | $ 3,000 USD |
| 3. |  Team Excellent | 2,300 | $ 1,000 USD |
| 4. | Reason Gaming | 2,000 | $ 500 USD |
| 5.-6. | Denial eSports | 1,750 | $ 250 USD |
| 5.-6. | Team NK | 1,750 | $ 250 USD |
