The first semifinal of the Gosugamers Steelseries HoN World Cup was played yesterday night. It was a matchup between ![Philippines]( "Philippines")
Never Back Down [NvD] and ![Singapore]( "Singapore")
iMpUniTy [iMp]. Arguably the two top teams in SEA at the moment, the match was wildly anticipated by the community.
iMpUniTy [iMp]. Arguably the two top teams in SEA at the moment, the match was wildly anticipated by the community. The stakes of the match however couldn’t compare to the magnitude of these 2 powerhouses clashing, as both teams had already qualified for the group stage and were only competing for pride and a finals place which would give them the chance to fight it out with
Roam and Kill [RAK] or 
Goat Team [GT] for Steelseries headsets. Both teams were missing key figures in their lineups, with NvD missing leader capt`mike and iMp playing without key players Ken and LadyMelissa.| Game 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| iMpUniTy | Never Back Down | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bans (Hellbourne First) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Picks | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Lanes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [iMp]Capellzor(Top) [iMp]ReimuHakirei(Top) [iMp]beanbeanbean(Mid) [iMp]Air(Bot) [iMp]Act(Bot) | [NvD]Dragon(Top) [NvD]polwiders(Top) [NvD]ismification(Top) [NvD]zekaykay(Mid) [NvD]lutan(Bot) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Game 1 started out full of promise of action with NvD opting to send a very aggressive Pandamonium-Magmus-Andromeda trilane top while 4 iMp players were already scouting out the Legion jungle before creeps spawned.
The tri-stun trilane at top lane proved to be effective, as patience at the secret shop landed them the bloodlust kill on Arachna at the 1st minute mark. iMp reacted by sending Behemoth top allowing Forsaken Archer to solo bottom. This started a sequence of back and forth 3v2s at the top lane, with 3 of the 4 supports (
) leaving the lane to roam whenever they felt their carry was safe. Meanwhile, zekaykay on Madman was having a field day against beanbeanbean's Pollywog, dominating the runes and leading in creep kills 37/13 vs 18/2 at the 8 minute mark.What seemed to be a fairly even start in terms of hero kills began to turn in NvD's favour as Madman began roaming, displaying NvD's trademark style of super aggressive play. This wasn't helped by some sloppy play by iMp, with 3 players TPing one by one to die to a Hellbourne push at the bottom tower around the 18 minute mark.
The gap was made obvious around the 24th minute mark when iMp had already lost all their tier one towers and NvD not a single one. The gold gap was staggering as the top farmer on the Legion side (
) was tied with the lowest on the Hellbourne (). NvD's fluid and consistent offensive play forced iMp to play extremely passive, with 2 players even being picked off at the safety of a tier 2 tower + Pollywog Wards. This enabled NvD to get a quick Kongor kill while most of the Legion team was still up.
A fine aggressive performance by NvD was finally appropriately capped off with a stunning base diving Genocide with them only losing Valkyrie. iMp conceded at the 35 minute mark, 15-42 was the hero kill score and zekaykay emerged the top farmer with 500 GPM on Madman.
| Game 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Never Back Down | iMpUniTy | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bans (Hellbourne First) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Picks | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Lanes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [NvD]lutan(Top) [NvD]zekaykay(Mid) [NvD]Dragon(Bot) [NvD]ismification(Bot) [NvD]polwiders(Bot) | [iMp]beanbeanbean(Top) [iMp]ReimuHarikei(Top) [iMp]Capellzor(Mid) [iMp]Act(Mid) [iMp]Air(Bot) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
A sense of deja vu could already be felt during the picking phase of the game; it was almost as if NvD and iMp traded heroes from the first game, with some slight changes. However, it seemed as if iMp was still suffering from the loss of the previous game as NvD started brightly.
The trilane at bottom lane was effectively giving Forsaken Archer free farm while Valkyrie was kept at lvl 1 until the 5 minute mark. Forced to skill Leap at lvl 1 due to running into 3 heroes at the jungle at the start, Air did not have the option of leaving the lane to roam and set up ganks. Hag on the other hand was dominating mid with 3 hero kills against a dual stun lane with the assistance of Glacius in an adjustment move made by NvD.
Once again zekaykay performed solidly at mid, causing NvD to have a great advantage by the 18 minute mark, with zekaykay's Hag sitting on 9 hero kills and 365 GPM while the free farming Dragon on FA was at 354 GPM. Map control once again fell into the hands of NvD as all tier 1 towers for iMp fell -- pretty much a repeat of game 1.
The shining hope for the Hellbourne team was Soul Reaper, who was the only one above 200 GPM, and that was only because he was ricing most of the time. NvD started to run away with it as 23 minutes in Bubbles and Behemoth got their Portal Keys. It proved to be a vital pickup on both heroes as NvD easily got a Genocide at the entrance of iMp's base, with all 5 heroes surviving and only Bubbles and Glacius not at near full health.
As the situation became grimmer for iMp, the final nail in the coffin was tapped in by another Genocide 2 minutes later. 3 iMp players were easily taken out by only Bubbles and Behemoth synergising their ultimates together and the other 2 were cleaned up by the rest. iMp conceded with 33-13 being the final hero kill score.
Note : Garena HoN is still in version 1.06.
