GosuGamers HoN Awards 2010: Best Match Series

DreamHack Summer 2010 Semifinals

KD Gaming, being one of the hot favourites to win the title of DreamHack Summer along with rivals FnaticMSI received some bad news going into the game: core player H4nn1's flight from Germany had been delayed. Having used manager MorpheuZ in the 1st few rounds, the KDe boys decided that the odds were more in their favour to go in 4v5.

Surprisingly enough, being already a man down KDe opted to have a jungler in game 1, forcing triple solo lanes. They had momentum at one point, but tXL abused their one man advantage by splitting up and farming. Determined to at least stall the game until H4nn1 arrives, KDe remained adamant and defended on. Little did they know they were about to play probably the most epic series in their HoN careers.

Being 0-1 down it was do-or-die for them, and Kebap's Behemoth along with LevenT's Hag really pulled KDe through game 2. Overpow was brilliant on Valkyrie in all 3 games, not allowing Fnatic's Trixi to get all the credit for playing that hero well at the event. KDe won both games 2 and 3 with similar split push strategies. With their team fully scatterred to defended all 3 lanes from being pushed in it really didn't seem like tXL had a one man advantage at all. KDe eventually went all the way to win DreamHack Summer.

Honcast Invitational Quarterfinals

This was probably the most anticipated 1st round match up of the Honcast Invitational. While KD Gaming had just won DreamHack Summer, Deal With it was on the verge of making their mark on the competitive scene. Game 1 started out as expected with KDe with a small lead. It was all in vain however as a couple of errors and a farmed Soulstealer allowed Arachna to farm up as well, effectively turning the tide for DWi.

Game 2 was what was truly epic about this series. The shoutcasting VoD of this game is about 100 minutes long to give you a rough idea of how long a game it was, and Chronos and Madman did have good farm. The match was full of epic moments, including a double Quad Kill trade-off somewhere in the middle. AMXZaku was truly the hero for DWi in this game, firing javelin after javelin hitting 5 second stuns as if they were single target spells.

As the match progressed later and things were looking bad for DWi, Zaku fires an amazing blind arrow that catches Vindicator, forcing KDe to defend their base without their global silence. His earlier decision to rush Post-Haste on Valkyrie paid off as a buyback got Zaku an annihilation to end the game in the most epic of fashions.

World Cup Winner's Bracket Round of 8

Ever since Never Back Down [NvD] made their debut on Honcast they've won the hearts of many, beating teams like xFin and MSI as complete underdogs. However, there was always a wanted match-up that eluded the fans - with Evil Geniuses. It finally happened in the HoN World Cup and many were excited about it.

Game 1 started off with a bang as both teams, aggressive as they are go for a 2 man gank mid, resulting in a 3v3 clash. The match carried on seeming like both teams kept trying the same playstyles but EG was usually 1 step ahead. The stats were near identical at the 20 minute mark as capt`mike soloed chu's Hag at his long lane with Hammerstorm. Good ganks turned the game in DuskBin's favour in the 2nd half of the game.

Game 2 was your typical old school Loaded vs Phenomenal Boyz set-up: Soulstealer against the world. While the other DuskBin boys weren't doing so good, zekaykay on Soulstealer was farming up a storm, even having the token and going on a bloodbath streak. It looked highly likely that DskB was about to pull off a HUGE upset but hesistant initiation cost them the game. Things got worse for DskB as a huge early game lead in game 3 was for nothing as bkid's Swiftblade came to save the day for EG.

Digital Youth Awards Grand Finals

HoN's grandest LAN event so far, it was an All-American final after EG and ICE fended off SEA teams iMp and xTu respectively in the semifinals. ICE, using 2 ringers brized and Purifyfy shocked many by picking Gauntlet for game 1 and proceeding to do a lvl 1 Kongor rush with him. Game 1 was probably the most back and forth game at that time, with EG emerging victorious despite ICE getting all 5 Kongor kills. One sloppy initation essentially cost ICE the game here, and like all teams at the higest lvl EG did not hesitate to capitalise on it.

Game 2 was as well a very tense match, and while ICE led in hero kills for pretty much the whole game, EG had the lead in terms of XP gain and gold for majority of the match. Even with a 20k overall lead, EG were still behind in hero kills for a long period of time. ICE player brized went for a very odd Sand Wraith build this game, opting for early stats items into Frostburn into Geo Bane + Frostwulf. Their Vindicator pick proved effective against EG's spell-heavy lineup but lots of overextensions and getting picked off eventually turned the game in EG's favour.

World Cup Loser's Brackets Quarterfinals

Prior to this match-up these 2 teams have just met in a GameReplays Qualifier where sniperdad420's 800 GPM Magebane just completely decimated DM. It was interesting to see what DM had cooked up to go up against DWi's farming strat.

A mass burst lineup was formed by DM in an attempt to shut DWi down before their carries got farmed, it sort of worked as DM got a very good early advantage. Having Tempest, Andromeda and Behemoth, DWi showed that they were capable of putting up a very good defence, and the game stretched on as DM kept suiciding to bring down more raxes. But this gave a lot of farm to Magebane as DWi equalized both mid and top raxes in one push. As things looked to worsen for DM, DWi's sniperdad420 creepskipped and took out the Shrine's towers, disqualifying DWi from game 1. It was an exciting game nonetheless.

DWi comes back strongly, taking game 2 with ease with starter KiWiKiD back in their team (he sat out game 1 due to a corrupted game client). Game 1 was good but it is game 2 that is what this series is all about. DM started out strongly dominating the laning phase but DWi were back even in the game by mid game thanks to some good fights. Things however got worse for them as Era on Madman had amazing farm, outfarming both sniperdad and slickz as DM wipes out middle easily by 41 minutes. By 65 minutes all that was left in DWi's base was their World Tree completely exposed, and their top raxes while DM still had tier 2 towers up. A good split push after genociding DM got DWi DM's top and mid raxes and Kongor. The final nail in the coffin was hit when Era got caught out by Tarano porting in. But not willing to give up, the game ends in an insane throne rush. A must watch.