Yesterday no HoN action took place in the SoundBlaster Heroes League, today all four teams delivered thrilling and exciting matches to make up for the opening of the League. Ultimately Orange eSports and Stay Green move on in the tournament.
| SBHL Round of 16 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Orange eSports |  Afraid | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Game 1
The highly anticipated return of Orange eSports back to the international client was as exciting, as their notable performance at the DreamHoN Winter 2012 event. In the first match the boys from Malaysia brought an unconventional carry with Sand Wraith over to the NA/EU crowd. Unfortunately for them the experiment failed rather hard as they were able to hang in the game and make it close for huge chunks of the first map, but ultimately falling to Jollem on his farmed and late-game oriented Moon Queen.
Also the draft of ORGE was not only questioned by the fans, but also by Beef and Emperor casting it. Orange decided to value a Moraxus pick higher than going for the Moon Queen, who they introduced back into the scene at DreamHack. In the end a lot of blown engagements, initiates and spells lead to the demise of the Malaysian powerhouse, on top of Afraid playing their hearts out and making smart decisions as well as good counter attacks.
Orange had to regroup after that early fall to avoid elimination, while Afraid was eager to keep the momentum from the successful HoN Tour weekend going into this tournament as well.
Game 2
The second map ORGE played their known aggressive style and had much success early on. As a matter of fact both Hammerstorm and Deadwood picked up their Portal Key at around the 12 minute mark, while Bubbles got his at the 18 minute mark. From there on out Orange basically had the map control and was able to pick players of Afraid off quite a lot, with Jollem on Silhouette still managing to get good farm. In the end that farm wasn't enough as Shuiyu turned three fights around with monsterous Tempest Ultimate catching up to four people at once.
The young Malaysian even landed such an ultimate in the middle of a massive push of Orange eSports, which resulted in Barracks on the top lane falling and Afraid getting picked off over and over again deep in their own base. Afraid was not finished yet and tried to mount an epic comeback, but 1,2k crits of dabeliuteef on Hammerstorm were just too much to handle. As the former Tt eSports player picked up the Bloodbath streak and Orange won yet another big engagement, Jollem and his boys called it quits and moved on to the third map.
Game 3
So the epic game came down to the third and decisive match. The fate of both teams was hanging in the balance and a spot in the quarterfinals was on the line. After the draft the fight essentially boiled down to the oldschool carry duel between Silhouette and The Dark Lady, Jollem against dabeliuteef.
Firstblood went to the Malaysians, but after that uncontrolled mayhem broke out with pick offs all across the map and no real team fight brewing, only little skirmishes between two or three players each. From that mayhem Afraid walked out with a slight Gold and Experience advantage, which even got aggrevated after two won engagements for the European team.
Still they did not decide to push and so the standard farmfest with Silhouette against Dark Lady testing once again, who has the edge in a pure farm battle. This stage of slaying neutrals and creeps was only interrupted by Afraid poking around the middle towers a bit and Orange eSports getting a free Token of Life from Kongor. Other than that not a lot of action happened and both carries were on equal ground heading into the important stage of the match.
After the farm period Afraid wanted to push and felt they were strong enough to get that through, but dabeliuteef was just on top of his game with his Dark Lady and tore through the lines of the enemy team. It wasn't quite enough to put Afraid away for good, with them holding their ground in a base push on the bottom lane, which resulted in Afraid actually being in position to kill the Melee Barracks on the bottom lane.
Still that lonely Raxx was not enough to keep them in the game for much longer as Orange eSports relentlessly marched towards the Legion base and won team fight after team fight, kill after kill. dabeliuteef was just too strong and too farmed, Shuiyu had another great Tempest ultimate still up his sleeve and so Orange eSports was able to break the base and advance into the quarterfinals of the SoundBlaster Heroes League.
Afraid still managed to turn some heads with a great effort and outing once again, after they just had great matches and signature victories on the first weekend of HoN Tour Diamond play. Unfortunately Orange eSports was still one step ahead of them and so Afraid is eliminated, while Orange can still dream of the lions share of the $30,000 USD.
| SBHL Round of 16 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Stay Green |  Vietnamese Dream | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Game 1
Now it was time for the best team in HoN to enter the competition as the Miami powerhouse had to take on the new European squad of Vietnamese Dream. While the first game of the day between Orange eSports and Afraid had gripping and tight competition, this match turned into a lop-sided affair right away. Stay Green overpowered the newer team around PinkyKurdi and Pewe` from the start and left zero doubt on their dominance in the current state of the scene.
It didn't even take a real laning phase to start the bloodthirst of Stay Green, who already managed to pick off PinkyKurdi on Bubbles before the clock read 00:00. Creeps didn't really add that much more excitement to the match either, with sG being in control of every single lane and picking up early kills - jumping ahead to a 4-0 kill advantage after the first minutes.
That lead never got smaller with Stay Green dominating the two following team fights in the middle lane, on the back of a tremendous ultimate by Chessie playing Tempest, pinning down four players of vtD. That Elemental Void helped Stay Green to get their first Genocide of the game - noted it only took about nine minutes to get to this point. The following minutes did not change much of the outcome and so Vietnamese Dream was forced to concede after only 15 minutes with a devastating score of 18-2 in Stay Green's favor.
Game 2
The second match started out a little bit friendlier for vtD with them getting the Firstblood before the 00:00 mark, even on the hard carry of Stay Green - sLiCKz. Overall the match was a lot closer in the early stages of the game with a lot of kills, equally distributed on both sides. Stay Green slowly pulled ahead though, inch by inch, finding favorable situations and free killsm while also applying some pressure to the outer towers of Vietnamese Dream.
Those guys tried to fight back and even get creative with a Base Race, which clearly ended in favor of Stay Green, who got the entire top lane and the middle base tower, while vtD only managed to push tower and Barracks in the middle. The fighting spirit of the Europeans was never broken, but the continental mix of Stay Green with two Americans, two Europeans and one Australian was just too strong and overpowering in team fight situations.
Stay Green proved their favorite status right, sending Vietnamese Dream back to school and out of the tournament. The new European team from the merge of Fack You Kurdi and Vitriolic Gaming has a lot to learn - the most obvious message of the match.
