For the last year HoN Tour has promoted competitive play at all levels, and in all parts of the world. While each region has their own localized competitions, the worldwide season has been leading up to one thing - the crowning of a World Champion. The upcoming HoN Tour World Finals will showcase talents from the three main regions: four teams from Southeast Asia, three from North America and Europe, and the pride of the CIS region. Over $150,000 is on the line in the three day event, so lets meet the teams competing for the largest prize pool in Heroes of Newerth history.
Achievements
1st - HoN Tour Season 1
1st - Garena Star League 2024
1st - DreamHack Summer 2024
1st - DreamHack Winter 2024
1st - Sound Blaster Heroes League Season 2
1st - Runic Shift Tournament
1st - (4) HoN Tour Season 1 Cycle 3, 6, 7, 8
1st - (5) HoN Tour Season 2 Cycle 1, 2, 3, 5, 8
2nd - (2) HoN Tour Season 1 Cycle 4, 5
2nd - (5) HoN Tour Season 2 Cycle 4, 6, 7, 9, 10
HoN Tour Season 1, First Ranked Overall Standings
HoN Tour Season 2, First Ranked Overall Standings
Roster
Swindlemelonzz - Captain/Mid - United States of America
Zfreek - Support - United States of America
Chessie - Carry - Sweden
Limmp - Suicide - Sweden
Mynuts - Jungle - Sweden
Road to Thailand
Whenever the name stayGreen is mentioned in Heroes of Newerth, the first thing people think about is always going to be the successes of the past. The team around swindlemelonzz, that obliterated the competition for the last year now, gathering all four major championship trophies. What people usually forget is the start of the project, back in the cold winter of 2024. At that time HoN Tour was already announced, but preluded by the festivities in the Elmia in Jönköping, Sweden. The big showdown, one of the best DreamHacks of all time and the preview version of the now successful juggernaut of stayGreen. With the name Gary Johnson 2024 the team of three Americans, one German and a Swede had embarked on the journey to conquer the first LAN of the team’s history right of the bat - only to see them fail and get eliminated in the group stage. Losses to their arch nemesis compLexity Gaming and a split with the Malaysian powerhouse Orange eSports were enough to get booted out of the competition that event. A bitter taste was in the mouth at that event, as Trademark eSports went on to win the trophy - interesting enough with two future stayGreen players in their midst. Mynuts and Limmp hoisted the big check, Chessie was left on the losing team, Swindle and Zfreek were sidelined as observers in the crowd.
What a difference a couple of month made in the growth of the team. sLiCKz joined the team, later the powerful jungler with Chessie became green - the machinery that was stayGreen was banging on all cylinders with big goals on their mind. First it was the Garena Star League 2024, an event in which sG never conceded and long-time member KheZu barely even died. For most of the tournament the only time he actually saw the fountain was at the beginning of the match or when he bought items with his courier.
After trashing Trademark eSports, the SEA competition and everyone else at the BITEC Convention Center in Bangkok, Thailand, the team put sights on the next big thing - the first ever HoN Tour Grand Finals in Las Vegas, Nevada. Different location, same story. stayGreen torched their opponents, leaving no doubt in anyones minds that the champions of Newerth are dressed in green. A clean sweep against Lions eSports, a clean and decisive rout over Trademark eSports, the troops around captain Swindlemelonzz were executing, delivering and striking fear into everyone in their path. Up until DreamHack Summer 2024 that is.
Back in Sweden, at the site of their biggest disappointment, came another early setback. In the big group stage with all teams, the green squad marched in as the odds on favorite with a winning streak north of the staggering number of 50. To be precise, the streak stopped at 52 when Vietnamese Dream Team made the big upset happen to end an exciting and great Day 1 of the Summer event in Sweden. That moment even started a brief losing stretch of three games in a row, but nothing really that noteworthy. In the bottom line business the number 52 might have seen flashy and cool, the title and the check in the DreamArena were definitely more relevant after all.
After the first Triple Crown in the history of Heroes of Newerth, the crisis of the team kicked in. KheZu and sLiCKz announced their departure from the team, not choosing the silent way out, but going out with plenty of noise and a plethora of forum drama surrounding it. The core of sG stuck together and the acquisitions made the team into an even stronger force with more cohesiveness and great players on each skill position. Chessie got to play with his brother, with Mynuts joining the team an extra strategical mind joined in as well - the team came out of the first real crisis in the team even stronger and more unified.
That also translated to great performances, winning the Sound Blaster Heroes League Season 2, adding five Diamond Division titles to the resume and never ending a single cycle in the highest HoN Tour division without reaching the final game. All was well, all was good and DreamHack Winter 2024 was another cherry on top of an already more than great year for sG. Undefeated once more, 30 minutes in the Grand Finals - Team of the Year, MVP of the Year, Carry of the Year, both Junglers of the Year and Support of the Year - a green year in every aspect, every shape and every form.
In Thailand?
The strategies of sG are not really newsworthy or new. The famous train, the patient wait, the intelligence in avoiding fights and pushing instead. All those aspects make sG into what they are, paired with unparallel individual skills. The accolades of the past year have already been mentioned above, but on every single skill position they are prepared to go to battle with whomever.
The time of Pebbles, Deadwood or other nuker in the midst of their lineup is long gone, the “forced” change to Ravenor and so on. Overall the trend of the team goes back to the strong carries, Mynuts’ baby Tempest, the occassional War Beast thrown into the mix and the usual strong ganking support heroes handled by the man himself, Zfreek. So far this was the recipe of success for the former Miami powerhouse, no reason to really change up anything. In soccer the phrase: “Never change a winning team” is perfectly fitting for the approach that stayGreen has with Hon.
Far more important than the actual roster is the historic implication that this tournament will have for the proud HoN brand of sG. Everyone with basic math knowledge can put one and one together, in this case two and two rather. After the DreamHack Winter 2024 title, sG has a total of four championships to show for, even one real ring. The comparisons between the green team and the overshadowing fnatic team have been loud and determined ever since the HoN Tour title and the dominance, in Thailand they might eclipse the championship number of the old team around Fly and n0tail. Whatever you think of stayGreen or however high you think of fnatic, no one can really dispute simple math and say that five majors is more than four. Writers, fans and forum posters will weigh in on the worth of the titles, if sG claims the fifth one - but for now, they are in the position to write history and forever enshrine their names in the HoN history books as the best team to ever draft a single hero in this game.
