Just a few days before the opening of the doors in Bangkok, the groups for the World Finals were revealed - minus a wildcard for each group. On Saturday we will see those group stage matches take place, forming the picture of the quarterfinals and Sunday’s main stage matches, including the epic Grand Finals, where one team will be crowned a World Champion and given a rather massive $56,000 check.

As a result of having three NA/EU teams present in Bangkok, a pairing of at least two big teams in the same group was bound to happen. The group announcement solved this issue, and set to treat the thousands of fans in the BITEC Convention Center to a Swedish battle between Sync eSports and Bad Monkey Gaming in Group B. That’s not all that turns Group B into the group of death, since the two strong teams from Northern Europe are joined by none other than the two-time HoN Tour champion Made in Thailand.Sorry Sorry themselves. The strongest team of Southeast Asia and Thailand can seek revenge, after being eliminated by Sync eSports (back then called Denial eSports) in the group stage of DreamHack Winter 2024. That was on the home turf of the Swedish roster, now the tides are turned and homefield advantage is with the Thais, backed up by a crowd of roaring fans.

MiTH.s2y still has an uphill battle to fight, going up against the two best teams from Europe, while they also have a fellow SEA rival of Turtle Master joining them from the wildcard qualifier. In the past the teams have slugged it out on many occasions. The most prominent of those clashes were the two DreamHack qualifiers for the 2024 editions of the Swedish LAN. TurS is yet to catch a real big break against Made in Thailand.Sorry Sorry; they will get another opportunity in Saturday’s groups. Initial predictions see BMG and Sync running away with the group, which once again would put a high emphasis and big stakes on the MiTH.s2y against TurS showdown. All matches overall will likely be contested and highly entertaining, although the Swedish should have the upper hand against the big HoN nation of Thailand.

Completed groups, schedule, and tournament format

The easier road to the bracket stage lies with the reigning Garena Star League and HoN Tour Season champs, stayGreen. Swindlemelonzz will have to lead his troops into the battle against the CIS team of Cats and the Thai boys of Neolution eSports.MRR. Those names are familiar to sG, on paper, although the squad in the current form never faced off against either of them. In fact the matchup between Neolution eSports.MRR and stayGreen will be the first of it’s kind, as both teams avoided each other at DreamHack Winter 2024 and the Garena Star League 2024. Since then Neo.MRR has dropped off in regional dominance, failing to return to any DreamHack events, while stayGreen have gone on a massive winning streak, maintaining a flawless LAN record in terms of Best-of-Three matches. The last duel between Cats and sG ranges back to the end of 2024, at the group stage of DreamHack Winter 2024. In Group A both teams met and both teams missed the playoffs, giving both teams an early exit from the tournament. History is going to repeat itself at least in the regard of them meeting against in Group A, although Cats Gaming should be no match for stayGreen by any stretch of the imagination.

On Friday Group A was completed by ADN Gamer, as the Malaysians barely hung on to their position as favorites in the game against N2H. Now MrGhost, Shuiyu, and company return to the site of their GSL13 disappointment, looking to make up for the event last year. The shaky performances against Nok 2 Hua in the Wildcard round does not instill much hope, but it does make the race for the two playoff spots after stayGreen very interesting. In their old form ADN would have been the huge favorite, maybe even to trip up stayGreen, but now the favorite role to get the runner-up spot in the group is most likely with Neolution eSports.MRR. The team around Chitawan`X played exceptionally well in the final stages of the SEA HoN Tour Grand Finals - if they can transfer that into the BITEC Convention Center, they might be in prime shape to go to Sunday.

The ADN Gamer squad during their Wildcard bout against N2H

On Saturday it will all get decided in a hurry, when the eight best teams from around the world go head to head for the playoff berth. The early part of the day is reserved for the group stage matches, kicking off with stayGreen against ADN, Cats taking on Neo.MRR, Sync clashing with Turtles, and Bad Monkey Gaming challenging the reigning Thai and SEA champion MiTH.s2y. Be sure to set your alarms, get some energy pooled up, cause you don’t want to miss the action of the biggest HoN event in the history - starting 9 AM local time (3 AM CET / 10 PM EST) on Honcast with BreakyCPK, Beef, iNsania and NoVa as the coverage team, live from Bangkok.


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