The HoN Tour Season 3 Qualifiers started last weekend with a blast. It was a pleasant surprise to see so many signups and returning players, and this is only the Qualifiers. Four rounds have been played so far, three in the Winners Bracket and three in the Losers Bracket and the lower Divisions are slowly starting to take shape. The teams still in the race have a long way to go, but everyone still in this will now be at least in Silver Division when the new Season starts. For some teams, this is an achievement, for others the bare minimum of what they want to achieve. Let's take a look at some of the teams, results and future matchups of last weekend in the Winners Bracket
But let's focus on the winners here, as there are plenty of them around. One of the surprise returns for this Season is certainly [Adde]Adrians Familj, who consist of remnants of the Beaver Family and PUDG, who have been a favourite on Honcast ever since Season 1 started. This time they seem stronger than ever and defeated the reformed [DNKE]DONKEKONG in the second round, pushing them to the Losers Bracket. [GS5B]GermanSquad5 Bravo was the next victim of the Beaver friends and the team is now in round 4, facing their toughest challenge so far, [MOE]Moes Tavern. This will be a very interesting match, as Moes Tavern has much more practice right now and appears to be pretty strong all over. Adde might surprise us, as they were always able to, but one of their key weaknesses has been consistency, one day they would dominate like it was natural for them, the next they would not even show up, going into hibernation for several Cycles.
The next promising teams are the rather unknown team [FIFA]Germany and the Carnage in Caldavar veterans of [PpM]PepsiMaX. Both defeated their three opponents of the previous rounds without much trouble, thus making an interesting matchup for next Saturday, as only one of them can continue in the Winners Bracket. And while PepsiMaX seems predestined for at least Gold Division, the team of Germany seems pretty capable and might turn out to be one of the surprises this season.
[Ryss]Vodkagamingare back for this season. They played in the second Season of HoN Tour, barely making it to the Silver Division at that time, but now they seem to be on fire and defeated another returning team, [Sjol]Sjolopimperne in this first round, pushing them to the Losers Bracket. And they continued to defeat returning teams that Saturday when they sunk [EWz]EagleWankerz in round 2.
Sunday saw another triumph, the team of [OddM]YoloBackToHoN420Fgt, who had previously defeated [eN]Essence, stood no chance against the Vodkaguys and now has to continue in the Losers Bracket. In round 4, Vodkagaming now has a real challenge, as [z]izu, better known to many as the team of FJ is waiting for them. izu blasted through the bracket without a bump so far and seem to be on a good course to at least reach Gold Division for the first Cycle, maybe even more. It all depends on this match.
Further down the bracket, the Carnage in Caldavar veterans of [iRex]Instant Reflex are continuing to impress their fans and opponents alike.
While the first two rounds were pretty uneventful, their opponent for the third round was indeed remarkable. This team called [Pot]Potato, has Krebsen as captain and noobG and FIbEli3 are part of their lineup. Now you would expect such a team to give an upstart team like Instant Reflex a beating like there is no tomorrow, but the iRex guys stood their ground and managed to defeat the Potatoes in three games, two of which were pretty one-sided for iRex. With this, the Potatoes move on to the Losers Bracket - they are still in this, but need to work harder and finally unleash the NoobG, if they want to get far here, while they were away, the other teams were not lazy and it shows here.
For Instant Reflex, the tournament continues on the sunny side of the Bracket. Their next opponent will be a tough nut to crack though, [Dawn]Dawn are standing ready and are eager to defeat them a third time in competitive play, so far Instant Reflex has never won a tournament game against them.
It seems that having participated in the Carnage in Caldavar event paid off for all the teams in it, as another veteran of this event made it far in the Winners Bracket. [SolC]The Solaire Club have made it through all three rounds unscrathed and are now playing against [bm5]Bad Mannered x5 in round 4, a team that has been in several Cups and Tournaments before but never made it out of Bronze Division in Season 2. The Club seems to be the clear favourite here, but stranger things have happened in Newerth.
Speaking of veterans, [YLTP]You Love To Party are still in the Winners Bracket too. They easily made it through the bracket so far and are now set to play against [Null]Nullstone Gaming, a team consisting of several experienced players of last Season and who just defeated [21cm]LisaAnn in Round 3.
More interesting matchups are coming at the lower end of the Winners Bracket. [TF]Twisted Fuzion, who are among the prime candidates to make it to Diamond, made it through the Bracket without incident so far and will now play against the reformed [KNX]REXXARS in Round 4. Less original Rexxars are on the team now, but a few quality players were added, so Twisted Fuzion will have to work hard if they want to continue in the Winners Bracket.
And finally we will have the [Tele]Telechubbies, who dropped [CzSk]The Tyrants to the Losers Bracket just last round, face [FnoH]FROG No HIPPO in the last match of the Winners Bracket next round. The Telechubbies have a few somewhat known players from earlier Seasons of HoN Tour, so they are probably the favourites here, but this is all just theory, they had a hard time getting here while their opponents encountered less opposition on their way.
The Winners Bracket Round 4 matches will continue this Saturday at 3:00 EDT | 21:00 CEST , so make sure you have enough snacks and beverages in store, there are plenty of entertaining matches coming our way. Good Luck and Have Fun to all teams!
About the author: Blaze
