By quincy0191
And for a third straight cycle, you’re going to see a lot of SynC on the top performances from this cycle. If you’re only going to lose one of nine games, though, it’s pretty hard to stay off the chart.
Cycle MVP – iNsania
Flensmeister and m`ICKe better step up in the next few cycles, because they’re now the minority in SynC without metaphorical trophies in their cabinets (Warning: Cycle MVP award does not come with actual physical trophy. If Cycle MVP receives a trophy by any means, party is recommended to discard immediately and with prejudice, as it is likely a container of crazy purple knockout gas). As a support player, he finished 6th in K:D, third in K+A:D, K+A-D, assists per game, and deaths per game, and 11th in kills per game. He was the only support player to finish with a positive K:D and the only primary support finish above a 3.00 K+A:D (at 6.4, 2nd place was Fusen with 2.64). So, yeah, he had a great time.
We’ve talked before about how Flensmeister doesn’t seem to be occupying a traditional 1 role based on his GPM. So let’s list the players in SynC eSports who finished with more kills per game than iNsania (4.7) in the last cycle: m`ICKe, 5.3. End of list. Maybe giving all the kills to your support is the new meta. Maybe not. Probably not. Seems to have worked out well this cycle, though. Oh, and huge surprise, but that’s the highest K/game mark from support we’ve seen so far in any cycle of HoN Tour.
Best Hero – Tempest
Tempest went 8-3 this cycle, and shockingly enough, was not played exclusively by Zlapped. The more observant among you might have already deduced that, as I previously mentioned SynC played nine games, and 8+3=11, which is larger than nine. That didn’t stop Zlapped from playing Tempest four of those eleven times and not losing once, with an average of 3.3/1.5/11.8 and 446 GPM. Tankafett was also 1-0, Narcy was 2-1, and WhaT_YoU_GoT was 1-1. VanillaFresh was the only one to have a losing record at 0-1.
That kind of record basically on its own suggests the hero had the best performance this cycle, which is good, because his K/D tends to not look so great. Considering his relatively low damage output and the fact that his role is to set up kills, not get them, that isn’t surprising. Still, a 1.9/3.0/10.3 line and 332 GPM from a core hero doesn’t really stand out – until you realize that 10.3 assists per game was the highest for any hero this cycle (min. 5 games). Tempest gets involved, even if Zlapped was the only player to post a positive K/D on the hero in Cycle 3.
Worst Hero – Gauntlet
Oh, Gauntlet. Much has been made of his performance, especially in Carnage in Caldavar, where he was one of the worst heroes played at a 17.6% win in 17 games. Things were looking up after the first two cycles, when he went 4-3 to capture the title of Most Improved Hero. After CiC, barely breaking .500 was a massive turnaround.
So apparently teams figured hey, Gauntlet is good now, we should pick him. Then they made the mistake of picking him. A 2-6 record in Cycle 3 not only more than doubles his games played, it brings him all the way down to a 40% win overall – still much better than before, but not the direction you want to move in. At 4.1/5.8/7.4 and 282 GPM, his average performance was not very good, and he led in deaths per game. No player or team had a positive performance, as mzry went 2-3, Superkge went 0-2, and BOXl went 0-1. Sad times.
Best Single Game Performance – Winner’s Bracket Semifinals Game 2, ImbaBoy on Dampeer
18/2/11, 645 GPM, and 568 creep kills in 63 minutes and 42 seconds, for a crucial win that kept Reason Gaming alive in their WBSF series against willowkeeper. tree took Game 1, leaving Reason on the brink of dropping down to the Loser’s Bracket, where they would eventually lose to tUS 0-2 and get eliminated in Cycle 3. ImbaBoy had a fantastic performance in Cycle 3 – he was very close to taking the MVP title – and this was easily his best game.
Determining the best single game performance is usually the hardest part of these recaps – there are a lot of great games by a lot of great players, and it can be extremely difficult to sufficiently credit support players, who generally don’t have the same “wow” factor in their stats. This game wasn’t the best in any one category – there were games with more kills, fewer deaths, more assists, better farm, etc. But as a whole, it’s hard to ignore; players who had more kills had a lower GPM. Players who farmed more died more. Players who got more assists had fewer kills and less kill involvement. ImbaBoy didn’t win any category, but he played about as close to flawlessly as you can get, in a situation where his team desperately needed a win.
Best Single Game K/D/A – Loser’s Bracket Round 1 Game 1, BeaverBanger on Dampeer
No, I don’t have a Dampeer bias. In fact, I don’t like the hero very much, it’s just a weird coincidence that he managed to take two awards in a row. Actually, it’s really weird, because he was only played twice, and both times he had a pretty great game. BeaverBanger went 9/0/10, which is of course a perfect K:D and K+A:D thanks to a lack of deaths, but in general doesn’t seem like that impressive a score.
The addition of one thing fixes that: 22 minutes and 7 seconds. BeaverBanger got going quickly and stayed hot for an easy win over Twisted Fusion, getting in on nearly one kill per minute. The fact that Null faced elimination if they lost this series amps up the pressure, and he responded well.
Best Single Game Farm – Loser’s Bracket Round 1 Game 1, KingPlato on The Dark Lady
We’re rapidly realizing that no hero farms like The Dark Lady. She took the farm crown last cycle, played by BeaverBanger, and this time KingPlato managed a crazy 753 GPM in a game that lasted nearly an hour. I think it’s safe to say he was maxed on items considering he farmed 42,500 gold. KingPlato’s line was an excellent 15/3/18, and he scored 635 creep kills. It’s worth noting that TDL finished 2nd overall among all heroes for farm at 662.5 average GPM in three games; she can be forgiven, though, because the one hero that did better was Monkey King, played only once by m`ICKe (669 GPM). The Dark Lady was much more consistent, and the odds are good that just one more MK game would have put Dark Lady on top.
Best Single Game CS – Winner’s Bracket Semifinals Game 1, ImbaBoy on Bushwack
ImbaBoy gets another title in Cycle 3 for another great game on a hero we don’t see too often. More specifically, a hero we see never. Like TDL, Bushwack was played three times in this cycle, and averaged an excellent 580.2 GPM, 5th-best. In this game, ImbaBoy grabbed 763 CS, 716 creep kills and 47 denies. Not only was that combined score the best this cycle, each of the components also led the field. A mediocre 7/6/10 line was greatly helped by the Reason carry’s ability to farm creeps, leading to 567 GPM. It wasn’t quite enough to take a win against tree, though they held on for nearly 70 minutes.
Here are your leaders from Cycle 3 of HoN Tour Season 3 (all played at least five games):
Highest Win% – Keeper of the Forest/Engineer, 80%
Lowest Win% – Gauntlet, 25%
Most Picked – Rhapsody, 22 games
Executioner (Most Kills) – Puppet Master, 6.7
Cautious (Least Deaths) – Keeper of the Forest, 1.8
Savior (Most Assists) – Tempest, 10.3
Best Farmer – Puppet Master, 451.6 GPM
Best Experience – Wretched Hag, 550.4 XPM
Best Ricer – Wretched Hag, 261 CK
Best Denier – Puppet Master, 24 CD
Highest K:D – Swiftblade, 1.50
Highest K+A:D – Ophelia, 5.04
