Deal With It beats Empire Gaming in Honcast Tournament V Grand Finals
Deal With It took on Empire Gaming (previously PhB) in the Honcast Tournament V Grand Finals. The games were very good, especially the first one with lots of momentum shifting back and forth.
HoNCast has the VODs up, so follow the links at the end of the newspost if you want to see it in action, otherwise, here's a match report:
DWi vs Empr game 1
Match ID: 2811637
Bans are Engineer, Fayde, Chipper, Zephyr, Accursed and Pollywog. All pretty standard except Pollywog - but he's a powerful hero, both disabling and pushing wise, so no need to read something specific into that choice.
First pick goes to Empr, who picks Soul Reaper. DWi takes Hellbringer and Defiler, Empr takes Glacius and Soulstealer, ever the popular carry in these tournament games. DWi picks Pestilence and Plague Rider. Then you get the interesting picks, with Empr picking up Moon Queen and Andromeda, which made me very happy. They are both quite rare in top games, but definitely have what it takes to deserve a pick. Andromeda's roaming style makes for entertaining games as well, so hoping we'll see something fun on that end. DWi picks Pyromancer to finish it off.
Here are the lineups:
Eternalenvy - Hellbringer
Tarano - Defiler
Slickz - Pyromancer
Waffomgz - Plague Rider
Dirgesnoopy - Pestilence
Uniqfazer - Soul Reaper
World - Moon Queen
Leen - Andromeda
Scandal - Soulstealer
Nooblike' - Glacius
On a separate note, in the Neva Tournament semifinals, Empr went a trilane with Glacius/Andromeda/Magebane with incredible success, so some part of me wishes I see more of that in this game, with MQ while Soul Reaper solos a lane with Soulstealer mid.
Luckily, I seem to be right on target, with Glacius/MQ/Andro going bottom, in fact trying for a bloodlust on Plague Rider or Pestilence immediately. No such luck though.
Defiler is going up against SS mid, and Pyro and Hellbringer is laning top against Soul Reaper solo.
First blood goes to DWi, as the trilane open up on Hellbringer, who moved down bottom, but Pestilence and Plague Rider follow up with a stun, slow, and some autoattacks, and Andromeda goes down. Hellbringer seems to be staying down bot, countering the trilane with a trilane of their own.
Andromeda sneakily moves through the Legion forest up mid, catching Defiler by surprise, stunning and Auroraing her, making her mincemeat when a Soulstealer with a Double Damage rune unleashes some autoattacks and a Demon Hand.
Empr is suffering a bit with their roaming/trilane setup, with MQ, Andro and Glacius all still at level 2 while DWi's trilane is 3, 4, 4. However, Soulstealer is 7 as opposed to Defiler's 5, and Soul Reaper has hit level 6 versus Pyro's 5.
The first tower goes down at the 9:30 mark, as the level 9 Soulstealer clears the lane with Defiler away, and gets the tower down. Less then a minute later, chaos breaks loose down bottom, as most of both teams clash with Empr coming out ahead, only losing Andromeda but killing 3 DWi heroes - albeit with Soulstealer escaping with only a sliver of health.
DWi moves to take down the bottom tower at the 13 minute mark, which leads to a teamfight where they lose 3 heroes and a tower, and only getting one kill of their own, Pestilence and Hellbringer escaping with 2-digit HP. However, while this was happening, Scandal's Soulstealer is singlehandedly pushing the middle lane, annihilating creep waves with Demon Hands and getting the tower down to half health in the first push, and into deny range in the second one, which Pestilence takes advantage of and denies the second mid tower. Soulstealer is now level 12, 3 levels higher than any hero on DWi, his gold per minute is near 500, almost twice any of DWi's heroes.
At the 15 minute mark, DWi pushes top, and a teamfight ensues, Soulstealer opens with his ultimate, Malphas is summoned, and spells fly left and right. When the dust is settled, DWi walks away with a Genocide, taking out even Soulstealer, who outlasted his entire team and got two kills.
4 minutes later, DWi pushes top again, with Soulstealer getting off his ultimate near-perfectly to no avail, as all of DWi live, even low-health Pestilence who runs into the forest, followed by Moon Queen with a thirst for blood, but Pyro saves his friend and kills Moon Queen. It's not over yet however, as people respawn and TP back, and eventually Soulstealer dies taking out Hellbringer and Pyromancer, but Andromeda and Glacius die taking out Pestilence.
When DWi tries pushing top at the 25-minute mark, Soulstealer's level 3 ultimate decimates the Legion team, as Empr takes out 4 of their heroes, only losing Soul Reaper and Andromeda. The story of the game is all about Soulstealer. DWi is winning most of the teamfights, and most of Empr's heroes are underleveled and underfarmed - however Scandal's Soulstealer is now level 18 - a full SIX levels higher than the average DWi hero level. He's got a Shrunken Head, Portal Key, Steamboots and plenty of gold in the bank. How long can he carry the entire Hellbourne team?
DWi's aggressive tactics work in their favor at the 32-minute mark, catching Soulstealer a little bit on his own, nuking him down, following it up with a kill on Soul Reaper and Andromeda, as well as a tower kill up top.
Empr bounces back quick, going for a Kongor kill, Soulstealer picking up the token, to add to his Shieldbreaker pickup as well. He's now level 20.
He needs his team support though, which is evident when Empr tries pushing top tower. They get it down, but a teamfight explodes, and Defiler drops, Soul Reaper drops, but then the entire Hellbourne team leaves Soulstealer alone against the remaining DWi team, and although Scandal does have the token and therefore can pick off Pyromancer, he's killed twice by Pestilence.
The game goes back and forth, momentum shifting to either team back and forth. DWi is ahead though, winning the vast majority of the teamfights, and playing much more aggressively. Empr really only has their Soulstealer, and while he can push out some insane DPS, he can't take much punishment, and he is always the highest priority target, and he is dying too much in the latest teamfights.
And whenever Soulstealer isn't around, it's a slaughterhouse. Level 11 and 13 Glacius die in a few hits from Pestilence with Elder Parasite and then it's 5 vs 2.
A strong one-two push at the 42 and 44 minute mark takes out three barracks and 2 base towers. A gg can't be far off, Soulstealer can't turn his around on his own, and Moon Queen's farm just isn't high enough. The kills are 43-25 in favor of DWi now. They take out Kongor and puts the token on Pestilence. A Portal Key in and five autoattacks take out Glacius and Andromeda, way too weak to withstand the fury of the bug king. A few more easy hero kills, and Empr concedes at the 48 minute mark. DWi takes the lead, 1-0.
DWi vs Empr game 2
Match ID: 2816623
Bans are Enginner, Zephyr, Chipper, Hellbringer, Soul Reaper and Accursed. Soul Reaper is the only mild eye-brow raiser there.
First pick goes to DWi who grabs Fayde, unbanned this game. Empr picks up Soulstealer and Defiler. DWi takes Glacius and Plague Rider, Empr takes Demented Shaman and Balphagore! Looking forward to see Balphagore used in a top-level game like this. DWi takes Pestilence and Forsaken Archer to finish off their team, and Emperor gets Tempest.
Here are the lineups:
Eternalenvy - Fayde
Tarano - Plague Rider
Slickz - Forsaken Archer
Waffomgz - Glacius
Dirgesnoopy - Pestilence
Uniqfazer - Defiler
World - Balphagore
Leen - Tempest
Scandal - Soulstealer
Nooblike' - Demented Shaman
Soulstealer goes up against Fayde in the mid lane. SS has a great advantage early on, since he picked up a DD rune, so he can get initial souls up very quickly. Defiler is soloing bottom against Pestilence and Glacius, while Tempest is jungling the enemy jungle. Balphagore and Demented Shaman are laning top against Forsaken Archer and Plague Rider.
Somewhat predictably, Defiler goes down to Glacius and Pestilence, giving DWi the first blood. Almost immediately afterwards, Tempest and Soulstealer tries to set up a gank on Fayde in mid, but fails to get the kill off.
Top lane has a bit of back and forth action, with Demented Shaman getting killed, Balphagore barely escaping, chasing with minions, getting killed himself because he's staying in, but then Tempest and Demented Shaman is back and kills Forsaken Archer. As soon as Tempest leaves to go try kill Fayde, FA and Plague Rider kills Demented Shaman again.
Soulstealer gets lucky again, picks up a DD rune and gets a kill on Fayde. Both people in mid are doing well on lasthits and denies, but SS has a slight experience lead and a 100 gold per minute lead.
A little repeat from last game happens at the 8-minute mark, as Fayde leaves mid lane to help out a little skirmish down bottom, and successfully kills Tempest - and Soulstealer takes his chance and pushes mid lane by himself, almost succeeding in killing the tower, but Glacius drives him off and Fayde is back in time to deny the tower kill. Things still go Empr's way though, as Temptest comes to help out, and Soulstealer and him take out both Glacius and Fayde, using Tempest's ultimate on Fayde alone.
Empr takes the top tower at the 11 minute mark, and a little while later Pestilence tries catching Balphagore alone near the Legion Secret Shop, but a few TPs later it turns into a one-sided teamfight, as Empr takes out Pestilence, Plague Rider and Fayde without losing any hero at all. Tempest saves himself from dying with an ultimate on Plague Rider alone. Empr follows it up with a tower kill at mid.
A huge teamfight near bottom tower ends up with a Genocide in DWi's favor thanks to a nice initiation from Pestilence and a near-perfect Glacius ultimate as well as Plague Rider's ulitmate bouncing for ages. The tower stays alive though, for another few minutes, when Empr and DWi exchange towers, as Empr takes mid tower as they lose their bottom tower.
The game starts taking the same pattern as the last one, with Scandal's Soulstealer getting very high levels, and a strong farm but the rest of the team falling behind, and as a result, teamfights to DWi's way, especially if SS isn't around. A top lane skirmish ends with three deaths on Empr's side to only one for DWi. It just continues like this, with DWi taking a 7 kills lead.
Empr is keeping up the towerpushing though, taking out top tower, undisturbed since DWi was taking out Kongor at the time. Empr is way too cocky, going in for a push at mid base tower, and they get punished for it, severely. DWi takes top tower before a quick TP in, and then an excellent initiation from Pestilence takes out Soulstealer, and the rest of the underleveled Empr team is just mincemeat to DWi's higher-leveled heroes. GENOCIDE. DWi doesn't lose a single hero.
It doesn't even end there, DWi pushes mid, Empr respawn and tries to defend, but Tempest gets caught in the jungle, killed near instantly, the rest of the team tries to scramble a teamfight but gets annihilated - a brilliant Tablet of Command saves Pestilence from certain death, and DWi walks away with four kills and zero deaths. The mid tower falls soon after.
It gets ridiculous from this point on, single Empr players get caught alone, and dies alone. Even Soulstealer gets annihilated to Pestilence's brutal onslaught. DirgeSnoopy is playing Pestilence brilliantly. The kills are now 33-13 in favor of DWi. EMpr started out strong with pushing towers, and a great farm for Soulstealer, but this game and the game before proves that one hero can't carry the entire team.
A final teamfight seals Empr's fate, a Genocide and a base tower kill. DWi wins the finals 2-0.
Links
HonCast - DWi vs Empr game 1
HoNCast - DWi vs Empr game 1
HoNCast has the VODs up, so follow the links at the end of the newspost if you want to see it in action, otherwise, here's a match report:
DWi vs Empr game 1
Match ID: 2811637
Bans are Engineer, Fayde, Chipper, Zephyr, Accursed and Pollywog. All pretty standard except Pollywog - but he's a powerful hero, both disabling and pushing wise, so no need to read something specific into that choice.
First pick goes to Empr, who picks Soul Reaper. DWi takes Hellbringer and Defiler, Empr takes Glacius and Soulstealer, ever the popular carry in these tournament games. DWi picks Pestilence and Plague Rider. Then you get the interesting picks, with Empr picking up Moon Queen and Andromeda, which made me very happy. They are both quite rare in top games, but definitely have what it takes to deserve a pick. Andromeda's roaming style makes for entertaining games as well, so hoping we'll see something fun on that end. DWi picks Pyromancer to finish it off.
Here are the lineups:
Eternalenvy - Hellbringer
Tarano - Defiler
Slickz - Pyromancer
Waffomgz - Plague Rider
Dirgesnoopy - Pestilence
Uniqfazer - Soul Reaper
World - Moon Queen
Leen - Andromeda
Scandal - Soulstealer
Nooblike' - Glacius
On a separate note, in the Neva Tournament semifinals, Empr went a trilane with Glacius/Andromeda/Magebane with incredible success, so some part of me wishes I see more of that in this game, with MQ while Soul Reaper solos a lane with Soulstealer mid.
Luckily, I seem to be right on target, with Glacius/MQ/Andro going bottom, in fact trying for a bloodlust on Plague Rider or Pestilence immediately. No such luck though.
Defiler is going up against SS mid, and Pyro and Hellbringer is laning top against Soul Reaper solo.
First blood goes to DWi, as the trilane open up on Hellbringer, who moved down bottom, but Pestilence and Plague Rider follow up with a stun, slow, and some autoattacks, and Andromeda goes down. Hellbringer seems to be staying down bot, countering the trilane with a trilane of their own.
Andromeda sneakily moves through the Legion forest up mid, catching Defiler by surprise, stunning and Auroraing her, making her mincemeat when a Soulstealer with a Double Damage rune unleashes some autoattacks and a Demon Hand.
Empr is suffering a bit with their roaming/trilane setup, with MQ, Andro and Glacius all still at level 2 while DWi's trilane is 3, 4, 4. However, Soulstealer is 7 as opposed to Defiler's 5, and Soul Reaper has hit level 6 versus Pyro's 5.
The first tower goes down at the 9:30 mark, as the level 9 Soulstealer clears the lane with Defiler away, and gets the tower down. Less then a minute later, chaos breaks loose down bottom, as most of both teams clash with Empr coming out ahead, only losing Andromeda but killing 3 DWi heroes - albeit with Soulstealer escaping with only a sliver of health.
DWi moves to take down the bottom tower at the 13 minute mark, which leads to a teamfight where they lose 3 heroes and a tower, and only getting one kill of their own, Pestilence and Hellbringer escaping with 2-digit HP. However, while this was happening, Scandal's Soulstealer is singlehandedly pushing the middle lane, annihilating creep waves with Demon Hands and getting the tower down to half health in the first push, and into deny range in the second one, which Pestilence takes advantage of and denies the second mid tower. Soulstealer is now level 12, 3 levels higher than any hero on DWi, his gold per minute is near 500, almost twice any of DWi's heroes.
At the 15 minute mark, DWi pushes top, and a teamfight ensues, Soulstealer opens with his ultimate, Malphas is summoned, and spells fly left and right. When the dust is settled, DWi walks away with a Genocide, taking out even Soulstealer, who outlasted his entire team and got two kills.
4 minutes later, DWi pushes top again, with Soulstealer getting off his ultimate near-perfectly to no avail, as all of DWi live, even low-health Pestilence who runs into the forest, followed by Moon Queen with a thirst for blood, but Pyro saves his friend and kills Moon Queen. It's not over yet however, as people respawn and TP back, and eventually Soulstealer dies taking out Hellbringer and Pyromancer, but Andromeda and Glacius die taking out Pestilence.
When DWi tries pushing top at the 25-minute mark, Soulstealer's level 3 ultimate decimates the Legion team, as Empr takes out 4 of their heroes, only losing Soul Reaper and Andromeda. The story of the game is all about Soulstealer. DWi is winning most of the teamfights, and most of Empr's heroes are underleveled and underfarmed - however Scandal's Soulstealer is now level 18 - a full SIX levels higher than the average DWi hero level. He's got a Shrunken Head, Portal Key, Steamboots and plenty of gold in the bank. How long can he carry the entire Hellbourne team?
DWi's aggressive tactics work in their favor at the 32-minute mark, catching Soulstealer a little bit on his own, nuking him down, following it up with a kill on Soul Reaper and Andromeda, as well as a tower kill up top.
Empr bounces back quick, going for a Kongor kill, Soulstealer picking up the token, to add to his Shieldbreaker pickup as well. He's now level 20.
He needs his team support though, which is evident when Empr tries pushing top tower. They get it down, but a teamfight explodes, and Defiler drops, Soul Reaper drops, but then the entire Hellbourne team leaves Soulstealer alone against the remaining DWi team, and although Scandal does have the token and therefore can pick off Pyromancer, he's killed twice by Pestilence.
The game goes back and forth, momentum shifting to either team back and forth. DWi is ahead though, winning the vast majority of the teamfights, and playing much more aggressively. Empr really only has their Soulstealer, and while he can push out some insane DPS, he can't take much punishment, and he is always the highest priority target, and he is dying too much in the latest teamfights.
And whenever Soulstealer isn't around, it's a slaughterhouse. Level 11 and 13 Glacius die in a few hits from Pestilence with Elder Parasite and then it's 5 vs 2.
A strong one-two push at the 42 and 44 minute mark takes out three barracks and 2 base towers. A gg can't be far off, Soulstealer can't turn his around on his own, and Moon Queen's farm just isn't high enough. The kills are 43-25 in favor of DWi now. They take out Kongor and puts the token on Pestilence. A Portal Key in and five autoattacks take out Glacius and Andromeda, way too weak to withstand the fury of the bug king. A few more easy hero kills, and Empr concedes at the 48 minute mark. DWi takes the lead, 1-0.
DWi vs Empr game 2
Match ID: 2816623
Bans are Enginner, Zephyr, Chipper, Hellbringer, Soul Reaper and Accursed. Soul Reaper is the only mild eye-brow raiser there.
First pick goes to DWi who grabs Fayde, unbanned this game. Empr picks up Soulstealer and Defiler. DWi takes Glacius and Plague Rider, Empr takes Demented Shaman and Balphagore! Looking forward to see Balphagore used in a top-level game like this. DWi takes Pestilence and Forsaken Archer to finish off their team, and Emperor gets Tempest.
Here are the lineups:
Eternalenvy - Fayde
Tarano - Plague Rider
Slickz - Forsaken Archer
Waffomgz - Glacius
Dirgesnoopy - Pestilence
Uniqfazer - Defiler
World - Balphagore
Leen - Tempest
Scandal - Soulstealer
Nooblike' - Demented Shaman
Soulstealer goes up against Fayde in the mid lane. SS has a great advantage early on, since he picked up a DD rune, so he can get initial souls up very quickly. Defiler is soloing bottom against Pestilence and Glacius, while Tempest is jungling the enemy jungle. Balphagore and Demented Shaman are laning top against Forsaken Archer and Plague Rider.
Somewhat predictably, Defiler goes down to Glacius and Pestilence, giving DWi the first blood. Almost immediately afterwards, Tempest and Soulstealer tries to set up a gank on Fayde in mid, but fails to get the kill off.
Top lane has a bit of back and forth action, with Demented Shaman getting killed, Balphagore barely escaping, chasing with minions, getting killed himself because he's staying in, but then Tempest and Demented Shaman is back and kills Forsaken Archer. As soon as Tempest leaves to go try kill Fayde, FA and Plague Rider kills Demented Shaman again.
Soulstealer gets lucky again, picks up a DD rune and gets a kill on Fayde. Both people in mid are doing well on lasthits and denies, but SS has a slight experience lead and a 100 gold per minute lead.
A little repeat from last game happens at the 8-minute mark, as Fayde leaves mid lane to help out a little skirmish down bottom, and successfully kills Tempest - and Soulstealer takes his chance and pushes mid lane by himself, almost succeeding in killing the tower, but Glacius drives him off and Fayde is back in time to deny the tower kill. Things still go Empr's way though, as Temptest comes to help out, and Soulstealer and him take out both Glacius and Fayde, using Tempest's ultimate on Fayde alone.
Empr takes the top tower at the 11 minute mark, and a little while later Pestilence tries catching Balphagore alone near the Legion Secret Shop, but a few TPs later it turns into a one-sided teamfight, as Empr takes out Pestilence, Plague Rider and Fayde without losing any hero at all. Tempest saves himself from dying with an ultimate on Plague Rider alone. Empr follows it up with a tower kill at mid.
A huge teamfight near bottom tower ends up with a Genocide in DWi's favor thanks to a nice initiation from Pestilence and a near-perfect Glacius ultimate as well as Plague Rider's ulitmate bouncing for ages. The tower stays alive though, for another few minutes, when Empr and DWi exchange towers, as Empr takes mid tower as they lose their bottom tower.
The game starts taking the same pattern as the last one, with Scandal's Soulstealer getting very high levels, and a strong farm but the rest of the team falling behind, and as a result, teamfights to DWi's way, especially if SS isn't around. A top lane skirmish ends with three deaths on Empr's side to only one for DWi. It just continues like this, with DWi taking a 7 kills lead.
Empr is keeping up the towerpushing though, taking out top tower, undisturbed since DWi was taking out Kongor at the time. Empr is way too cocky, going in for a push at mid base tower, and they get punished for it, severely. DWi takes top tower before a quick TP in, and then an excellent initiation from Pestilence takes out Soulstealer, and the rest of the underleveled Empr team is just mincemeat to DWi's higher-leveled heroes. GENOCIDE. DWi doesn't lose a single hero.
It doesn't even end there, DWi pushes mid, Empr respawn and tries to defend, but Tempest gets caught in the jungle, killed near instantly, the rest of the team tries to scramble a teamfight but gets annihilated - a brilliant Tablet of Command saves Pestilence from certain death, and DWi walks away with four kills and zero deaths. The mid tower falls soon after.
It gets ridiculous from this point on, single Empr players get caught alone, and dies alone. Even Soulstealer gets annihilated to Pestilence's brutal onslaught. DirgeSnoopy is playing Pestilence brilliantly. The kills are now 33-13 in favor of DWi. EMpr started out strong with pushing towers, and a great farm for Soulstealer, but this game and the game before proves that one hero can't carry the entire team.
A final teamfight seals Empr's fate, a Genocide and a base tower kill. DWi wins the finals 2-0.
Links
HonCast - DWi vs Empr game 1
HoNCast - DWi vs Empr game 1
