Day 1 started with the group round. We saw our big name teams stomp lesser to really not known at all players. Let’s be honest though, with a big tournament like that you can’t expect everyone to be as skilled as our favorites. So what more did we really expect the first day of the tournament?

Of all the stomps we saw, KDe actually made their stomp entertaining. The team they played against were good sports and made the game fun to watch. You can watch the VoD here on Honcast. The game was NH1 vs KDe. H4nn1 was unable to attend so KDe used a ringer, who is actually their manager MorpheuZ. Unfortunately MorpheuZ wasn’t at the same skill level as his teammates and was left with Glacius duty. According to Breaky and Tobi he was basically told to level his aura and stay in the back. Hahaha. Play to note in the VoD, 13:05 – 13:45: Gank onto Thunderbringer turned to Chipper death, Pebbles death, and an almost Slither death. Great play by both teams, and a yell from Tobi “ARROW!!!”

Of course it was day 2 that really proved KDe should win this tournament. While MorpheuZ didn’t feed horribly during day 1 (he actually got a sweet Glacius kill), KDe went on without him for the semi-finals. To give him credit though, he was not only fighting against the other team, but Kebap’s Pebbles as well.

I was able to catch the first match of the semi-finals before I was forced to head to work. H4nn1 wasn’t able to be there so KDe went in 4vs5 with tXL. I’ve heard two things as to why H4nn1 couldn’t be there, his flight was delayed and he had finals. Game 1 tXL came out victorious due to KDe often getting caught alone and constantly splitting up. tXL’s sportsmanship showed through as they stated they didn’t want to win like this. I left for work thinking that KDe wouldn’t make it to the finals.

Game 2, Kebap came out MVP as Behemoth. Great stuns, great decisions, and masterful play. Levent, of course, deserves mentioning because his Wretched Hag was beyond amazing. This game and the third game are must sees. Game 3, started with bans on Behemoth and Wretched Hag. tXL obviously not wanting to repeat what happened in the previous game. While Levent as Soulstealer had some ganking issues bot, he was able to make up for it with kills of his own. What was interesting was the play that lost them game 1 (splitting up) helped them win the last. They pushed all lanes at once separately and kept the pressure up leaving tXL to run back and forth. KDe won both games getting them into the finals against MSI.

As great as the semi-finals were, it was the finals that had me on the edge of my seat. I don’t think I cheered and booed so much at my pc screen. Game 1 wasn’t very action packed. At 40 minutes the kill  score was a measly 19 to 12, MSI. MSI didn’t lose any towers and we saw a concede vote after KDe’s middle melee racks went down. Game 2 is were it became interesting. MSI’s Freshpro kept MSI strong in the beginning with his extreme burst as Thunderbringer. Not to mention the great ganks by MSI’s Rexi as Witchslayer. It started to look like MSI’s game. They had gold, exp, and kill lead. We saw KDe come to life a little when H4nn1, playing Pebbles, got his portal key, but it still looked as though MSI was going to win. Finally, at the 34 minute mark, after killing Pebbles outside of Kongor’s cave, MSI attempted to kill Kongor, himself. KDe, due to wards as well as Pebbles death, knew of the attempt. They went in 4v5 on MSI taking out Glacius first with a nice Valk (Kebap) arrow. Mag1X playing Plague Rider landed a fantastic ultimate bouncing between 3/5 players on MSI.  MSI barely avoided a genocide with Witchslayer as the last one standing. KDe cleaned up Kongor and went for the push. It wasn’t a winning push unfortunately. In fact the game went very slowly. KDe’s token didn’t even get used. Game ended at 51 minutes to a concede from MSI.

Game 3, the final showdown. The deciding game. While MSI seemed to win the team fights in the beginning, KDe won the tower pushes. All KDe needed was a little farm for Predator (Overpow) to take over team fights. Sure enough, Overpow became unstoppable. All of this, KDe won game 3 and scooted into first place.

KD-Gaming deserved to win this tournament. Their fantastic play in the semi-finals proved that KDe isn’t just one great carry player, but a team of great players each showing their strength. Their teamwork makes all of their games interesting to watch. Every time I think a fight is lost KDe always has backup coming to help out. Their aggressive play continues to turn around gank attempts and “lost” team fights. They are definitely a team I love watching.

© Kirei for A Gamer of Sorts Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dreamhack, Heroes of Newerth, hon finals, honcast, kd gaming, KDe, KDe 4v5 tXL, msi, NH1, Tournament, tXL

Podcast Outline

Honcast $5000 League Information
- Xander lets us in on the new Honcast League.
– How many teams, how many weeks, rules, etc.

XPL League
- Starting Up
http://www.xpleague.com/index.php?p=viewcomp&gameid=57

Team Rankings
- Honcast Community Poll
– LOAD still #1
http://hon.esportmedia.com/2010/06/09/honcast-top-10-community-poll-69

Tournament Results
- Neva VIII
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=130782
- Honcast VI
http://hon.esportmedia.com/tournaments/honcast-1000-heroes-of-newerth-tournament-vi-by-s2
- TWL Division Finals
http://www.teamwarfare.com/tournament/default.asp?tournament=HoN+Banning+Pick+Kickoff+Tournament&page=brackets
http://hon.esportmedia.com/video/2010/06/08/twl-division-finals-msi-vs-5

- Past experience.
- Future of Newerth League.
- Involvement of S2
http://newerthleague.com/

Game Show Segment
Breaky and Xander face off again. This time we pit them against each other in Buy or Sell based off of the recent BETA patch notes released.

Accursed Changes.
Wildsoul Beardulon Changes.
Tundra.
Sand Wraith Change.
Double Activation.

Then we’ll decide the winner based off of Kirei’s super secret question!

Afterwards we’ll discuss a few more changes that the patch may bring.
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=135122

You can listen to it here: http://hon.esportmedia.com/podcasts/2010/06/11/honcast-weekly-episode-6

Remember! You can listen on iTunes too! http://www.itunes.com/podcast?id=373883256

Get on there and rate us!

Side note about this cast: Breaky and Xander were cutting in and out on vent. I even restarted it during the show, but it just made it worse. So if you’re wondering why I wasn’t talking all that much it’s because I couldn’t hear them half the time.

© Kirei for A Gamer of Sorts Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: breaky and xander, Heroes of Newerth, hon leagues, msi, newerth league, patch 1.0.3, Podcast, weekly podcast

This is updated for version: 3.6

© Kirei for A Gamer of Sorts Blog, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 30 second hero guides, Hero Guide, heroes, Heroes of Newerth, Heroes of Newerth - Noobie Guide, hon, mini guide

So you know the terms, you just picked your shiny new hero, and now you’re confused. You don’t know where to go, what exactly you should be doing, and worse yet your teammates are giving you the eye asking if you are AFK. Yep, you’re a noobie.

So let’s start this off. The first part of the game is called Laning. That’s when your team splits up in the 3 lanes (bot, top, and mid) and gains exp and gold by killing the waves of creeps and by killing other heroes. Normally it splits up to 2 heroes top, 2 heroes bot, and 1 hero mid. Now I’ve seen some weird things. I’ve seen 2 mid, 2 top, and 1 bot. I’ve also seen 4 (yes 4) top, 1 mid, no bot. They pushed to get first blood. It was fun! So choose your lane and/or wait for everyone to choose their lane and take whats left.

The first 20 minutes of a game can decide the rest. If your team isn’t laning very well, feeding the other team, and losing towers early then it’s more than likely that the game is over. It’s a rarity to come back from that. So let’s start with the basics of laning.

Last Hit

Last hitting is the single most important thing you can do until you are leveled enough to take out a hero. Last Hitting is timing your attacks to ONLY get the last hit on the creep. Who ever delivers the last hit on the creep gains extra gold. Timing can take a few games to get down. Especially if you have a hero you haven’t played before. You want to hold (H) your character close enough to the creeps and then hit A to attack an individual creep for the last hit. I remapped my hold keybinding to F so it’s easier on my poor little fingers. DO NOT AUTO ATTACK. Auto attacking pushes the lane. Pushing the lane in the early levels mean you get pulled farther and farther away from your tower. Being pulled away from your tower means the other team can and will pick you off.

~ I should note that using Hold to keep your character from attacking is good for range heroes. I don’t recommend it for melee heroes. If you are melee I suggest you just run back and forth and run around the creeps so that you aren’t staying in one place. ~

Denying

Now that you understand last hitting you are ready to learn about denying. Denying is last hitting your own creeps to reduce the exp the enemy gains and to make sure they receive no gold for the kill. By denying you gain exp faster than the other heroes giving a gap in levels. This can be extremely helpful early on. Denying is a form of harassment (explained next).

~ Side note, it is better to last hit your creep than to deny an enemy creep. If placed in the situation that you have to choose, last hit your own. ~

Harassment

Harassment is when you take small shots at heroes that get too close to you. Smart heroes will back away if they are getting hit by other heroes. Harassing players has some advantages: 1. You keep them from denying your creeps by keeping them away. 2. You make them weak. The lower their health the easier to kill them later on. 3. You can easily deny their creeps. 4. If you scare them enough to completely back away they gain no exp at all.

Now the disadvantages.. You will be putting yourself in a very high risk situation. When you attack an enemy hero the creeps will automatically attack you and vice versa. So if the enemy decides not to retreat, but rather stun lock you and try to kill you there’s a very good chance that you’ll die.

~ Harassment works best on melee heroes. Denies work best on ranged heroes. ~

Play Defensively

Sometimes you are the one being harassed. Sometimes you’re in a lane that the other team is pushing, hard. So what do you do? Stay back. Be defensive. You don’t have to attack the creeps to gain exp. In your options menu turn on the ability to see exp gain. Use that as a tool to see just how far back you can be, but still gain exp. They keep pushing you back to your tower? Fine stay there. Once their creeps push that far you gain the exp and last hit gold anyway because they’ll back away from the tower. They may get a little a head of you as far as levels but it won’t be by much because you’ll get their creeps anyway at the tower.

~If you are low health don’t be afraid to go back to the well. Don’t just hang out and wait patiently for your health to refill. All it does is give the other team an open invitation to kill you ~

Towers

Stay away from their towers at the early levels. Seriously. Stay away. The towers will own you early on. Don’t let that little green greedy demon inside of you run after the guy. Say you make it past the first tower. You will be low health and you got another tower to worry about ahead of you. Not only that, but you are now in their territory. Someone will come and finish you off. That is, if the tower doesn’t get you on your way out.

Your towers are an amazing defense early on. If someone follows you to your tower and you have the mana/health stun or slow them at the tower. Watch as their greed gets them killed.

~ While rare early game don’t forget you can deny towers too. Denying a tower deprives the other team of shared gold. ~

Soon to come:
Laning – Beyond the Basics.
Heroes List
Items List
Which Boots Do I Get?!
Why is my team yelling at me?!
And more!

© Kirei for A Gamer of Sorts Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Heroes of Newerth - Noobie Guide