Dreamhack HoN: Preview

With all the hype surrounding the CS tournament at Dreamhack this weekend you'd be forgiven for thinking that perhaps it was the only game to be played.

Alas, it isn't. The other tournament we'll be interested in will of course be our newest Cadred addition, Heroes of Newerth. When S2 Games began the development of the game based on the hugely popular WC3 mod DotA most of the DotA community snarled at the attempts, there are still a large group of DotA players who have the elitist attitude to their game, so when it was announced that Dreamhack would be dropping the major DotA event and replacing it with HoN there was outcry amongst the DotA community. That announcement was made at the beginning of the year and since then the game has come on leaps and bounds, with S2 Gaming eager to fix any bugs that exist within the game.

The current surge in popularity for HoN makes this tournament much more interesting as we see a number of ex DotA players making the switch over. The event will kick off this afternoon with around 30 teams set to participate, each one hoping to take home a large chunk of the 17,600 Euro prize pot. Although the event is mainly made up of Swedish fun and mix teams there are a few big names there, the most notable absences are Empire and LOADED, teams who showed interest in attending but have since announced that they will miss the event. You should be able to watch all the action as it happens live on the Honcast website, as the crew are casting live from the event. Should you miss any of the matches the VOD's will be made available at a later date and you can keep up to date by checking out the brackets.

On top of the main event there will be two smaller tournaments, one for Swedish teams and one for German teams, the winning team from each tournament will win a spot at the 2010 World Expo held in Shanghai, China later this year. Since this is new territory for Cadred and HoN it will be difficult to predict a winner, this will of course be the first major eSports event to host HoN so anything could happen, especially with the three teams I'll be previewing in attendance.

Team fnatic

Antti 'Rexi' Saarenpää
Kalle 'Trixi' Saarinen
Aku 'duQi' Hyttinen -
Julius 'Kay' Fraatz
Henrik 'FreshFriFly' Hansen

fnatic.MSI were one of the first major European organisations to venture into the competitive HoN scene, seeing an opportunity in the market to acquire themselves a top caliber team, something this team have proved to be since they were taken on board. The mixed European lineup have always been good but the addition of ex-ButtonBashers duo Freshfrifly and Kay - considered two of the best HoN players in Europe - has propelled them into the elite of the HoN world. The team is extremely adaptable with each player more than capable of taking different roles and they are famous for never knowing when to quit, with a number of their competitive games going well past the 60 minute mark. They are currently ranked #2 in the Honcast community polls, right behind team Loaded and were recent winners of the TWL league, seeing off Empire in the final in a convincing win. The teams stability and adaptability should see them as favourites for the tournament but they will have to face some stiff opposition from both KD-Gaming and Druidz.

Player To Watch: Julius 'Kay' Fraatz - Both him and Freshfrifly are extremely accomplished players and they have both given team fnatic a boost since joining up just two months ago following their departure from ButtonBashers. But for me it is Julius who has made the difference, although he can be selfish at times it is very rare to see him make a bad decision. For fnatic this could be a very successful event as if he and his team hit top form it's difficult to see anything other than a double for the organisation - in both HoN and CS.
Prediction: 1st

KD-Gaming

Kai 'H4nn1' Hanbückers
Marc 'Mag1X' Müller
Rene 'Kebap' Werner
Remigiusz 'Overpow' Pusch
Levent 'LevenT' Isyapar

KD-Gaming came into the competitive HoN scene with a bang as they took apart a number of highly rated teams on their way to winning the Neva tournament invitational qualifier, demolishing team fiVe in the final. Although the team had been performing well beforehand it wasn't until they had made a change to the roster that they began to show just how good they can be - much like the situation with fnatic.MSI. In this instance it was two ex-DotA players, namely LevenT and H4nn1, although they originally began playing with the team on a temporary basis the results have been good so far and it's looking more and more likely that they may stick with the game. Although the team can be inconsistent their experience in the competitive LAN environment may be enough to give them the edge over fnatic.





Player To Watch: Kai 'H4nn1' Hanbückers - For many H4nn1 is the best player in the world at the moment, and there is good reason to believe that may be the case as he has been performing fantastically for KDe in the past month or so, one of the most entertaining players around there is never a dull moment when he is involved. His years of experience at top level DotA have helped him a lot when it comes to making the big plays when it counts, there is little doubt that both him and LevenT will be the guys to keep an eye on this weekend.

Prediction: 2nd

Druidz

Konrad "Ikzu" Jonasson
Christoffer "Velociraptor" Sundqvist
Daniel "silas" Samuelsson
Mark "Hubris`" Sondergaard
Kalle "iSkill" Laurila
Jonathan "Loda" Berg

Team Druidz could be the surprise package of the event, both Ikzu and Loda were part of the highly rated yet doomed ButtonBashers lineup which folded after some intense in-game arguments, and Loda is widely regarded as one of the best DotA players in the world, a game he still plays regularly for team DDT (Ducky's DreamTeam). Ikzu is another great carry player who can farm better than most people and it will most likely come down to him vs Freshfrifly or Kay` should Druidz meet fnatic.MSI - a match that is likely to throw up some fireworks considering the history the players have with each other.

Player to watch: Jonathan "Loda" Berg - Loda is - along with chu`, phe V` and LevenT - considered to be one of the true great DotA players to make the switch to HoN, and has made the transition without many hiccups as he has dominated most of the HoN scene in any games he has taken part in also. Expect a true battle between him, Ikzu and the carries of both KD-Gaming and fnatic in the latter stages of the event.

Prediction: 3rd

Prize Breakdown:

50,000 SEK, 5 x SAPPHIRE HD5830 1GB GDDR5 PCIE
30;000 SEK, 5 x SAPPHIRE HD5770 1GB GDDR5 PCIE
15,000 SEK, 5 x PURE CrossFireX 790GX
4-8th: 6,000 SEK (30k total)
9-16th: 3,000 SEK (24k total)

Total Value: 170 000 SEK


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