With week one in the books competitors and fans alike look forward to the upcoming week, taking us from 8 teams, to one champion. Four months of qualifiers and competition in the Sound Blaster Heroes League have led us to this, and with teams of this caliber things will certainly end on a high note.
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The Sound Blaster Heroes League quarterfinals feature 8 of the best teams in Heroes of Newerth squaring off for their share of the $30,000 prize pool and of course, the right for to be called the Champion of SBHL Season 1.
If you had asked a month ago who would take this match the answer would be a resounding tdM, but unfortunately for the former champions it’s quite hard to stay on top. The #1 ranked HoN Tour team is in a slump, finishing 7/8th in the most recent cycle and struggling to defeat up and coming teams like Team Excellent and Absolute Legends. Pikachu on the other hand is looking significantly stronger than their #11 HoN Tour ranking suggests. While tdM did recently eliminate the Danish team from HoN Tour Cycle 7 Pikachu looked strong in a 2-1 win over the top CIS team Cats Gaming in the SBHL round of 16. In the end Trademark eSports is still favored in this match, but Pika has a unique opportunity to kick the kings while they’re down and hope to come away with a victory.
Perhaps the most highly anticipated match of the SBHL quarterfinals features the top Heroes of Newerth team in the international scene and the top dogs of the SEA region. Orange narrowly wiggled by AfraiD in the round of 16, showing off their unique play style, but leaving questions surrounding their skill compared to their NA/EU counterparts. On the other hand, stayGreen has never looked stronger. After their recent qualification for the Garena Star League and back to back HoN Tour championships the Miami Powerhouse is the team to beat in any event. After an early exit at the DreamHoN Winter event 4 months ago stayGreen has been looking for revenge, and the Sound Blaster Heroes League has finally provided the battleground.
compLexity Gaming versus Tt eSPORTS; could you ask for a better match? The high octane agression of TteS meets the refined and calculated strategy of the #3 ranked HoN Tour team. Tt eSPORTS is always a bit of an engima, bringing unique heroes, strategies, and players to the table. After recent roster shake-ups in the TteS team they have had strong days and not so strong ones so it will be interesting to see which team shows up on Tuesday. compLexity Gaming on the other hand has been on the upswing after an extended slump. With a recent trip to the finals of both the GSL qualifiers and HoN Tour Cycle 6 the coL.HoN team is looking for their first championship in months. With two more evenly matched teams rounding out the final 8 the first two days of Sound Blaster Heroes League week two are sure to be an action packed and intense time.
QsQ and LIONS, traditionally the number four and five teams in Heroes of Newerth are both wavering slightly as they approach the SBHL round of 8. After both teams fell into the loser’s bracket in the first round of HoN Tour Cycle 7 fate dealt and even more cruel hand, forcing one to fall out of the Diamond division completely. In the end LIONS eSpotsKlubb was able to take the 2-1 victory, climbing their way back into a 5/6th finish, but Q sQuad was left bloodied and bruised. While the team’s spirit is intact, as demonstrated by their strong victory over Indonesian champions nxl>Focus eSports last week, Q sQuad 357 will still need to bring everything they have to take down their Swedish adversaries this week. The LIONS team is a bit of a question mark; they advanced with the only forfeit in the SBHL Ro16 and were eliminated by up and comers AfraiD in HoN Tour this weekend. Will the Swedes show they’ve still got it, or will NoVa and the newest Gold team prove that they are right where they belong?
The second week of coverage for the Sound Blaster Heroes League Finals begins Monday with coLcast coverage of Pika vs tdM and continues with the remainder of the quarterfinals on Tuesday. Be sure to tune in for the most competitive action in all of Heroes of Newerth and your chance to win awesome Sound Blaster hardware.
Stay tuned to compLexityGaming.com for more information about the Sound Blaster Heroes League and competitive Heroes of Newerth.
About Sound Blaster Heroes League
The Sound Blaster Heroes League celebrates the launch of the Sound Blaster Z-Series high-performance sound cards and the Sound Blaster Tactic3D Rage gaming headsets. Both products were unveiled for the first time at Gamescom 2012 and are shipping now. Featuring Creative’s proprietary SBX ProStudio™ and Crystal Voice technologies, the new Sound Blaster products boast cutting-edge designs and industry-leading performance capabilities.
To find out more information about the Sound Blaster Heroes League and Sound Blaster audio solutions, visit Soundblaster.com/hon/. Follow Sound Blaster Gaming at Facebook.com/SoundBlaster.
About Creative
Creative is a worldwide leader in digital entertainment products. Famous for its Sound Blaster® sound cards and for launching the multimedia revolution, Creative is now driving digital entertainment with cutting edge audio solutions, premium wireless speakers, wireless head-phones and portable media devices. Today, Creative re-invents the Sound Blaster, which has a user base of over 400 million, with its ground-breaking Sound BlasterAxx that aims at the new mobile networked generation by bridging the multi-worlds of the computer, smartphones, and tablets. Creative’s proprietary technologies, innovative hardware, applications and services leverage the Internet, enabling anytime, anywhere consumers to experience high-quality digital entertainment.