Battle of the Bronns

Arena of  Honor has not been my friend lately. We started out decent enough but life has that way of beaming us in the head with a curveball when things go too smoothly. It started when our City of Glory holder, Undead, was on vacation and missed the alarm and the match by minutes. No big deal, we will play two the next time I thought to myself trying to see a bright side.. 

Well the next time a plaque of dung beetles descended on Arena. Arkasha, our strategist, went on a much needed vacation this time so we had to take on two randoms. We got in late to a match in progress and spent the entire event playing catch up, ending in an eventual 3rd place rank. It could have been worse, we at least got some points. The dung beetles had blocked any additional matches from occurring for our group. Vegeta and I had joined a random group but we were unable to play at all. The Old Gods themselves needed to intervene. Were we cursed?

It was time for Arena again, but Undead had put himself to sleep so we would have at least one more week of fending for ourselves. Plus I still had 2 tickets and needed to make up for the lost match. The hardest part about multiple arena matches is many of us have experienced one great match followed by a horrible match. It felt like a no win situation. I could advance just to fall behind or even worse, lose both matches. After the last couple events I assumed I would be facing some losses. I scanned the player lobby and came across a team literally full of chroniclers from my house… House Bronn stand up whoop whoop lol. 

In an ironic twist of faith, they were an inf spear team like our own.  Even better, there was a spot open for Vegeta too. I joined and sent Vegeta the invite. It is not exactly like joining randoms, I tried to convince myself. They were some very strong allies who knew how to play. So the unknown of whether they will go afk when the match starts was not a concern. The main thing I was left worrying about is what kind of map we would see. So far we have avoided whale maps, which I consider an improvement compared to last season. Does that streak end now?

Due to technical difficulties, we had decided we would play matches 3 and 4. We gathered for Match 3 and I couldn’t quiet my mind. My luck has been horrible in this event, would I come to regret this? Will I end up ruining my teammates' streak and bringing them down? The only thing that interrupted my thoughts was it being time to jump on the map. We were House Targaryen

We started with the rush to build the strongholds

I was pleasantly surprised to see we were making spear camps

I was doing my part terrorizing the altars 

while equally being terrorized back. It was a reminder that the competition is getting harder as we climb the ranks.

Taking some dragon pits. Anything to get more points

The match was going extraordinarily well. We took the Watchtowers and Catapults. Before we hit the halfway mark of the match, we managed to take the Clan Castle of House Tyrell…With No Real and H I T taking turns holding it for the team.

I tried to temper my excitement. City of Glory gives a ton of points so there was still time for us to get knocked from first place. As the city opened, ChAoS swooped in and took it, while we reinforced quickly.

This would mean nothing if we couldn’t get the bubble. House after house, player after player tested ChAoS and he deflected them all. Having the catapults meant we were not getting attacked by those which was refreshing lol. Those catapults will bleed you out fast. This allowed us to focus on defense.

Our hard work paid off with a first place finish

We had lost all our Altars but held the most important bits.

My rank jumped up to lord and I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. I almost didn't want to play match 4. This one had gone so well, it felt like the next one would be as big of a loss as this win was. I was impressed with this team, who had obviously worked together for a while. I tried to be happy and enjoy the good. Maybe the Old Gods were trying to make up for a difficult last few matches. I dismissed that last thought as quickly as it came but chose to enjoy the shine of a win while I could. With the fourth match coming soon, I opted to deal with it when the time comes. Hopefully we had done enough that the team wouldn’t want to just kick us. As if reading my mind, ChAoS sent a message double checking we would make the next match. I let him know we would be there. Win or Lose, we needed to see this out. May the odds be ever in our favor!