The Bronns Ride Again

Having a few hours to rest and reflect between matches was a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it was nice getting a win. If I wanted to try for Glory King this season I would need to stack as many wins early on as possible. On the other hand, I also reflected on how each map has seemed slightly stronger than the last. With that win in match 3 we may have pushed ourselves into an unfavorable map. I was petrified of losing the little bit of ground gained. 

For this  match we were House Stark.

Like I had surmised, this map did appear to be stronger than the last. I still didn’t see any whales on the map, which was a good sign. I said a quick prayer to the Old Gods saying I would be happy with a top 3 finish and then it was off to the strongholds.

The team had been discussing whether to go Camps or Trading Posts. This map may be too strong, too active to try for camps. It was eventually decided we go the safe route and build trading posts.

My nervousness was increasing as the map opened up. I made my normal play for the altars, but it felt like I was losing more than I was winning. 

There were so many cav on this map, it all felt like a bad omen. If I can't reliably hold an altar, what would be my role? It wasn’t all bad y’all, I did get a few wins here and there.

Our rank was rising and falling, it seemed like every house was active and pushing for victory. My team was posting coordinates for reinforcements, but when I would open the chat they would be gone. This caused me to search the map for our house sigil the hard way. It was all I could do to focus, panic was definitely rising. I didn’t want to lose, but I definitely did not want to be the reason we lost either. 

We managed to hold on to the altars we needed by reinforcing. The feeling of dread was rising. We began to drop down to 4th place in the rankings. We had to make a play for the City of Glory but were very unsure if we could hold it. This map was a lot harder then the last one, despite being down, I was impressed with the matchmaking so far. It felt fairer, with each map growing harder gradually. Red had managed to grab the city first. We launched some rallies but were not successful in knocking them out either. Where we had failed others had succeeded with the different houses taking and losing the great city. 

We did another round of rallies, understanding that 4th place was not the bottom, we could fall further if we did not do something to turn this around. ChAoS and NO REAL were calm and just kept focused on the rallies. Their wisdom was gained from many battles like this, they knew losing focus now meant losing.

ChAoS’ rally managed to take the City of Glory. The match was more than half over and we were still in 4th. It felt like we were trying to do the impossible. “Just focus on the city and refreshing troops”, came the order, so the rest of the map disappeared from the mind. We did not own the catapults so we took constant damage. I felt like I was refreshing troops every other attack lol. We held on knowing if we can bubble we can rise in the ranks and maybe just maybe turn this match around.

Despite gaining the bubble, we were not out of the woods yet. Having to perform a number of tactics to try and slow down the enemies closest in score to us. We drained mines, we tried to take altars in between refreshing the troops. We had moved up to third place, then second and finally landed in first. It was a fight until the absolute bitter end. It was expensive and wildly fun. The roller coaster of will they won’t they may or may not have added a few grey hairs… allegedly. 

The match finally came to a close, we had somehow managed to pull off a victory. 

Another first place finish. Our map looked a lot different this time.

Luckily, that was enough to having gone from Knight when I woke up to King. It felt good to have reached my minimum rank for the season. If somehow we manage another couple wins I may even obtain Glory King. Dare I dream? 

With such a chaotic last few matches of Arena of Honor, and not the good chaos either, I was very thankful to my fellow Bronnians to have taken Vegeta and I in. They were an impressive team. Having played two matches with them, I could see their strategy shine no matter what distinct obstacle we faced in the battle. Even when things were going wrong, they were focused on making them right. The matches themselves were fun with action to the last seconds. The matchmaking seems improved, but I do reserve the right to retract that statement after future matches lol. How did your Arena weekend go?