Hello again in another exciting story, and once again I am here to share my thoughts about the first round of the newly started season of Arena of Honor. The season started tonight and since I had no material to write about, I have decided to stay up and play in the first match at midnight.  How did it go? Let’s see!

Team preparation

Midnight is a very difficult time, a lot of our players like to play but during the day, in the night it is so called Asian / American time, so players from clans like KAC usually are mostly seen. It is very risky to play at this time also, as we can fight against Ganicus, which means automatic lose. With all this information, and having on the back of the head that I am doing it for you guys, I decided to risk my only ticket and play, no matter what.

I have reactivated my hofs and hit them about hour towards the arena time, so that when I finish arena, they should be around ready to be killed in the prison for best buffs. I have also used dragon skill to immediately kill one of the prisoners, so I have the buffs for the Arena of Honor. I was prepared; I felt prepared, only last thing were the teammates.

Firstly, I announced information on the alliance chat yet there was nobody interested to play together at this time, as I have suspected. Only thing left for me, was to try yolo solo and hope that I will receive decent team. It happened once or twice, that I jumped in to an amazing team and had great game with top placement, but lets be honest, it is a 50-50 situation, and anything could happen, including me being dumped in a team full of away from keyboard alts, which is super frustrating.

As soon I joined the game I checked who am I playing with and I noticed some names I know from other events, some tags of alliances that are considered to be top, the vision was promising, question was will the actions match the expectations, or is it just a dead body dumped for solo hits and few points.

I was matched with TW*Alexander and two NBe players T H A Y and BaitMan69, additionally, there was an OBV member, and some other ones which in normal circumstances would be just additional forces, but in this game, were having significant, noticeable spot.

With TW*Alexander I know each other well from Ultimate Tournament where we always test our spearman’s against each other. NBe on the other hand, I do not know those players, but the alliance is our biggest nightmare in AC and SoW where we always fight with them within Playoffs. I wouldn’t say they were the top players from NBe but the tag speaks for itself, that they had to represent some level of communication, if not the power level.

Start of the Event

As the event started, I did not stay quiet as I usually do, probably because there was no real leader, or a super strong mercenary within our team, I felt like everyone are either my level or weaker. This has boosted my leadership abilities, and I decided to message everyone on the chat what I believe we should do, and see how it goes! So as soon the event started I have messaged everyone, ‘let’s go for the pink AI castle!’ nobody obviously responds so I was unsure if people will follow me.

Whilst I was sitting in my confusion someone gave me the lord commander which immediately to take the responsibility off me, I have transferred to member of NBe, BaitMan69. I did not know how badly have I messed up at this point. As it seemed later, BaitMan69 was AFK for entire match, which was very frustrating but also not supporting our team activities. When we took the camps and started changing them to Infantry camps as I suggested, one of our members Marek changed his camp to trade camp, but I thought, no point to argue, our team wont be super organised anyway.

There were 2 camps which were hanging on without decision for a bit of time, as BaitMan69 wouldn’t change them, and the owner was also afk. I thought at this time ahh great we will go for the last spot, which since AI was introduced, is 3^rd place.

Thankfully as game was moving people started returning and even if not many, some of them were cooperating.

First altars have opened and immediately purple hit our altar, to prevent us from taking first points. I was observing our team if there will be any activity, yet not much was happening except some individuals scouting the place. Very frustrating but I still felt if we get the pink castle, that gives us hopes for better future.  As I was observing the pink castle, we hit them with the first wave and did not manage to get it. That made me curious so I scouted it and turned out AI filled castle with cavalry, who would have thought that AI would counter us before we even hit, crazy!

This was a moment where I have not known what to do next. From one side our teammates seemed to be afk, mainly those who were meant to help me carry this, have not supported since the beginning, and on the other side, our magic plan to gain pink camps, also blew up as we will never get the castle with inf waves against cavalry reinforcement. I was questioning myself what should we do, and in the meantime, I was hitting altars to gain any points and keep it moving forward.

When everything seemed lost, light in the tunnel has shown up, as while Purple gained castle of AI up to them and right to them, Yellow and us were casteless, but at this moment Yellow has conquered the pink castle, which meant, that we had a chance to kick them out and take it for ourselves, as their troops were spears.

Unintentionally but they did us a Favor and soon after, the castle was ours. I was shouting along with one of my teammates, to send troops there but the words were echoing without an reaction. Unfortunately, nobody was active, only us two, and then we ended up just with this one teammate sending 300k bowman to defend it. You can assume that it did not take long for yellow to hit it with solo attack and take castle back. This happened once again where we have beaten yellow and took the pink castle, but this time, I have taken the responsibility and shown the leadership by sending my lord commander with full spearman lineup of 1mln troops shouting to reinforce me, and that is when suddenly team decided to follow. We managed to secure it and immediately but slowly started the process of stealing the camps from Pink. Game started to turn in our Favor, and we could focus on hitting the camps now, just to gain some additional power in troops from their cav camps.

Mid and End game of the Event.

As we secured pink castle, and were in process of turning all the camps from pink side on ours, we also focused on the altars, the fight was mainly against Yellow, and I was at the same time re-claiming all pink altars, as seems enemies were not focused enough to take those easy positions. I was thinking by myself what is the thing that is generating yellow the most points? Altars of Maiden obviously! So, one by one I have been attacking Altars of maiden taken by yellow.

Considering they were striking back, clearly, they needed them, and did not want to let them go just like that. But I was prepared, I might be weak for the FFS level, but I am strong enough for mid-level players like them. Without big sweat on me, I have kicked them back where they have come from!

This is the moment where game stood down a little, not much was happening. Purple had Glory City and two AI castles, we had Pink AI Castle, and Yellow had nothing really. Classification was written by itself, as we were meant to end on the 2^nd stop, unless, one thing could happen and those were mines that will soon unlock. As we were preparing for mines, and I was shouting to our teammates, focus only on yellow mines, if purple wants to take all mines, let them, just kick out the yellow so they don’t gain points to overtake us! In the meantime, something unexpected happened, a bit of a plot twist, which not sure if was scheduled by Purple and Yellow, or just purple lost the guard for a minute, but Yellow took over the Glory City! Yes, that is right, and we all know how much points this building gives by itself, so, we couldn’t let them have it! I was screaming on the top of my lungs to solo glory city, but the solo was not working, so we organized a rally by the NBe member. As we were gathering troops, it was only 25 seconds left to the protection status, we had to send it out, but in the meantime, purple has hit it, and released it from occupation of yellow. We were saved!

The mines have opened and it was very surprising as Purple obviously went for some but yellow seemed to be afk, I think they just gave up in the process. I did not make any moves just observed yellow, which after like 2 minutes, decided to hit two altars. I did not hesitate long, scouted it and hit it till i managed to steal it.

Considering he has guns and roses name and avatar, I believe he was on the high way to hell after this event as what a bad and unorganised team yellow has become, to not find motivation even for mines where enemies were not even strong? Quite an ignorance!

Game seemed to be quiet, and only thing we were doing was fighting back camps and altars taken by AI, just to not let them secure it. We were happy and sure that we will secure victory as yellow seemed to give up the fight. I had one more fight for mines, but every time they would take one, my spears were on the way to kick them back to the sleep. Sometimes I would even enter mine just before they hit it, so they lose and bounce back home.

Result

What seemed to be disaster, turned to end with a good result. Who seemed to be supportive, were least supportive, but somehow, as a team, we found our little motivation and gained the 2^nd place. Big shout out to Yellow, as without you taking pink castle, we wouldn’t have won against you, so well done! Bit of a wisdom words for you guys on the end? Remember that when you enter events like Arena of Honor, there are people dependent of your performance and activity, so if you tend to join the game and not perform any actions, not only you are affected, but another 9 people within your team. Don’t ruin the day for those people, as karma always returns with a double power.

Till the next time