Arena of Honor, season 5, round 1

We are starting a new season of Arena of Honor. This is already the fifth edition of this event. I can say right from the start that there are a lot of changes, and they are quite significant. Whether they are for the better, I don't know yet. Since it was the first match of season five, we haven't discovered all the new features and adjusted our tactics yet, but more on that later.

There is definitely one very interesting reward, namely fragments for the castle skin. Unfortunately, it's quite expensive, but this is a game for patient players 😊

Preparation

This time, I decided to make two important changes. One was to change the time to the afternoon instead of the evening, so I wanted to play in the second to last match. The team happened a bit by accident, because someone posted on the alliance chat that they were looking for players. After a few minutes, we had ten players, which is a full team. Since we were from the same alliance, I assumed that this would be a game changer because it would be much easier for us to communicate. This led to a quick proposal and decision to go to Discord.

Everyone was ready, registration had begun, and we were waiting to see what would happen next. Was it really a good idea to go with our own alliance? Maybe we would get the same opponents there and there would be no advantage, which is what I was counting on.

The matchmaking was over, I checked that my settings were correct, took a sip of water, and we entered the map.

Map

Everyone is slowly gathering. We know that now only three teams matter, not six, so checking out the opponents is much easier. And here, unfortunately, my first fear came true. The opponents are also other alliances, not a mix of players who gather randomly and play with each other.

On one side we have DNa players, and on the other HD! players, so top-tier opponents. The draw wasn't lucky for us this time, and for me it's another time 😊 I'm not lucky with this, but there's no point in giving up!

After analysis, we see that one player from DNA is 16th in the world in terms of merit, and from HD! 7th and 60th. Now we're definitely screwed. It's over, there's nothing to fight for, they'll wipe us out, I think to myself.

Our best tactician, ollol2, has a different opinion, I admire his optimism, but thanks to that, morale is rising a little. In the meantime, he shows us what has changed this season and what we need to pay attention to. This game is definitely different from playing with random players. Here, there IS a tactic 😊 and we'll see if it works. It's the first match of the season, so maybe our opponents are also just learning the new rules.

It's a tough start.

We're taking the first buildings. It's going pretty slowly, maybe the alliance got a little lazy in the afternoon, or for some it's time for dinner and TV instead of playing.

From the very first seconds, we're not doing very well. The buildings are occupied, but not filled. Precious seconds are flying by and our opponents are overtaking us.

At this stage, it turns out that taking over the BOT castle as quickly as possible is crucial here. Now, you don't put an average player in the clan castle to defend it for an hour, but someone strong to capture the next castle as quickly as possible and then its camps.

Everything is going relatively well, the castle is taken, the camps are taken, but... we haven't finished expanding ours 😊 ollol2 is giving orders left and right, but some people are not responding or their response is very limited.

Minutes are passing, some of the camps have already been taken, but because we are totally confused, everything has fallen apart. Someone left their army here, someone started something here and didn't finish it, and it's generally chaos. It's clear that everyone got lazy on Sunday, and even though we're on Discord and ollol2 is doing everything he can to lead us to victory, something isn't working out for us.

In the 43rd minute, the reds take a decisive lead, followed by the yellows and finally us.

It seems that everyone is doing what they want. Even though specific instructions are given, we are lost in this season and after the changes that have been introduced because, to be honest, the game is completely different now. It seems to me that the game is focused on teamwork and quick decision-making, but teams and individuals don't change as much as they used to.

We finally manage to complete most of the buildings and catch up with the others. Although the loss is slightly greater than before, at this stage of the game it doesn't mean anything yet. The yellow team has definitely got down to work and taken the lead.

The battle for second place

The beginning and the middle definitely belonged to our opponents. Despite our best tactics, some of us had other plans 😊

We are primarily trying to capture the City of Glory and are very close after two attacks, but unfortunately, as with all of today's attempts, there was a lack of good communication and we were unable to capture the individual units that remained after the rally raids.

Well, maybe more than a few units 😊

At the end, we managed to make up for our losses to the reds, and if we had succeeded in a few attacks, we would have taken second place.

Summary

It promised to be a fierce battle from the start. With many changes this season, nothing was certain until the very end. Some made better decisions than others. Communication and good teamwork will definitely be key this season.

The yellow team dominated the match, scoring as many points as all the other teams combined. Congratulations. And on top of that, two badges and a huge win.

We have work to do, we will learn from this and be stronger next time.

On my part, in addition to congratulating the winners, I would also like to congratulate ollol2 for the great preparation and attempts to manage this chaos and us 😊