Arena of Honor,

season 5, round 3

Winter has arrived, it's a frosty Sunday, and like every two weeks, it's time to have some fun at Arena of Honor. The first two matches didn't go my way. I'm optimistic about today's challenge – to finally take first place.

I start looking for a team. At first, nothing interesting, then a second attempt and third. It took me 30 minutes to find something. Let’s check. The team is definitely below average, slightly different from me. Apart from me, there is one other strong person. I think to myself that maybe this is the way to success. Play on two stronger accounts with a weaker team.

Registration has begun. Final team selection and here comes the first unpleasant surprise. The second strongest player is offline and won't be playing with us. That leaves me, then nothing for a long time, and the rest. I think it's worth trying this setup. I hope I can take over City of Glory and win. We have two people below average. This is not exactly an optimal setup because the opponent will be matched to the average and such players may have trouble engaging in combat. But they can play a completely different role than just fighting, so if someone knows what to do, it will be very useful.

Then the standard stages: registration, matchmaking, and entering the map. This time, the team leader seems to know what to do and gives orders to everyone. Overall, the atmosphere is good. There is some kind of tactic and a clear goal to win first place. I'm ready to fight, just need to make sure everything is set up and jump onto the map.

What do we have here?

• The yellow team (us) – a mix of players including [UaF] XP386JK, [RnD] MegWhite – leader, [LMS]Nirren and others. Overall, a total mix of players.

• The purple team – mainly [PhD] – Lady00Lucky, Lord Mord u, Futtes Slave + a few players from this alliance, [KtK] The Germ, [7FD] Iluzion

• The red team – [N0W] Menin Forest, [QMI] DAYI1, [SHS] Salem Wild, [BUL] Long hand and the rest of the mix of players.

As you can see, the purple team will work together because it's almost one alliance.

The start is definitely going very well for us. Everyone is active and we are quickly taking over camps. A good start allows us to quickly expand them and focus on the next elements of the game.

It's the 52nd minute and so far it looks like the fight for first place will be between us and the purple team.

In the 49th minute, we manage to take over the NPC castle. This time without any problems, unlike in my previous games. I'm slowly beginning to understand how this system works. Unfortunately, the purple team takes over at the same time as us, but they are behind with their camps, so we take the lead.

The next few minutes pass fairly calmly. Thanks to our good start, we maintain first place and increase our lead over the rest. In the 41st minute, we have almost a thousand points advantage, but there is a twist and we lose the NPC castle. We only managed to capture one camp from the NPC, so the situation has changed. Luckily for us, the purple team also lost their NPC castle and now everyone is left with only their own castles. We manage to maintain a slight advantage.

The battle generally takes place on the outskirts of the main castle. The duel is for the temples.

In the 37th minute, we manage to capture the NPC castle again, giving us a decisive lead and increasing our score.

Since some things happen automatically, there is a moment of calm. The opponent has taken the tower, and we have taken the dragon pit. We are in control of the match, and it does not look like that is going to change. For over 10 minutes, there is relative silence. The purple team recaptures the NPC castle, and now we and they each control one. It is a safe lead, but both teams have already scored the same number of points.

The change comes only in the 23rd minute, just before the attack on the City of Glory begins. Maybe because of my carelessness, or because our leader felt too confident of victory, we lose our NPC castle to the purple team. They gain the badge of controlling three castles, and we have nothing. This is a very unfavorable situation for us because we have to focus on the main castle. At this point, our advantage is secure, but everything will play out in the middle of the map.

The clock strikes 20:00 till end, and I have everything ready. After a second and a few accelerations, I take over City of Glory without any problems.

A quick message asking for support for the castle and... silence... for over 20 seconds, not a single person sends support, and I lose the castle.

Not only did I have only 600k of my army left after the attack, but my opponent counterattacked and no one helped. At this point, I think to myself that this is standard at this stage of the game – some people are no longer playing.

Of course, I don't give up. I set up a quick rally and, surprisingly, maybe not right away, I manage to gather a full set. I launch an attack and we wait...

Yes! We've got it! But will we be able to hold on? After the attack, our castle is not full, and if the opponent concentrates, they will be able to recapture it. Of course, I call out in the chat and even ask everyone to quickly replenish their support, but there is no response.

We manage to hold the castle for quite a long time, and there are only seconds left until victory. And then, unfortunately, 10 seconds before the end, a full rally spear hits us and we lose the castle.

And we were so close 😊 The exchange continues a few more times until my team completely runs out of support and we lose both the main castle and the lead.

If it weren't for that, we would have secured the victory, but now, unfortunately, we have to wait for the castle to unlock and renew our attacks.

While waiting, we occupy the mine and other buildings. Unfortunately, the purple team takes over the 4th NPC castle, which significantly increases their advantage. We now have two options. One that must succeed is to recapture the City of Glory and then recapture the NPC castle.

We set up two rallies to weaken the enemy a little, and here I make a serious mistake because mine goes 2 seconds before the other one, and it was supposed to be the other way around. Unfortunately, we don't succeed, and we don't have a good INF player to secure the situation, so we have to rely on luck a little.

There are 5 minutes left until the end. The purple team loses the NPC castle between us and them, and we capture another NPC castle. To win, all that's left is to secure the City of Glory, and we've got it! We set up two rallies again, and this time, without making a mistake, my attack comes in second, and we capture the castle with 4 minutes to go. Now we just have to hold it, and I think the result will be ours. We wait one minute, then another, and we reach a situation where I see their rally reaching the castle. A quick review of the report and, unfortunately, we lose and thus remain in second place.

Summary

It looked very good from the start. Although the mix of players was varied, everyone listened to each other and followed orders. Unfortunately, everything changed in the middle of the game. I don't know if it was because the event lasts an hour or something else. Unfortunately, we lost the NPC castle first and then we were unable to hold City of Glory. Even though we regained the NPC castle, the battle for City of Glory was our defeat.

I'm not happy about that. We lacked a second strong player with a different formation that would have allowed us to win easily. We have to settle for second place.

I can only be happy that my result is very good, but it wasn't enough.