A REMATCH in AoH? | AoH S5 R3 | Events with N0X

Matchmaking does not always go your way. Especially when you play well. That was a reality Hotep’s team had accepted a long time ago. But one thing Hotep was always proud of was that they never gave up, always trying to at least not get last of the player teams.

This spirit had come to a test, though, in the third match of season 5. In the match before that, they had barely beaten a LEG team full of people Hotep remembered from UC and while LEG had gotten the center, Hotep’s team had secured second place while they only got third. With them securing center, they did get just 4 less glory points than Hotep's team, though, meaning their teams were quite close and they would be matched again.

When Hotep created the team hours before, he did not even realize the chance of that and he set up the same team as usual, with just one change since Stella finally made it back into the team. They were still spear heavy with just Hotep for cav, but they had handled that well in the past and fewer troop types made reinforcing easier, so they stuck to that.

As soon as Hotep checked the enemies though while on the map, he knew they were in trouble. They had gotten their old enemy again! And in addition to that, they got the red team with at least 45 strong inf accounts that would heavily counter the team. With the new matchmaking preventing maxed account matchups,  this was basically the worst-case scenario.

But they had beaten LEG before and Hotep could at least try to win versus the inf accounts, so they had to do the best they could.

Their usual setup was like normal, building spear camps, but to get an early idea of what they were facing, Hotep went to solo Z E U, probably the strongest inf on the map while he was in an Outpost.

He got hit by someone else before, so his troops were low and yet Hotep barely won. He knew he might not win a 1 vs 1, but a 2 vs 1 being close made Hotep even more worried.

And the bad news would continue when they started to lose the watchtowers to red, which had just been able to collect more buffs with their inf accounts which no one from Hotep’s team could kick.

To counter that, Hotep started to change spears to inf camps, a risky play since that meant they were doubling down on that path and if this would not give them an edge of red, they would certainly fall behind both of their competitors.

The change did seem to have an effect, also because red went for the center next and focused less on the altar battles. Another Jaqen inf was in the center, but when time ran down, they had to try something in order to at least lower troops so yellow could take it and get the timer back up to 4 min.

They double rallied with Wind and Hotep and although both could deal damage, there was no follow-up, even though Hotep was sure their lilu dallas could have won with a rally. 

Their strategy with the inf camps had worked and while red was changing their camps, they could get a lot of the buildings back, but in the normal battles they still struggled against both the yellow and red team.

While Hotep and his team were preparing for the small mines, which they desperately needed since they were third with 16k distance to the second place, yellow started to take the center with Arwen, the same holder they knew from the match before, being inside.

After their rallies against Arwen being terrible the match before and a takeover from yellow being advantageous for their position, they decided not to rally them and instead pressure red until the mines came up.

And with 10k points to catch up, the mines opened and Hotep's team threw all their efforts into getting as many as possible and reinforcing well, something that had been a difficulty for them in the previous match.

Getting the troops required for cleaning the mine in one go in as many mines as possible was the key and that's what they did.

What followed was probably the best 5 minutes their team ever  had, taking mine after mine, checking every weak enemy holder and kicking if needed. Of the 12 small mines on the map, their team got at least 7, maybe 8. Hotep stopped counting after a while.

The other 2 factions were busy with the center until it was taken by yellow, which was a bit surprising since they held with spear against the many strong inf. Them being busy meant a lot of their fillers could take mines almost unopposed and Hotep personally cleared 3.

After the mines, all the rankings had changed and their team was now in a secure second place and while they tried to undermine yellow's trading by taking their Maidens, they could not slow down their point gain enough to pass them while they had center.

They had done the impossible. Against the team Hoitep still had UC nightmares and a team with 2 Jaqens and 3 more Vorians that were hard countering them had somehow gotten second place, even after a bad start, mostly due to the entire team's great performance during the small mine battles.

Hotep was very proud of his team and with another +20, they were set up perfectly for the next match. Hotep would give some small reminders to improve the midgame, where they had performed badly, but in the end that was not that big of a deal. He only hoped his team still remembered all of this two weeks later for the next match…

GOT WIC Chronicler HotepRa