Thursday, February 21, 2013

Real Talkin Ep 3 Monday before GSL Qualifiers

Hey guys, just letting you all know swindle contacted me the other day and we will be doing another episode of Real Talkin on Monday before the Garena Star League qualifiers take off. Be sure to join us and leave any questions you'd like answered in the comments section!

Cheers :]

Monday, February 18, 2013

Honcast Podcast: The Best 1.5 Hours of Sleep You'll Ever Get

If there is one thing I miss most about Honcast, it's being on the podcast. And I don't want this to come across as arrogance, but man... the podcast sucks now that I'm not on it. Now with Tralf gone, I fear it will be even worse. Tralf didn't mind giving his real opinion on matters, but now with him gone we have:

Breaky - The host of the show. Breaky is fine in the podcast, he has a good grasp about what is going on. He brings up topics and isn't afraid to play devils advocate from time to time. He also doesn't dodge serious questions.

Milkfat - S2's Director of eSports. Milkfat is a good source of knowledge as far as what is going on with HoN Tour and other eSports stuff at S2. The problem is he doesn't really ever offer any opinions or insight on topics.

Beefpotpie - The new xanderK of the podcast. It's a 50/50 shot at whether or not whatever Beef says will make sense. On the positive side, Beef knows more about what actually happened the previous week in HoN Tour/Sound Blaster Heroes League than everyone else on the podcast combined.

Emperor - The newest guy to the podcast. I can't really say anything negative about him except that thus far he hasn't really shown much personality. But he's also new to what he's been doing as a caster recently so I'll chalk this up to nerves/not knowing the limits for the time being.


Where is the attitude?! Frankly, I blame it mostly on the fact that Honcast is looking for a permanent co-caster for Breaky and I'm pretty sure both Emperor and Beef are interested. This means they aren't going to be stepping out and calling people shitcans anytime soon, if at all. I'm not saying it has to be like that, or that people need to be bad mannered. I'm saying someone there needs to bring the real talk. The obvious "solution" is for me to start my own podcast since Swindlemelonzz apparently doesn't have time to keep doing Real Talkin, but the truth is I'm way too lazy. Unfortunately, I don't know if or when this trend of sleepy podcasts is gonna end, but I hope it does.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

[OTP]Znoowy Real Talks Why Tralf Left OTP

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?482858-One-Trick-Pony-The-Story

Basically, Znoowy lays it all out on the table from the side of One Trick Pony. They key points he makes are:

1. Tralf began practicing/scrimming with OTP but they had poor performances even against mediocre teams.

2. Tralf practiced and played tournament matches (GSL with oo7 for instance) with other teams while he was supposed to be with OTP. This made OTP feel uncomfortable with him.

3. Tralf "apologized" to OTP and they got ready for Cycle 6.

4. OTP gets crushed by Mistral 2-0 leading to Tralf leaving the clan and Skype without even letting OTP know.

5. Tralf agrees to play for OTP to try and keep them from dropping to Gold, but only after the community begins to trash talk him.

6. OTP beats Clan Milk 2-1 in the Losers Bracket, but is forced to forfeit Losers Bracket Round 2 to QsQ because they aren't comfortable playing with Tralfamadore and can't add a member to their roster during a cycle.

7. Znoowy posts on the forums stating that OTP's future is uncertain and that they will take this week to figure out if they want to continue on as a team.

Any More Posts About Tralf And He's Getting His Own Blog...

Man, its hard to write about a topic that, for once, Leyst has let linger for more than 2 posts. Even the first sentences of this article eluded me for a good five minutes. I guess the best thing to do here is to get into the nitty gritty, down to brass tacks, straight to business. So here we go again...

Well, I can't say that I'm surprised. Hell, anyone reading this blog probably isn't very surprised either. Tralfamadore is in the public eye once again, this being my 3rd post about him in the month of February alone (any more and I might have to start a blog just for him!) The reason he is the talk of the town once more is due to the drama surrounding his recent departure(??) from One Trick Pony (OTP) after just one HoN Tour match.

Tralf played vs Mistral Gaming in HoN Tour Diamond division for OTP and ended up getting crushed 2-0. This lead to Tralf quitting the team in between the Winner Bracket and Loser Bracket, which basically forced OTP down to Gold. After the public backlash, Tralfamadore agreed to play the losers bracket match vs Clan Milk (CM) however he refused to log into voice chat and played pretty sloppily in game one, going for early Alchemist Bones into Helm of the Black Legion then finished off with a Genjuro. Luckily for OTP, CM decided to let Xibbe have Chipper both in both games 2 and 3, leading me to believe that Milkfat asked CM to throw to allow OTP to stay in Diamond while cursing the name of Tralfamadore under his breath. Game 3, Tralf played Silhouette and dominated but so did the rest of OTP.

Forums have exploded with flame against Tralf in this thread. There are a few posts there that try to offer explanations and mitigation for how he behaved, but the majority is against him/his actions. I will pull a few out that stuck out to me.


I loved the beginning of this post. I think the analogy is so spot on. Unfortunately the post ends up feeling completely disingenuous after the first paragraph, like a father who wasn't part of their child's life trying to offer up some personal advice. Oh well, good analogy.


Innerspike posted this. Probably the best post in the actual thread.


None of this post makes any sense, or adds any value to the forum post, but I added it because it shows how completely asinine some people are, posting just to post. By the way, GanbaruJapan is probably the single dumbest poster in any thread he posts in, including this one. Just putting that out there.



Thursday, February 14, 2013

Tralfamadore??????????????

As everyone already knows, Tralfamadore has left S2 Games of his own accord to support his girlfriend's decision to accept a job in Vancouver, BC, CA. Preceding this announcment, we talked a bit about Tralfamadore scrimming under the name "StarStuffing" with OTP. Since then it seems like some things may have changed. While this post is mostly speculative, I have had competitors and people who claim to be close to Tralfamadore bring up some information.

This thread from the forums shines light on the clan We Are Spies (oo7) adding a "surprise 7th" to the roster. This person is listed as a T9oly. A forum goer decided to look into the post history of this account and found some interesting things.

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/search.php?searchid=686446

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?362979-HON-All-Star-Team&p=14609260&highlight=#post14609260

Places Tralf on his All Star Team roster after his performance at Dreamhack Winter 2011

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?369977-Tralfs-stream-should-be-on-this-list&p=14680354&highlight=#post14680354

Asks for Tralf to be placed on the list of streamers

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?411917-How-and-why-YOU-should-support-the-competitive-HoN-scene!&p=15054109&highlight=#post15054109

T9Oly calls S2 Games a "complete joke of a company" who "failed to pay out a $100 prize from King of the Hill." This was 3 days after Tralf posted his goodbye post on Reddit back in April.

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?427287-tdM-worst-competitive-team&p=15141464&highlight=#post15141464

This post calls out all of tdM "except Tralf" for doing poorly in performances. The main culprit being Diablo 3. The post directly criticizes Moonmeander for feeding and questions why Bkid should be drafting over Tralf

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?428060-DreamHoN-Scrimmage-Updates-and-Expectations&p=15146535&highlight=#post15146535

Nothing interesting, just a report of the bootcamps of teams. Information leads one to believe it's coming from someone who is on site for the bootcamps.

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?433433-Dream-Team&p=15186370&highlight=#post15186370

The entire "new" tdM (coL) roster (tralf, franzzii, hax, bkid, moon)

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?435661-New-tdM-gt-new-Fnatic&p=15199403&highlight=#post15199403

Meh, just a post about tdM beating fnatic in a scrim

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?435661-New-tdM-gt-new-Fnatic&p=15199712&highlight=#post15199712

Same thread but this time calls out Zfreek for his poor performances at Dreamhack Summer 2012

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?437587-TDM-vs-Fntc-scrim-moon-s-stream&p=15215101&highlight=#post15215101

The thread is about how tdM loses to fnatic in a scrim, and T9Oly defends tdM by saying "This is exactly what I knew would happen. When Tralf was still in tdM - they scrimmed Fntc and beat them, and then it was "well they never play Hon and had a ringer!!". Now, it's "HAHA you lost and they don't even play HoN!" Retarded fanboys."

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?481736-oo7-new-5th-may-make-them-a-darkhorse-in-the-GSL!&p=15569531&viewfull=1#post15569531

This is a post from Tralf explaining that the person in question is actually his former roommate and he used the account to sign up for oo7 because he wasn't sure which team he was going to play for. Tralf, on T9Oly, played for oo7 during the SB Qualifiers while still on OTP's roster as StarStuffing. In fact, up until a couple days ago, both T9Oly and StarStuffing were on HoN Tour rosters at the same time.Now, from these threads we can devise one of two things:

1. This person is actually Tralf. Talking about himself in the 3rd person and bashing on other competitors and  his own teammates of the time.

or

2. This person is Tralf's biggest fanboi and former roommate.

Neither would actually surprise me.

Also, the reason Leyst locked the thread was because it was "really insensitive towards Tralf considering what happened to him just recently." Can anyone explain what happened to Tralf that posting about him possibly fluffing himself is "really insensitive?"

I dunno, the whole thing is funny to me. What do you guys think?

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Ken "xanderK" Smith Released from S2: An Introspective Reasoning

This is the third draft I've written about this topic, and the one I chose to release. Why? Because I believe that whatever I write is going to come across as either being butt hurt, or vengeful. And while I love to get gossip out there, whatever I write is going to based off of my experiences with S2 Games, and that makes it hard for me to be objective. While I like to get gossip out, I don't like to just smear people for no reason. I look at personal experience, at facts given to me. I may just be some washed up nobody, but I still have respect for myself and for proper journalism. Hongossip has had renewed life and interest for me over the past week, and I'm happy to be writing again.

So let's get down to it.

The truth of the matter is, Ken is a great guy. I've known him just as long as I have known Breaky, and as far as community servants go, I can't think of anyone more passionate about Heroes of Newerth. In fact, aside from Breaky, I can't think of anyone who did as much for Heroes of Newerth both on and off the radar as Ken. For that, his release from the company is definitely a travesty. It's hard to see someone who was as public as a figure as Ken was removed from his position. Once again, the reason we're getting is "S2 is moving in a different direction" but that's just the easy way of saying, "We think we found someone who can do what you're doing better." And you know what..

They are probably right. But before you guys all call me an asshole, let me fully explain.

I love Ken and value his friendship, but honestly, he probably wasn't everything S2 needed as a Community Manager; just like I obviously wasn't everything they needed as a Director of eSports. At the time, I focused so much of my efforts on stabilizing the competitive community and making sure that the competitors knew I was approachable, that I lost the big picture and the ability to be an actual Director or Manager. I think Ken was like this as well. I've known him long enough to say that Ken always had his heart in the right place, but not always his head, just like me. On the flip side of that though, you begin to wonder about why so many roles that lack definition have such high turnover. Ken and I weren't the first people in our roles at the company, for instance; we replaced others.

The roles for our positions were never really defined. I was never sat down in a performance review type of setting with goals and outlines dictated to me by a superior, they simply let me work on whatever it was I wanted to work on. It makes it hard for an employee to understand what the employer wants when the employer seemingly doesn't either understand or know exactly what they want. Now, I can't speak for Ken in this subject because I've been gone for nearly 5 months now; but I remember going to work without knowing exactly what was in store for me. This was compounded by the fact that, like Ken, I reported to a myriad of people and had my hat in so many different rings I hardly knew who was in charge of me and which items took priority. To be short, and blunt: there was a failure in the chain of command at S2 Games when I was there. One that, I truly believe, has been corrected. And this is why Ken met his end with the Company.

I believe that S2 Games is finally looking at the big picture, and I believe that AceJR's achievements will surpass xanderK's as a Community Manager;  just as I think Milkfat's achievements will surpass mine as a Director of eSports. Not because these people are more passionate about the growth of S2 Games or HoN, but because these employees have seen their predecessors' faults. This is the time for S2 Games to prove it's moved on from being "just an indie company." If these community servants fail, it will be because S2 Games failed them.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

HoN Tour Season 2 Speculation

Woah woah woah, calm down Phil. Talking about Season 2 already? Season 1 hasn't even finished. Yea, it might be a little early to call anything out, but with Milkfat and co already confirming there will be a Season 2, I figured I'd get a little bit of a jump on things. I haven't seen any information about Season 2, so if anyone has anything please post in the comments.

So, I want to first talk about what I proposed for the future when I was working at the office. Not for Season 2, but for the future of HoN Tour.

HoN Tour World Tour

The idea behind the World Tour was to get involved with each of the regions, and pitch HoN Tour to them. So LA, CIS, and SEA would each run their own version of HoN Tour. Either using the same format as INT or using their own method, whatever they wanted to do. Then you would take the Top 4 teams from each region and make a huge 16 team tournament where each region threw in money, say $250,000 for a grand total of $1,000,000. Like DOTA 2's International, only without the biased invites.

What else could HoN/S2 do?

Well, look at what is currently in the works. You got the Garena Star League and now CIS has announced show matches between CIS and EU INT teams. What this says to me is that the partners are getting more invested in promoting their eSports alongside the NA/EU client. Maybe the Star League will be the beginning of a series of LAN arrangements? Similar to what League of Legends has been doing by having a series of LANs at upcoming venues. S2 recently announced with the departure of Tralfamadore that they are looking for a new co-caster that there are plans to attend events like PAX East, PAX Prime and others. There are MANY video game conventions that are held throughout the year where tournaments are possible. HoN has had events at Quakecon, GamesCOM, PAX, DreamHack and then add in things like the Insomnia Series in the UK and the Thailand Game Show, Brazilian Game show etc. There could be something like an 8 stop LAN Tour. Sounds expensive, so if this were the case, S2 would almost HAVE to partner with at least Garena, if not other organizations. Hell, maybe this will be the year we see HoN @ MLG? Who knows.

What about you guys? What kinds of format changes would you like to see if any?

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Complexity.HoN: The Road to Vegas begins to Fade

Could this really be the downfall of Summers unbeatable juggernauts?

Since Dreamhack Winter 2012, Complexity has continued to face increasing competition with current #1 team Trademark eSports dominating them from Dreamhack Winter 2012 Grand Finals through Cycle 3 of HoN Tour, including the 1st and 2nd Cycles as well as the HoN Tour Qualifier. For the first time since anyone can really remember, Complexity found themselves legitimately knocked out of the Winners Bracket prior to the WB Finals by the Stay Green. The sG vs coL match itself garnered its fair share of raised eyebrows as well as drama due to an early "GG" taunt by Moonmeander. Once the match ended with sG coming out on top and Swindle typing "Yo Moon, GG" the meme took off on the forums as well as the Honcast chat. Then, January 12 at 3:21 PM Eastern Standard Time, Q Squad reminded people that they were still around with a 2-0 Victory over Complexity Gaming, knocking them into a 5/6th place finish. To my knowledge, this was the first time Complexity did not finish in the Top 3 of ANY tournament in the last 8 months. This lead to more than a couple raised eyebrows from competitive HoN spectators and players alike.

When Cycle 4 began, hopes weren't much higher for Complexity as sG announced the acquisition of arguably Complexity's best player, Chessie. This placed coL in a tight spot and brought in the last minute addition of LezzQQ, formerly of Blackfade who was away serving in the military until recently. Upon starting the cycle, Complexity struggled to win a Best of Three series against the rag tag Domain of Pain team who had just lost Fittske to Trademark eSports. In Winners Bracket Round 2, coL once again found themselves in a scramble to keep up with a impressive LION squad who inevitably took coL out 2 games to 1. This is the earliest coL had ever been knocked out of the Winner's Bracket of any tournament since their creation (not counting the FF loss they took in the HoN Tour Qualifiers). Things were looking bleak already in Cycle 4, but they were able to rally back hard in the losers bracket with 2-0 victories over DoberonDamp, Pencils and Q sQuad. In Losers Bracket Round 6 however, they found themselves once again up against LION's looking for a bit of redemption. It wasn't to happen however, as LION's eliminated Complexity from Cycle 4 in just two games, forcing coL into a 4th place finish.

Once again, the time between Cycle 4 and 5 saw an adjustment to the roster of Complexity. LezzQQ was out and Riser from Tt eSPORTS was in as the new jungler, allowing coL to return to many of their normal roles. Hopes were high for Complexity as Riser is one of the top players in North American HoN and even Beefpotpie had them taking it all the way. As Cycle 5 started, coL looked very strong with a 2-0 victory over DmSn. Round 2 of the Winners Bracket was like deja vu all over again for coL however, as they faced off against the seemingly unbreakable LION's squad once more; and once more in a three game series LION's came out on top, knocking coL down to the Losers bracket where they would face off against The Fire Rises, who were able to take Trademark eSports to three games earlier in the Cycle. A lot of speculation about the possibility of coL being knocked into a 9-12 place finish was being had in HoN twitch chats. Ultimately, coL was able to dispatch TFR with relative ease, finishing them off in two games. coL then came up against sG for the first time since their loss in Cycle 3. sG showed their abilities to not only think outside the box in picking but also outplayed Complexity in games 1 and 3 of the Best of Three series, leading to another sG win and Complexity to a 7/8th place finish; their lowest of all time.

Surely Complexity must still be a favorite in competitive HoN as we approach the final cycles of HoN Tour, but with Trademark and Stay Green all but securing themselves a slot at the Grand Finals in Vegas in April, that guaranteed 3rd slot is starting to look mighty tempting to a few other teams, notably Q sQuad and LION eSportsklub who are both still competing in Cycle 5 and have the opportunity to catch up on some much needed points. In fact, if QsQ can upset sG and take a 4th place finish they will be at 8,250 points, compared to coL's 8,475 points. If QsQ can finish top 3, they will surpass them. LION's can only make that kind of headway with a total cycle win, but a 2nd place finish would put them at 7,150 points, and within striking distance over the last three cycles.

With the game changing around Complexity, they seem to be struggling to find what roles they are best at. Moon was attempting to transition from suicide into the jungle and now to some other role. Bkid has been playing suicide and it seems that really only 2 members of coL know exactly what is going on with their roles. Franzzii will always be support and Haxxeren will always be the farming carry. I feel like Complexity is going to have to start practicing much more than they have been and their are going to have to look at their drafts as well. I also have concerns around Franzzii as the meta switches into something more aggressive and fast paced. When the game was slow and farm heavy he was able to constantly keep vision up in the right spots and set up calculated ganks. Honestly, I don't know if Franzzii can keep up with an aggressive meta and react to ganks of opportunity rather than preplanned action. He has really only played the dedicated support role for the last 8 months or so, all with Complexity. When he played with his own team, Ayy Man, and prior to that Infused, he played a myriad of other roles, all at a level that was sub par to what he has accomplished with Complexity. If he can't keep up with this meta, he very well may be on the chopping block.

Moonmeander also needs to be looked at under the microscope, as his abilities and technical precision have come into question due largely to his involvement with his girlfriend. Personally, I don't blame the guy, but if you want to be a part of the best team in any sport or esport, you have to have time set aside to hone your craft.

In the end, only time will tell whether Complexity.HoN can get their act together and return to being the top team we all saw over the summer and fall. But for now, there seem to be plenty of teams willing to not only take their place, but give us spectators the exciting lineups and games we've been waiting for.

Anonymous Sources: Tralfamadore as OTP's 6th?

Received this email recently from an anonymous source:

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I think there is something shady going on, not sure..

http://sv.twitch.tv/architiger626/b/364315336
1:18:00 Start

Just something i thought you could investigate and post about on your blog!

Tralf playing as OTP 6th? They trying to keep it secret but they fail and call him by his name on stream multiple times as you can see in the VOD i posted above. Like they listen to everything he says like he is their captain aswell, i refuse to think it is a "random" player/friend that they recently just brought on.

Im curious about why they have him on their HonTour roaster as he is casting at the same time they play!
Mabey you could find out some fun stuff about it and make a post on ur blog :)

http://i.imgur.com/6uZUncc.png Picture of roster
http://i.imgur.com/gG5DwrE.jpg Screenshot from the VOD just to keep you going! Just one of many examples from the VOD.

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So I watched the VOD and it's hard to tell immediately if its a troll tactic or not. Pewe calls StarStuffing "Tralf"  at which point ArchiTiger clears chat, but immediately after Pewe apologizes for "outting star". Upon remake of the game, [HCT]Tralfamadore connects to the server as a spectator and Archi explains to his viewers that it can't be Tralf on StarStuffing because Tralf is spectating.

This type of deception is one of the oldest tricks in the book. And considering the time of day (2PM EST) there are hundreds of PC's at S2's office which he could log into, and join the lobby, or even have Lisa do it for him from home. I'm not saying that's what happened, just that it's entirely possible.

I watched the game via the VOD and noticed a couple things:

1. StarStuffing used the "UncleChicken" skill build (maxing Charge and Whirling Blade and waiting to get Taunt at lvl 10) which is consistent with the way Tralf skill builds when he plays Legionnaire.

2. The APM range for Tralf and StarStuffing are nearly identical when playing Legionnaire.

3. Going into the game client to look for other samples of StarStuffing shows that there are no matches listed directly under the name, but if you type in the matchid from the VOD (110454615) it shows up and is available for download. Could be an error, could be a coverup.

Unfortunately, there is too little to sample of StarStuffing to make a good call out here, but it is definitely interesting. I haven't looked through any of OTP's official matches in HoN Tour to see if StarStuffing has actually competed, but it would be really difficult for Tralf to both cast a game and play in one at the same time... although there has been video evidence that he's been able to dual box and play multiple heroes in the same game or in different games.

What do you guys think? Is it okay for an S2/Honcast member to be on a roster or compete in HoN Tour?

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Finally, Something Worth Writing About...

Be prepared, this is a long one.


Since the beginning of December I started to get really bored with competitive HoN. Not because the scene is bad.. I think competitive HoN is the strongest it's ever been right now; instead I was bored with competitive HoN from a drama aspect. The predictability of well run tournaments with the same rosters and hero lineups doesn't make for a very dramatic time. This issue was ultimately what lead to my disinterest with continuing to update this blog. However, recently a forum post titled "New domain of pain?" caught my interest. Before I go into discussing it I was to preface by saying I have no personal issues with anyone I will mention in this post and hope that anyone who reads this will be as objective as I am attempting to be while writing it.

I knew that Insania was being removed from Trademark (tdM) and replaced by Fittske for awhile, not because Mynuts came to me and told me about it, but because there were obvious issues within Emperor's Domain of Pain (DoP) and always a little passive aggressiveness between certain tdM players and Insania. Anyone who was close to these two parties knew this was on the horizon, even if no one said anything. Following the announcement of Chessie's departure of Complexity (coL) to join Stay Green and the resulting removal of Skyzoe, it was clear to many forum goers and myself that a new Diamond level team was on the cusp of formation. So when Insania announced that he would be joined by Skyzoe, Kebap, LezzQQ and Pewe` (who was already replaced in favor of former coL 6th man Shamsz) I wasn't caught off guard in the least.

Likewise, once Fittske joined tdM I knew that DoP was running on life support. The announcement came a few days ago after DoP chose to forfeit their Sound Blaster Heroes League match on both Emperor's and Testie's streams, with Testie citing his lack of desire to give up a few hours of customer service as well as issuing the statement that he has already proven to himself and everyone else that he is one of HoN's all-time top players. The dissolution of DoP also came to little surprise, as it was apparently impossible for players to either find time to practice or wake up for matches. This saw Heimer and Jeppins make their way to Tt eSPORTS (TteS) to replace Riser who left to fill the gap Chessie left in Complexity; as well as Wytaliba who cited real life issues as a reason to step back to the role of 6th man. Although if you want my opinion, in addition to RL issues; wyt probably also saw this team has having little chance of success after losing the two best players on their team and wanted to go out as being remembered as part of one of the most dominating HoN teams of the 2011-2012 year. Emperor was kind of the odd man out here, but I expect him to join another team (maybe even coL (to support Riser's addiction to dodging LANs)) as a 6th man.

You might be wondering why I typed that third paragraph at all, but I needed to establish that DoP had disbanded. And even though everyone who is gonna read this post probably already knew everything about what I just said, I like to be thorough in my rants to avoid confusion... and because I talk like I type. You all know how much I like to talk. So now on to the discussion at hand:

The "New Domain of Pain"

So DoP is no more, leaving a vacant spot in Diamond Division. Normally this would mean that one team (tdM) gets a free trip to the Round of 8. Except what ended up happening is Insania's team was able to take DoP's slot in Diamond, even though they didn't have any DoP members actively on their roster. Let me be clear on exactly what happened and when (since I have seen some conflicting reports on the forums):

1. Emperor creates DoP during the initial signups with the following roster: Emperor, Fittske, AngryTestie, Ensoe, Jeppins, zeNap (Managers don't count to player add/removes)
2. Ensoe joins TteS after the Qualifiers, Emperor removes Ensoe and adds CHEESEHELMET and Parakletos (additions 1 and 2)
3. Fittske joins tdM after HT Cycle 3, Emperor removes Fittske
4. DoP disbands, CHEESEHELMET and Jeppins move to TteS roster, Parakletos leaves DoP, zeNap and AngryTestie remain on roster, Emperor adds Insania (DoP team is penalized 20% of its points for 3rd roster change)
5. Emperor gives Captain rights to Insania, Insania removes Emperor
6. Insania adds Skyzoe, Kebap, LezzQQ and Shamsz (DoP team is penalized 20% for each of the 4 additions)
7. Domain of Pain roster now reads Insania, LezzQQ, Skyzoe, Shamsz, Kebap and includes AngryTestie and zeNap who have yet to remove themselves

Now that everyone is clear that this is exactly as it happened (I confirmed this with Emperor by the way) we will continue.

Insania's new team The Fire Rises (TFR) replaces DoP in HoN Tour's Diamond Division. Already, this is kinda fucked up from an ethical standpoint, but I'm in favor of letting a team with so much potential go directly to Diamond instead of just stomping on shit teams in Bronze and Silver. That's not fun for anyone, especially not the teams in Bronze and Silver who belong there and are trying to get better by playing against evenly matches opponents. Then I look at the HoN Tour site and realize they are still sitting at 881 points...and this is where I have to draw the line. In typical Phil fashion, I start writing a post of the forums to express my confusion and lack of support for this decision, the post can be found here but I will copy and paste it as well to establish events:

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I don't have a problem with them moving straight to Diamond division. I do, however, have a huge problem with them getting to keep the points that DoP had already earned. If this stands, the current DoP will come in ranked at #15, which is a mere 4 positions away from #11; meaning they will have the opportunity to compete in the tournament to be the 4th team to Vegas. I don't think anyone would put it past a team like this to be able to reach 5th or 6th in the upcoming cycles, especially if they continue to practice like they have been.

4 None QsQ 357 Diamond 6,750 pts

5 None Tt eSPORTS TteS Diamond 4,900 pts

6 None Lions eSportsKlubb LION Diamond 4,650 pts

7 None One Trick Pony OTP Diamond 2,925 pts

8 5 We Are Spies oo7 Diamond 2,790 pts

9 None Absolute Legends aL Diamond 2,425 pts

10 None Team Mistral MlST Diamond 2,420 pts

11 None CutForBieber YoIo Diamond 2,400 pts

12 3 Pencils PNIS Diamond 2,375 pts

13 -5 Fack You Kurdi FYKU Gold 2,350 pts

14 -2 Call It Karma C1K Gold 2,200 pts


So I think it's fair to say that right now there's a real solid Top 4 with Stay Green, Trademark, Q Squad, and Complexity. Then you have Lions and possibly TteS (depending on the level of success they have with their new roster) at 5/6th. I can ABSOLUTELY see this team able defeat any other team in HoN Tour, and I could see them taking a few games off the top teams as well. Giving a team an 800 point headstart is unfair to all the current HoN Tour teams who have fought to earn their way to their current ranking; and even though I genuinely like and have a good relationship with every member of this team, it's a situation that needs to be addressed.
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This is met with some who agree and some who disagree, as well as some who care less about the topic but would like a chance to insult The Thrill (as is to be expected since people often times can't keep their personal distaste for me out of logical arguments.) And later in the day is discussed on the Honcast Podcast when Breaky brings up the topic of TFR replacing DoP in Diamond. Milkfat (the current Commissioner of eSports for S2 and HoN Tour Director) is given an opportunity to speak about why this happened. At this point he states the following (paraphrased for brevity:)

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"I think when we initially made the rules...when a team split, if 3 of that teams players wanted to stay together they could add 2 players and keep their points...I don't think it was an oversight but the players were able to find a loophole, congratulations to them...this is our first time doing a major event like HoN Tour...is this unfair? Maybe? I don't know...in the end what it comes down to is, sweet, someone pointed out a flaw and now I have something to fix."

Shortly after, Breaky brings up the arguement about having Diamond start at zero points, calling 800 points "minimum" and "not a lot in the broad spectrum" and that they will have to "do VERY well to get themselves into the top 11."

Beefpotpie thought it was "sweet and really cool of Emperor to donate his team to Insania." 

Then Zetpro drops this bomb on me: [8:50:04 PM] William "piratkuk/SweetPro" Näslund: i like boobies
[8:50:11 PM] William "piratkuk/SweetPro" Näslund: just wanted you gais to know
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I will address these comments from the last to the first:

Zetpro: Yes.

Beefpotpie: This should do.

Breaky: 881 points is "minimal?" Actually zero points is minimal, that's the definition of minimal. 881 points places them in 38th place in HoN Tour according to Milkfat (even though they are listed at 15 on Hontour.com) and they are competing in the division where they receive the highest amount of points. The one caveat to them having basically an assured spot in the Top 11 is that winning Gold Division is worth 1,000 points, meaning that a team who is worse than them can possible get more points due to winning a lower division match (this needs to be addressed for HoN Tour Season 2.) Assuming that they placed 5-6 (which is completely conceivable) in every cycle from now till the end they would have 4,881 points. That's not taking into consideration that this team could very well have a Top 3/4 finish. So next, I'll use Mistral as an example because I don't think they'll drop down to Gold nor place higher than 9-12 in Diamond. If Mistral places 9-12 in the next 4 cycles they will go from 2,420 to 4,420: this places them below TFR in the rankings and could lead to them being completely knocked out of the Top 11. This stands true for We Are Spies, Absolute Legends and Afraid as well. Given One Trick Pony's somewhat consistent results I think they are already a lock, but even they could be at risk. I just want you all to realize that 881 points is not "minimal," it is a gigantic head start for a powerhouse potential team who is forming half way through a season. If FnaticRaidCall decided to come back to HoN, would you give them an 800 point head start? Food for though.

Milkfat: No. No, no, no, no, no. This should have never been an issue. When you took over the rules were already written for HoN Tour, and granted the rules needed to be updated, there was a clause in the rules that SPECIFICALLY STATED that a team needed to maintain a CORE ROSTER to inherit the points. The core roster was defined as 4 of the original players, and even if you wanted to take that down to 3 players, that would have been fine. But you just straight up OMITTED it. There's on congratulations to be had for Insania, you should feel embarrassed about this situation because it should have been avoided from the very beginning. You know, I believe that as a "Director" you probably will do a better job than I did. I think you have great ability when it comes to planning and coordinating events with partners. But when it comes to running and hosting a league, I gotta be honest when I say I don't see the merit. I wrote over twelve pages of rules for HoN Tour, and the thing is, none of it was fluff. I know how players are. I know how they play pocket lawyer. I know they look for any way to get an edge in on the competition by exploiting administration and other errors. This wasn't an oversight, this was ignorance.

One thing that disappointed me is what has been said officially from S2/Honcast however, is that it's all just a giant cop-out. The truth of the matter is, you control what happens and what doesn't happen. Do you think that in real sports if a player is found to have abused an illegal substance after the fact that they just say, "HAH, YOU GOT US! CONGRATS BUT IT WONT HAPPEN AGAIN!!!!" Or do you think the Olympics would allow a player to argue semantics like "you just said steroids were banned, you never said anything about HGH!????" No. They strip your titles, your medals, your awards. Just recently Lance Armstrong was stripped of his gold medal after admitting to using steroids, and thats basically what happened here. A new team, The Fire Rises, used steroids and got 881 points to start off with.

The thing that disappointed me the most however, is how these guys all claim to be lovers of eSports, yet do nothing to protect it. eSports doesn't exist to serve you guy, you guys exist to promote eSports. Oversights like this can't happen. You're letting a team walk over you because of your personal relationships with the players, saying otherwise is a lie. You wanna be an admin? You wanna be in charge? You gotta be able to make tough decisions. When I took over as Director of eSports back in January 2012 and my shit was getting pushed in on the forums I just stomached it. When I found out Pika used Nir as a "dirty ringer" I penalized Buch and his team, and that was hard because he's one of the closest friends I have in HoN. You wan't people to take eSports seriously? You want it to last long enough for you to have a job in it 5 years from now? You gotta treat it seriously and with respect. There was nothing "right" about what happened here, nothing was "ok" or "acceptable." What happened is morally wrong, and more importantly it undermines the legitimacy of HoN Tour as a respectable eSport event.

I won't comment on what I'm reading on the forums now about the FIT situation, as I don't have that much information, but I sincerely hope that what I do understand of it isn't true. Otherwise, be ashamed.