Five weeks of preparation, five weeks of build up and it was all over in under an hour. iMpunity protected their home turf against the Dota 2 team from Zenith and successfully completed the "Smackdown" on the Singapore team from iceiceice.
When Zenith first showed up in the Garena Stadium to play exhibition matches, it was more than clear that they were not familiar with the game of HoN whatsoever. That impression changed over the last four weeks, as they showed a lot of improvement, more knowledge of the game and better laning presence against the next challengers. Last week's opponent PixieBaby even stated, that they have improved a lot over the last month, but iMpunity was still the favorite in the direct clash.
That statement proved to be very true, as the Singapore team from Zenith absolutely dominated their opponents from Valve's MOBA hit. On Map One iMp got their hands on strong heroes like Fayde, Silhouette and Wildsoul for the suicide long lane, which proved to catch Zenith off guard a little bit. The laning phase was pretty balanced, but when the mid game approached iMp took over and dominated every team fight, every gank and every encounter. With Fayde picking up a Quad Kill, followed by a Hattrick for Silhouette, the game went south very fast for Zenith, who had to sit in their fountain and watch their shrine getting destroyed by enemy creeps and iMp heroes.
The second map showed some very unusual lineups with Zenith running Forsaken Archer, Andromeda and Behemoth in a long trilane with Tempest middle and Pyromancer suicide short. Unfortunately for Pyromancer he had to play against the aggressive trilane setup of Amun-Ra, Rhapsody and Master of Arms, who absolutely obliterated the defenseless magician. Zenith was unable to adjust to the lineup and Amun-Ra scaled out of control with a Shaman's Headdress and Helm of the Black Legion completed well before the 15 minute mark, followed by the Barrier Idol pickup around the 15 minute mark.
On top of that seriously tanky presence of Ra, Monkey King and Chipper on the solo lanes had an enjoyable time themselves. Chipper managed to stand his ground against Zenith's tri-lane and Monkey King getting good farm against Tempest. In the end it did not really matter, because once Amun-Ra was somewhere near the fight, Zenith just melted to the ground. In the end the game was as one-sided as can be - the score of 3-40 hero kills tells the whole story.
iMpunity therefore protected their honor, the honor of Heroes of Newerth and their status in the SEA scene. On top of that iMp gets a purse of $5,000 SGD (~ $4,000 USD) for their victory. Still Zenith stepped up to the challenge in a game, that they don't play for living and they showed dedication in the last weeks with good hours of practice and getting in shape. Unfortunately iMpunity proved to be to much for the Singapore Dota 2 team, that had to surrender their team jersey in the sign of defeat.
