It was a thrilling series that the SEA Champions Orange eSports and the currently best NA/EU team Stay Green - probably also the best team in the world. The series went to all three matches, in the end Stay Green reigned supreme.
| SBHL Quarterfinals | ||
 Stay Green |  Orange eSports |
Game 1
The first game of the series started out a bit passive, only interrupted by Chessie and ZfreeK roaming into the middle lane, assisting swindlemelonzz in getting Firstblood. Unfortunately for Stay Green melonzz' Deadwood died in the process and so the advantage out of that was marginal at best. Still an advantage was there and in a slow paced match with only tower pushing going on at first, that advantage remained on Stay Green's side. After 10 minutes the team had a 4k Gold lead, after 13 minutes following a kill, a tower push and stolen ancients already 6,5k.
Still the game remained passive or as Beef put it "calculated" from both teams. They tried to limit their mistakes and go secured into a later game phase, banking on coordination on sG's side and a farmed Draconis on Orange's side. In that stage of the match it all boiled down to the farming contest between sLiCKz on Torturer and dabeliuteef playing the raging Dragon - with sLiCKz winning that battle early on, participating in the kills.
The longer the game went, the better the chances of the Malaysian powerhouse got with a strong late-game carry like Draconis in their lineup. They were very aware of that situation and played the game very smart with picking up farm in safe lanes without committing too much. At the 25 minute mark Stay Green felt comfortable enough to make a push in the middle lane, after picking off Moraxus moments before. That heavy push promted a Buyback from the strength initiator and lead to Orange eSports putting up an impressive stance and a 2-0 hero kill advantage to close in on the stat lead.
After that fight both teams went back to farming for a little longer, until Stay Green once again decided to push a secondary tower: This time the top lane. While the Miami team initiated, dabeliuteef experienced a drop from the game, which left Orange eSports literally no fighting chance in that instance. Fortunately for them they already were in retreat mode and only lost two heroes and not even the tower.
Despite that unfortunate situation the morale of Orange was not broken and Draconis took over the game slowly but surely. A skirmish at Kongor brought Orange some breathing room, the Token of Life and a severe cut into the statistical lead of Stay Green, but at a high cost. In order to make that fight favorable for them, they needed to spend quite a lot of money on Buybacks and were out of those on Rally and Moraxus heading into the late game.
Still with Draconis in their midst they fought of Stay Green in the next two engagements with a combined trade of 7-1 in favor of the Malaysians. With those two big clashes they took over the Gold and Experience lead, claimed another Token of Life from Kongor and were looking more comfortable with Draconis setting the battlegrounds on fire and wreaking havoc.
Stay Green tried to make a stance on numerous occasions, but the fully farmed Draconis with a new Shrunken Head delivered at the 60 minute mark was just too much to overcome. Another lost fight at the Kongor Pit brough Orange the third Token, their first Bananas and the opening to wreck the base in the top and middle lane. It wasn't the end just yet, but after yet another obliteration at the breath of the fiery dragon the NA/EU Champions called it quits.
Game 2
After the epic battle on Map 1 in a 70 minute game, Stay Green brought the pain on the second map. They scored Firstblood early on in the middle lane with Aluna snipping Pharaoh, triggering a total onslaught by sG. In the entire 23 minutes of playing time Orange eSports couldn't get a single kill against the strong Miami team, that played the game almost to perfection.
It was an absolute relentless outing of dominance that Stay Green put out with a good defensive stand early on in the game that snowballed throughout the game. It was actually even worse than snowballing, as it became an avalanche just rolling over Orange. dabeliuteef on Sand Wraith was still able to farm a quick 19 minute Mock of Brilliance, but at that point his team was already down 0-16 in kills and 18k in Gold and Experience.
In the end it was 0-22 against Orange eSports after 23 minutes, when the Malaysian team decided to concede and go for the third and final match.
Game 3
The third game started out with some internet issues by dabeliuteef and Stay Green running a Double Jungle strat. In unrelated news Stay Green absolutely obliterated Orange eSports for the second time in a roll with sLiCKz starting the massacre against Bubbles. After that initial fall sG added four more unanswered kills and Orange eSports only hope was pinned on a free farming Forsaken Archer.
In the end even the free farm on that carry couldn't help the SEA Champions from Malaysia, as sG was just outclassing them. Every time it looked decent for Orange eSports going into a fight, sG found the perfect answer for it or made a big play out of nowhere. It wasn't as bad as the second map with ORGE getting at least some kills, but the outing was lopsided once again.
16 minutes into the game Orange eSports was already so far behind, that even the fighting SEA team pushed through the vote to concede. Stay Green marches on in the tournament and will face the winner of Lions eSports against QsQ, while Orange eSports takes home $1,000 USD from the SoundBlaster Heroes League.
