Alexander “HughZ” Hughes

Over the weekend of the 26th & 27th of November the Hi-Rez Oceania championships took place, hosted in the world class ESL Australia facilities and the event culminated in last year’s champions (or at least the core of them) Team Pandamonium retaining the title of Regional Champions and reclaiming their personal title of best in the region. Their opponents in the Grand Final – Avant Garde, the same team who beat them 3 – 0 in the Split 2 Finals and held a 3 – 1 record against them during the regular split. The weekend wasn’t all about Pandamonium though as all teams stepped up their game to give us one of the most entertaining spectacles in both Oceanic SMITE and competitive SMITE history.

Semi-final 1

Avant Garde 3 v 1 Alpha Sydney

Our first set saw Split 2 Champions and number 1 seed for this tournament, Avant Garde, taking on plucky underdogs Alpha Sydney. Upheaval for Alpha Sydney within their roster saw long time ADC Juan “Ranabarana” Domingo Jimenez Vasquez replaced by newcomer Regan “Liimits” Bell. Despite Liimits having been a name within the SMITE OCE community for quite some time, this was actually his first competitive experience ever: his first competitive SMITE game ever was on the biggest stage SMITE OCE has had this year. Despite concerns about nerves for a first time player, Liimits shone in the LAN environment and many thought he was Alpha Sydney’s top performer. Though they took a game off of the top-seed Avant, Alpha Sydney still struggled with drafting and playing around their team composition and despite a much better performance than many were expecting, they fell to the composed and controlled Avant squad.

Semi-final 2

Team Pandamonium 3 v 1 Legacy eSports

Similarly to Alpha Sydney, Legacy eSports entered this set in a state of change. Having

made several different roster moves throughout Split 3, the team settled back into their original roster that saw them dominate the regular season of Split 2 but fall flat at the finals. Team Pandamonium had made a number of changes between Split 2 and 3, adding Incite players Alex “Kikiomeo” Gallaugher and Kurtis “Biggy” Davidson in the solo lane and coaching position respectively, Captain Daniel “Rowe” Rowe moving back to his natural position in the jungle and moving then jungler Maxen “Maxen” Williams to ADC. Whilst this roster experienced growing pains, notably a 2 – 0 loss to Avant Garde in Week 6 of the regular split, it was still highly regarded in the scene and Legacy struggled to match up with them during the season. At the finals, all four games were closely contested, with Legacy holding a lead at various points throughout every game. However, Pandamonium’s experience and incredible ability to exploit any opening saw them narrowly escape defeat at the hands of Legacy.

Grand Final

Avant Garde 1 v 3 Team Pandamonium

Looking at the semi-finals and the skill with which Legacy displayed against Pandamonium and the closeness of the Avant-Alpha Sydney set, many observed that the Pandamonium-Legacy set was the real grand final and that this would be an easy win for the Pandas. Avant Garde quickly dispelled that notion, with Game 1 being largely controlled in the early game by Avant. However, a small miss step was all it took to allow Team Pandamonium back into the game and regain control. Other than a one-sided game 3, in which Avant Garde completely dominated Pandamonium, this was the tale of all 4 games – Avant would gain an early lead but Pandamonium would farm efficiently enough to keep themselves in the game, take an advantageous fight or objective and then snowball their lead into a victory.

“All you need to have is some patience and a good amount of trust in your team.” – Daniel ‘Rowe’ Rowe

Talking about the series, Rowe remarked “Short of some severe drafting mistakes, our team has always had the ability and mentality to bring back games even from large deficits. We’ve experienced it all before in scrims, so being behind in the early game versus Avant wasn’t really a concern. I don’t think there are any big secrets in keeping calm when under pressure like that, all you need to have is some patience and a good amount of trust in your team.” Pandamonium now looks towards the SMITE World Championship and their first opponent, Obey Alliance, in a bid to make the region proud of their efforts over the last year and to make the international community take notice of the Oceanic Region.