Favorites, to battle! - 6 - The Battle of Favorites! - 6

Thanks everyone for the congratulations!

For me, the tournament was very difficult; almost all games were tough. From the very beginning I considered and still consider Necro to be the favorite on these templates. I spent a long time choosing between Flux (my favorite), Necro (promising for victory), and Tower (I was curious to see how much the situation had changed after the mage bans were lifted). But Flux is still my favorite, the most interesting for me and one of the most difficult to execute. One of the biggest difficulties is the virtual absence of a main damage-dealing stack. So some templates were automatically ruled out.

I don't even remember such a tense final; even the one with Alex in m200 was probably easier. Then there's this horrible best-of-3 format and the upper bracket advantage... And the opponent's Necros... And Satyr, one of our strongest players, who reached the grand final undefeated...
The fate of first place could have been decided by any, even minor, mistake from either side. That's exactly what happened in the second game, where the situation was unwinnable for me. If I had lost that game, my position would have become very dire.
I only believed in my victory on the last day of the third game, when I saw Galtran on an angel...
I thank Satyr for the incredibly sharp competition; I got the maximum adrenaline.

Thanks to Vitaliy for his insistent advice to play on Jebus (before every final game, he explained that I had no alternative and everything else would be even worse :( ), which I dislike and try to remove, and while Galtran can be picked right away there, with Necros I had to choose the lesser of all evils. Each time I secretly hoped that Satyr would ban Jebus himself so I could choose something more acceptable to me, but no, nothing of the sort...

I also thank all my opponents in the tournament for the interesting games and the fans for their support.

...Now that's awesome, Petya wins every tournament he participates in...

No, that's an illusion I've created—I write very big reports about victories and small confirmations of defeats, so it seems that way :D In reality, on average I manage to win one out of four tournaments.
About 3 years ago, my motivation decreased significantly. But I really wanted to win this tournament. As Satyr said, yes, becoming a two-time winner of one of our most prestigious tournaments is a worthy goal. So I understand him very well; I too would have been extremely disappointed to go 8 months to reach the final and then lose.

...The only unpleasant thing is that we didn't see a single stream from the reigning champion...

I don't have the technical capability to stream—low internet speed, which suits my family for everything except streaming, and since I play 1-2 games per month, I see no point in changing my plan or provider. I sometimes do streams via TV. But I wouldn't have streamed this final anyway; I don't have much streaming experience and it distracts me greatly, and here the cost of a mistake was too high.

I want to thank my colleagues—the hosts and judges—Scorpiona and Dagr were very helpful during the group stage when I was extremely limited in the time I could dedicate to Heroes. Valera-Dagr did great statistics throughout the tournament. Gomunguls and I were in constant contact and consulted on all contentious issues. I am also grateful to the judges from AK, who quickly helped in several disputed situations.