Posts from CIS 2019, Georgia, Tbilisi. Auto-translated

Dave, congratulations! A well-deserved victory and a great final!
Wojciech also played an excellent game!

Dave, congratulations.
Everything you said is spot on. Top-notch gameplay and APM. :smile20:

Congratulations to all participants for attending the event and enjoying the great city.

Finalists, you are the best in the CIS region this year. Congratulations. It's a pleasure to watch you play.

Dave, congratulations on the victory, keep it up! :smile54: It was interesting to watch your game! Wojciech, take care of the timer with the young one))) and hide mom under dad, then everything will be fine.

Excellent games, congratulations to the champion and the winners.

Congratulations, Dave. Thank you for the streams.

SMOrc
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SMOrc
Congratulations for the decent CIS champion.

Almost made it home. Thanks to the organizers for the tournament, and to everyone who supported me for their encouragement. I really enjoyed the wine, food, and nature in Georgia. A word about the games, if anyone is interested:
The most engaging game was the match against Kaliban. In the semifinals, I jumped to the opponent's respawn on day 125, captured a town with a mage guild that already had Town Portal and Armageddon, as well as almost all the power on first-level creatures, and he didn't surrender. It turned out he had already pulled a Dimension Door scroll from a utopia. After a long chase where the opponent gained an advantage over me in map control due to angels and a very conveniently located Conflux (a split one cell apart), he exposed his Kyrre to my Armageddon (he built upgraded efreets that day and gained +1 speed, surprising the opponent who had counted on his speed advantage). And that plan worked because I had earlier Armageddoned the opponent's Gurni down by -1 angel (belly +6 to SP and КО), leaving only 2 angels in the main stack.
The match against Falcon was one-sided, not much to talk about.
Regarding the game against Dave: I think I played the first week quite quickly, it's just that the map required many difficult fights. But then the lack of a timer killed my Miriam. Many small mistakes and a few major ones — against Dave that means zero chance.

Ave dAve, congratulations for fantastic game quality. What you deserved last year came back in this :P

made it home. And again, it was an adventure, just like on the way to Tbilisi. I left around 12 pm to meet the BlaBlaCar driver. First, he said he would be late, so I started looking for another one (in the end, the new one offered 1000 rubles and could have left in 5 hours, but I declined). Then the first one arrived, and I went with him. After 60 km, the car broke down. Luckily, we managed to hitch a ride (an Armenian was driving to Kazakhstan), and the driver reluctantly agreed to take us to Vladikavkaz for 500 rubles. We drove through Kazbek: heavy rain and hail. In short, I was in Vladikavkaz at 6 pm. On the 8th, I flew to Rostov, and on the 9th, I flew to Samara. I was glad to see everyone: old and new Heroes players. As usual, it was fun and interesting. Thanks to the organizers for the event! See you soon!!

Photos and videos from the event: https://yadi.sk/d/-FfwPJkPur6GOQ

And who won the football match?

I completely missed this tournament; I didn't even have time to check the results. Congratulations to Dave on his victory, well done! He deserved it! Wojciech also did a great job, but you've already achieved everything, because the Siberian championship is better than the CIS championship :D

I finally made time to create a post, so here it is.

Round 1 vs MinasMorgul, SOD 6lm10a
Map looked great, I had a lot of money initially and Thant arrived in tavern, got expert necro fast. Then my only road ended in one-way exit (as red player), but fortunately it wasn't so bad because further offroad I found continuation of road. On 117 found boots, and on 121 killed fortress AI so I had some more army. Took some hives on week 2 and built MG, got TP on first try and Thant had perfect development, so no complaints there. Even got Galthran mid week 2, so I developed him for the late game. After this, my luck quickly fell down as my 2 topes were both mini and got +2all only. Then didn't get DD or Fly from 5 spells in tower. Towards late week 3 I didn't have good stats or DD, but fortunately opponent's situation was not great either and he conceded.

Round 2 vs Redwhait, SOD Mini-Nostalgia
I bought a pretty expensive flux, and we both used all restarts. Final map was nothing great, I got luna but basically no objects to take with her. Roads were quite bad, I had stables in my zone but still felt like an eternity to reach my AIs. My most decent hero was Broghild, but could not develop him fast. Since 121 I built/rebuilt MG every day, and got tp in 5 tries. I visited lava treasure but only found 3 hives, 1 cons and +4all. Scouted some topes in underground treasure, and one in dungeon AI zone. Most of these were really bad, the only good tope gave blue hat and +5all, I'm pretty sure opponent had full control before me, and even started clearing my last treasure before I could get there. I developed many supports, and started taking towns, but then Dessa appeared with similar army and AOTD+red orb, and continued to sit in central stronghold for the remaining game. This didn't allow me to control the map because I had no chance to defeat AOTD, except if I can assemble it too. Turns out the skull helmet was quest, so this map gave me slim chances for winning. I killed 2 supports of opponent, but at the cost of my Monere because I forgot to exchange wings and had no movement left to TP home. Even with support hero advantage, I could not take over map control because there were 2 sanctuaries in center of map, and even though I controlled both initially, later I lost these out of necessity / timer mistake. I could imagine 2 ways to win: take map control somehow and farm demons, then eventually get stronger, or allow him to attack me on swamp, where my monarchs are speed 16 and I surrender. Obviously, the second choice required no shackles on Dessa. I didn't really have safe towns left so I camped in my fortress town, outside of garrison to avoid instantly being slowed by AOTD. I could not surrender because of shackles, but I got morale in first round on my big stack on monarchs, and this basically destroyed Dessa's similar sized monarch stack, because I had a bit more stats and expert offense + wyvern specialist hero. So even though my situation looked completely hopeless, this morale gave me win in the end. I could not believe it.

Round 3 vs HellLight, SOD Diamond
I still had 1x111 left, but decided to play because I saw flux AI close to me with trade post and easy hive. Plus there was an easy box in my zone, which gave me 40 gargoyles. This allowed me to take 2 big hives on the first week already, and got a lucky scroll with TP on it. At the end of first week I recruited Gunnar, and developed him on second week. Tempo was really great, could take big cons early week 2, then more objects and boxes, and after constructing lvl4 guild I could easily expand into many directions. Took first tope on 124 with +12 att and +12 def, on 126 mini tope with +6all. On 127 I built angels in castle AI's town, and with angel dwelling, 2 dungeon portals this resulted in more than 15 archangels. Game ended on 131-132 when I stumbled upon enemy scout with army and artifacts. I didn't have DD all game, but had everything else I needed.

Round 4 vs Jelen117, HOTA 6lm10a
I have no idea how imba red vs blue is in hota, from what I heard the roads are well balanced so I picked blue fortress. The roads turned out to be my only complaint initially, but I could not restart it because tempo was great with mini cons from first day. Then with split armies I cleared my swamp, and flux AI's zone. Had a lot of time consuming fights with just 2 wyverns and 4 serpent flies vs lvl1-2 units. Still, my timer was not bad despite the many fights, I bought earth magic for drakon so I can take big cons 121. It turned out to be 100 griffs, and my wisdom suffered because I wanted to max expert earth. I got a lucky first roll of TP+Res, but got DD on 6 tries I think. I developed Daremyth, Mirlanda, Dessa for supports, and took tope on 126, but got gold sack. Meanwhile I already saw huge spell power on opponent, which meant I am dead in a potential final battle. I found another tope in swamp supertreasury, my reward was dragon scale armor and fire book (for my 4 spellpower :D ). So I was still marginally weaker because of stats, and was sure that I am dead once I saw full control on opponent. Somehow he didn't catch me, and I sent Daremyth off to kill cove AI on the far left side of the map. This journey took 2 days, but turned out to be my winning move because from that cove town I reached opponent's castle, and killed Miriam there with boots+gloves. Soon after Jelen gave up, even though he still had 2 good supports and big stats, so I was surprised when I saw the playback. But in the end, I miraculously won.

I didn't plan to win this tournament, because to be honest, there are many players that could beat me with similar maps. The competition is more fierce than it ever was. I needed some luck and opponents mistakes to win. I think the homm3 "meta" needs a revolution if the top players want to stay top players. :D
Thank you all for the congratulations, it's a great feeling. I've met some great people on this event as well, hope to make it to next SNG. Until then, SMOrc

Better late than never, congratulations to Dave on his victory! I hope the guys from Europe continue to participate in this tournament. And who knows, maybe they'll even start organizing their own!