Earlier in the week, the champion of that tournament was crowned and they will represent the HoN community in the Pro vs. Community Challenge with $1000 on the line. The winners were Team Puuhiksen Orjat! The team hails from Finland and is comprised of: Puuhis, ArttuD2, stubeh, Hirojiro and ramada. The whole team was very excited about their victory and, after battling through the Community bracket, are excited to play against the pros.

“Felt great to win it and getting the chance to play versus the pros is awesome,” said ArttuD2.

Inspired by the community, Mid Wars is now an integral part of HoN and a very popular mode in matchmaking. Since they’re used to competing on Forest of Caldavar, the map might not be as familiar to our pro players but our community players are experts.

“We really like the map and it’s pretty entertaining,” said ArttuD2. “Teleports were also a pretty good idea.”

Now the questions will be asked: can the community’s knowledge help them defeat the professional players? Or will the pros, fresh off the intense DreamHoN competition, come out on top? Stay tuned to dreamhon.com throughout today’s games to see who will face off against Puuhiksen Orjat for $1000!

The event began with Blackfade. The young guns from Europe came out hot, winning their first few games, including a victory over Fnatic. LezzQQ was playing extremely well and, despite their inexperience at LAN events, they looked poised to make a run at the championship.

Enter Trademark eSports.

With a big win against Blackfade, the North American qualifiers put themselves at the forefront of the event. They're confident in their abilities and seemed keen to finally make it to the big stage. After two disappointing finishes in LAN events late last year, Trademark looked ready to finally take those last steps to the finals.

Then there’s the team that found their way to the finals at Dreamhack Winter. Tt eSports continued their success in Sweden as they finished the Group Stage in first place with an impressive 6-1. Not an easy feat given the quality of teams here. Slickz has been the best player at the event, dominating in seemingly every single game. He’s always been considered a phenomenal player and there’s no bigger time to step up than now.

But it was the team with the biggest target on their backs that had the most interesting Day #1 story. Fnatic comes into this event as the three time Dreamhack champions and it was clear early that they began the event in an uncharacteristic slump. They dropped games to Blackfade and Orange eSports and it looked as though the champs were on the ropes. But as winners do, they rallied. By the time the first day was over, the boys from Fnatic had handed losses to Tt eSports and Trademark eSports, two of the favorites in the event. They made it very clear- to win at Dreamhack, the road goes through Fnatic.

“It shows a lot of toughness from us. We also think we can give Tt eSports a good challenge. It’s a good stage to be at,” said Ramonik, one of the Blackfade managers at the event.

After a hot start, in which LezzQQ was featured on Bubbles with some extremely dominant play, Blackfade ran into Trademark eSports. Unfortunately for our EU qualifiers, they were unable to pull out the win in that match. However, they remain optimistic, especially after getting a win over MUFC in their next game.

“It’s a matter of looking forward. We didn’t really expect to win over Fnatic so that’s a great thing to look at,” said Ramonik. “We expected a big challenge from Trademark and Tt eSports. Now we’ve beaten one of those so that’s a good result to on to the next stages.”

After taking down GA, TDM had to go up against the tough EU team, Blackfade, who was dominating in their earlier matchups. But TDM came out strong and took the win. After that, the team was in high spirits.

“Confident, man,” said Moonmeander of his team, “Before I woke up today, I thought Fnatic would be our go-to rival. That they were going to bring their A-game and so far it doesn’t look like they’re bringing their top game. I’m more focused on Tt eSports at the moment and the BYOC.”

This is a tournament full of top teams and each match is a vital one. Getting an early win like TDM has over a top team can make or break the entire event. The whole team has previous LAN experience at Dreamhack Winter and NASL at the end of 2011. Surely, they’re applying what they learned there to find their current success. When asked about the rest of the tournament, Moonmeander cracked a smile and spoke confidently.

“All feeling good.We’re stepping our game up.”

Interestingly, both Orange eSports and MUFC took losses in fairly one sided matches. Blackfade got their win on the back of a strong performance by LezzQQ, who led the team with superb Bubbles play. Fnatic got a quick win over MUFC as the defending champs continued their unprecedented success at Dreamhack.

Next, Blackfade and Fnatic will face each other in a highly anticipated match between the top EU teams in the world!

Players woke up this morning (some of them in a foreign country) to the realization that if they perform well over the next two days, they have a chance at a chunk of the $60,000 prize pool. With the first place prize alone set at $32,000, each team here is intent on having its name written on that big champion check and forever immortalized in HoN eSports history.

“S2 Games is proud to support the ever growing community of gamers across the globe and will look to maintain Heroes of Newerth as a competitive eSports title for years to come,” said Phil Haller, Director of eSports for S2 Games. “This prize pool is a ‘gift’ back to the gamers who have supported HoN over the last 2 plus years.”

But that was yesterday - today, the time for practice is over. In just a few hours, the games will start. The stage is set. Who will rise to the challenge and become your DreamHoN champion?