Online Kingdom have won the ESL Major Series VIII HoN tournament after defeating Jokes on you in the finals with a 2-1 result.

On their way there, they 2-0'd plan-B and came on top of Fnatic in a close 2-1 series. Their opponents, the sole non-European team in the tournament, won against Regret and Infused Gaming in the earlier stages with 2-0 and 2-1 results, respectively.

Grand Finals

Online Kingdom 2 - 1 Jokes on you

The first game of the series started out great for the Europeans as all three of their lanes had a significant lead over their opponents. Kai 'H4nn1' Hanbückers was particularly impressive as Wildsoul, winning against his lane opponent and grabbing an early tower kill to solidify his teams position. While Jokes on you focused their efforts on shutting down Aluna's farm, he and Mathias-Benjamin 'SemiJew' Larsen on Corrupted Disciple were starting to get "fat". The mixed Canadian/US/Australian team put up a few good fights but eventually their base defenses were breached and Online Kingdom took the lead.

Jokes on you pulled the Nymphora strategy out of their sleeves for the second map. She was being played by Matthew 'jaH`' Penaroza who made sure to use the ultimate whenever it was off cooldown to try and set-up a gank alongside Kan 'AMXZaku' Johnson's Magmus. Marc 'Mag1x' Müller's Aluna failed to get a significant amount of farm and after Online Kingdom got genocided around the 30 minute mark, they voted for concede, although the game didn't seem decided yet from a spectators point of view.

Online Kingdom dominated the last game from the get-go and Jokes on you never looked like they had a chance. They did a great job with a Pebbles trilane which scored kills back-to-back, which in turn drew the focus away from Mathias-Benjamin 'SemiJew' Larsen's Soulstealer with whom he pretty much freefarmed in the middle lane and jungle. After grabbing the early lead, they decided not to utilize Kai 'H4nn1' Hanbückers's Nymphora ultimate as much as their enemies did in the previous game and instead sat back and made sure they keep their lead. A positioning mistake, however, was almost costly as they got genocided - not much came out of it though, as one of them bought back in order to be able to defend the incoming push. Their lead was still overwhelming though and after grabbing a couple kills they went in for the final base push in which they succeeded.

ESL Major Series VIII HoN - Standings:
1. Online Kingdom - €2500 ($3630)
2. Jokes on you - €1500 ($2180)
3. Fnatic / Infused Gaming - €1000 ($1450)

ESL Major Series VIII HoN Brackets