Hidden Cup 2 Main Event

The Hidden Cup 2 main event is almost here! After a highly competitive qualifier we have our 16 main event participants!

Participating Players

Mr_Yo​

MbL40C​

TheViper​

Liereyy​

TheMax​

Hera_​

Nicov​

DauT​

BacT​

TaToH​

Villese​

Tim​

Vivi​

ACCM​

dogao​

JorDan_23​

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Schedule

Thursday 11th April 13GMT - Round of 16 (part 1, 4x Best of 5s)​

Friday 12th April 13GMT - Round of 16 (part 2, 4x Best of 5s)​

Saturday 13th April 13GMT - Quarter Finals (4x Best of 5s)​

Sunday 14th April 13GMT - Semi Final 1​

Sunday 14th April 16GMT - Semi Final 2​

Sunday 14th April 19GMT - Grand Final​

CaptureAge

T90Official will proudly be using Capture Age for the entirety of the event.​

CaptureAge, created by Dico & SirLaurenceNZ, allows Age of Empires 2 to be broadcast in ways that have never been seen before! The CaptureAge team have developed many exciting features to reveal during the event.This makes Hidden Cup 2 all the more exciting!​

Prediction Competitions & Contests

There is a prediction contest live on the challonge page for the bracket (found here). People can predict which user accounts will progress through the bracket up until the 10th April. The 3 users with the highest score at the end of the tournament will earn a $25 Amazon Gift Card​

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There will also be a Guess the Player contest below T90Official's Stream where, during the course of the final day's stream viewers can guess which player is playing as which account. They will need to submit their guesses before the player reveal after the Grand Final on Sunday 14th April. The 3 users with the most correct guesses will earn a $25 Amazon Gift Card.​

If you want the best chances at working out who the players are, make sure you check out the stream to see how the players play and who is winning!​

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Additionally, the player who's identity is guessed the least often will earn themselves $100. That means if they can successfully hide who their identity and deceive twitch chat, they can earn​

themselves an additional prize.​

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Hidden Cup 2 Talkshow

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T90Official will host a talk show on Sunday the 7th of April. T90 & Dave will discuss Hidden Cup 1, the settings, players, and expectations for the event. More details on this to follow.​

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Prizepool & Contributors

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Total Prize Pool - $10,300​

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1st - $3,000​

2nd - $2,000​

3rd/4th - $1,000​

5-8th - $600​

9-16th - $100​

Least Guessed Player in Guessing Competition - $100​

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Contributors​

Microsoft - $5,000​

T90Official - $2,750​

LeglessAlex - $2,500​

Community Donations - $50​

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Big thanks to Microsoft and LeglessAlex for the huge support! Anyone who would like to contribute towards T90Official's costs towards prizepool, graphics, admins etc will also be credited and can do so here. Any support is greatly appreciated!​

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Best of luck to the players and the fans! I hope it is an enjoyable event!​

 

[Chainsaw]

I would've followed every Max game had I known when he was playing. The final would've been so much hype had everyone known it was Max. Just cause you know who's playing doesn't mean you can't cheer for who's playing well @-Mir85- . In fact, it might make it more interesting knowing it's a "new" player making his way to the top.

 

[kalkkaro]

Speaking of which, I’ve been getting the feeling that for TaToH and especially MbL, there is the potential to take a major tournament from TheViper in the not-too-distant future. Both seem really solid and yet still getting better. MbL in particular seems to be playing with a potent combination of good instinctive adaptability and strong mechanics (and maybe a touch more confidence in his more dominating games). Perhaps the chances aren’t as high as a motivated Lierry, but I wouldn’t necessarily feel it was unexpected if they did win.

TheMax had this tournament basically in his pocket already being 3-1 ahead and having 3 match points to take the victory. This time the pressure was too much but surely we must admit that TheMax got closest to beat Viper in major 1v1 tournament than anyone in a long long time. It was his first major 1v1 final ever. He is much less experienced than Liereey, Mbl or Tatoh in that regard which makes this even more impressive. Definitely my #1 bet for the first to slay TheViper, he just needs more experience from playing in finals to feel confident in that situation - or just a tiny bit better rng when being 3-1 ahead .

 

[Tarsiz]

The semifinal and the final of the event were among the highest quality games I've ever seen, in terms of skill and gameplay, right at the top along with the memorable final of KotD 1 and the semis & final of KotD 2. There were a few 3-0s in the draw but no match appear really one-sided. A few games definitely were but that is bond to happen anyway. I feel like this goes to show seeding is not necessarily adding to the competitiveness of the event (I guess it evens things out: it makes first rounds less interesting to maximize the chance of having balanced match-up in the later stages of the tournament). Obviously you could have an "extreme worst case scenario" of Viper/Liereyy and MbL/Max in the first round in the same quarter of the draw but it's unlikely to happen.

A combination of factors led to this incredible quality of games we had during all the event and especially yesterday. Shorter formats (BO5, BO7) are more exciting yet long enough to be competitive (the only "upsets" I can think of in the tournament would be Yo beating TaToH and TheMax beating Yo, but then again, all three of these players could potentially be called top 5 players so are these really upsets?), the selection of maps was great (Cup & Bay are amazing new additions) and the fact that no civ had a dominant advantage on any of the maps made the drafting fair and interesting.
A total of 20 (out of a possible 31) different civs were drafted during the event, with Slavs, Malians & Mongols being the most popular ones.

On the top of my head, the only thing that comes to mind to further improve the competitiveness of the event would be to ensure that none of the finalists has to play the final straight after the semis. But I don't know how realistic that would be as it would likely increase the duration of the event by at least one day.

The guessing competition was so much fun! While I understand people want to root for X or Y, I really spent hours trying to guess who was who, discussing about the potential players' quirks, their interactions in chat, their ways of playing, etc... It's not a super fun game for the viewers and the casters to try, but I think it also has another really positive impact: it casts a light on the playstyle of players that would normally be less known than others.
TheMax is the obvious example but I was also personally super impressed by how sharp MbL was playing (sure he was Liereyy until the start of the semifinal) and in general it goes to show how incredibly good all of these players are and I think it's a good thing that we get to enjoy that thanks to the hidden identities.

 

[kalkkaro]

I would've followed every Max game had I known when he was playing. The final would've been so much hype had everyone known it was Max. Just cause you know who's playing doesn't mean you can't cheer for who's playing well @-Mir85- . In fact, it might make it more interesting knowing it's a "new" player making his way to the top.

The difficulty to guess who TheMax is comes from the fact that he can play so diversily. He is great macro player, we all know that. But in contrarily to player like Liereey, in 1v1, he also tends to go a bit vivi style in feudal with sneak towers in woodlines and sneak villagers back in the enemy base to make sneak stables or ranges. He almost always has something special in his mind when going into the game and has speed to execute all this.

I might sound like a Max fanboy, which I obviously am.

 

[Chainsaw]

The difficulty to guess who TheMax is comes from the fact that he can play so diversily. He is great macro player, we all know that. But in contrarily to player like Liereey, in 1v1, he also tends to go a bit vivi style in feudal with sneak towers in woodlines and sneak villagers back in the enemy base to make sneak stables or ranges. He almost always has something special in his mind when going into the game and has speed to execute all this.

He played super vivi style, and his penchant for harassing the opposite player is amazing. Building two castles, each with 1 vil. He has balls. I was most excited for him in KOTD2 and was saddened that he didn't go further. However, he turned up in HC2 and I'm glad he did.

 

[kalkkaro]

He played super vivi style, and his penchant for harassing the opposite player is amazing. Building two castles, each with 1 vil. He has balls. I was most excited for him in KOTD2 and was saddened that he didn't go further. However, he turned up in HC2 and I'm glad he did.

Yeah that lose was disapointing but really, every top player (besides Viper ofc duh...) has had some upsets. Liereey losing to Miguel in HC1, Tatoh losing first round in both HC1 and HC2 and Mbl well.. I must say he has been incredibly stable losing only to the two guys I mentioned before (Liereey, Tatoh). TheMax obviously can't match those guys merits in 1v1 tournaments just yet, for that he needs more tournaments under his belt.

 

[buhanisson]

I don't get this thing about not knowing who to cheer for. For me hidden cup is a chance to not automatically cheer for my favourites, but to watch the games and cheer for those who play well. When the reveal comes I might discover that I have a new player among my favourites.

For me its a chance to have 16 potential DauTs in a tournament. And one must worship every one of them, just in case.

 

[Double_N]

Hidden Cup was fantastic. A little intense when it came to time consumption as a viewer. Definitely couldn’t catch more than a third of the games live, and frankly got fatigued even then, so I kinda wish it was spaced out a bit more (and with less on the weekdays).

Totally agree with that, it is too much content in a short period of time, especially for someone like me who gets hooked by the hidden player aspect and not alienated like some of the other commenters. In most other tourneys the majority of sets played doesn´t get me too excited, especially in early rounds, but with hidden cup I want to see the ro16 and ro8 Even if you skip the inbetween games stuff, just watching the first 12 sets is a lot.

 

[pumukel]

HC2 impact on aoe-elo.com:

- TheMax earns his first trophy and enters Top 10.
- TheViper reached new all time all players maximum after win against MbL (nearly 2k3), but huge drop after losing 3 games to TheMax who entered the match with low elo
- MbL new personal maximum after 3:0 against Tim, but still 7 points below RiuT's maximum

 

[shm0wt]

Speaking as a relative newcomer to competitive AoE, having only started watching games in the past year or so, I have to say I'm surprised that people were surprised to find out Nobunaga was Max. His booms were absolutely astounding all through the tournament, and we all know Finland players are no strangers to wacky outside-the-meta strategies when facing high level opponents. He managed to keep The Viper on the back foot for a lot of the final set, his victories on Arabia and Gold Rush in particular stood out to me as impressive, and while I'm sure it's true that Viper was tired going into the finals Max had also played a full set of games earlier that day and Finland is a full hour behind Norway in terms of time zone so I'd imagine it was tough for both of them.

 

[Jarvin]

A thing that needs to be pointed out regarding Max is that in the finals Viper was very clearly struggling to keep up due to pure physical/psychological fatigue, which was really showing in the first games with his extremely awkward decision making that is just.. so untypical of him. So it really feels like Max's amazing performance in the finals was largely thanks to his relentless preserverance and it really got me thinking, just how possibly different the finals could be if they were played on another day

I'm honestly really looking forward to seeing how Max performs in the next 1v1 tournament, because as much as it had always been obvious that he is in top ~~10 of all players, I'm really not sure if beating Jordan, Yo(who really seemed to be out of form in past months), Tim and losing to tired Viper is enough to place him in top 5.

Though, this is obv not to take anything from him. Even if some of the other participants did probably face a bit tougher opposition, Max still gave an amazing performance overall, and even if he still might not be 'top 5', he is definitely very close.



PS @T90Official we need a showmatch between Max and Liereyy with HC2 settings!
Would be really great to see how the two compares at the moment

 

[Funito]

It would be interesting to know if players guessed who they were playing. I was surprised to know that Nobunaga was TheMax because i never saw him playing before. I was like "this player is too smart to be X player)

 

[robo]

It would be interesting to know if players guessed who they were playing. I was surprised to know that Nobunaga was TheMax because i never saw him playing before. I was like "this player is too smart to be X player)

After the first round JorDan said that he thought nobunaga was TheViper or TaToH.

 

[Bowserlord]

Really sad larry couldn play ... larry vs max showmatch is what we all need

 

[nimanoe]

First of all: great event, loved guessing the players identities with other people. Also well deserved viewer record.

I feel like this goes to show seeding is not necessarily adding to the competitiveness of the event (I guess it evens things out: it makes first rounds less interesting to maximize the chance of having balanced match-up in the later stages of the tournament). Obviously you could have an "extreme worst case scenario" of Viper/Liereyy and MbL/Max in the first round in the same quarter of the draw but it's unlikely to happen.

I really disagree with this. We were very lucky with the brackets as there were only a few Ro16 matches that shouldn't have happened, but besides that the brackets seem pretty good. However there's absolutely no guarantee that it will happen in the next tournament. Also it's quite unfair imo for a player like TaToH to have to face Mr_Yo in the first round and earn less money than someone worse than him who has to play a lower rated player in the first round.
And yeah you will have more exciting matches in the first round, but it comes at the cost of having less exciting matches in the next rounds. Also in this tournament looking back now that we know the names, the first round match-ups weren't that great (probably because the bracket was quite even).

For this tournament random brackets were needed, because otherwise the players would be too easy to guess, but I won't advise random brackets to be used for future tournaments.

 

[Mifez]

I know that they said no seeding but is that really true? I think most seeding system would have been
1) viper
2) lieery
3 yo
4) mbl

Right?

And if yo hadn’t lost the semi would have been 2vs 3 and 4vs1. When I saw the reveal I for sure thought some seeding behind the scene was going on? Just too much of a coincidence that no one in top 4 played before the semis in seedings.. ofc Max surprised but yeah... maybe just me that don’t believe in coincidences and find it hard to see that this is possible.

 

[Bowserlord]

I know that they said no seeding but is that really true? I think most seeding system would have been
1) viper
2) lieery
3 yo
4) mbl

Right?

And if yo hadn’t lost the semi would have been 2vs 3 and 4vs1. When I saw the reveal I for sure thought some seeding behind the scene was going on? Just too much of a coincidence that no one in top 4 played before the semis in seedings.. ofc Max surprised but yeah... maybe just me that don’t believe in coincidences and find it hard to see that this is possible.

i thought that too

 

[robo]

I'll upload the video of the random generation later today 11

 

[Flow]

Why later today? Why not now? Is it because such a video doesn't exist and you have to shoot it first?

Not on my watch Robo. You can't outsmart us.

 

[NigelSlack]

Why later today? Why not now? Is it because such a video doesn't exist and you have to shoot it first?

Not on my watch Robo. You can't outsmart us.

Please don't do it.. that's the reason Gerry appeared in the past... let robo alone man

 

[robo]

Why later today? Why not now? Is it because such a video doesn't exist and you have to shoot it first?

Not on my watch Robo. You can't outsmart us.

lul uhhhh well ummm i sux at obs apparently

I have a black screen where you can watch my mouse move around as I describe how I randomised it

 

[T-West]

lul uhhhh well ummm i sux at obs apparently

I have a black screen where you can watch my mouse move around as I describe how I randomised it

First you delete the Escape website. Now you fix HC2 and delete the evidence. Those delete skills are strong Kappa

 

[Mifez]

Dont wanna create drama. Totally fine with hidden seeding in hidden cup :P