Congrats to Hera for the win! Highly impressive play from a highly impressive player.
With regards to TheViper, I'm not sure if this result is unprecedented. On smaller/less conventional tournaments, TheViper isn't nearly as consistent as he is in major tournaments, getting knocked out in several. Sure, these weren't finals, but they were quarter- and semi-finals against opponents he knew were tough - times where one might think he'd turn up the heat. In fact, looking at AoE-ELO for the past two years and counting only 1v1 tournaments he participated in with prize pools less than $1000, it seems he lost about half of them:
1. eParadise ($330): Loss to Hera in the finals.
2. Fair Civs ($860): Won.
3. Mono Civ ($650): Won.
4. NSS ($500): Loss to Hera in the quarterfinals.
5. LoTH2 ($170): Loss to MbL in the semifinals.
6. KillerB's Arabia Cup ($600): Won.
Amusingly, it looks like the best way to win against TheViper is to play against him in a tournament with a prizepool of $500 or less - he's got what seems like a 100% chance of losing at some point in them! (I'm just joking. Small sample sizes cannot be extrapolated predictively like that, though it certainly seems more likely than in larger prize pool tournaments.)
As such, the result wasn't necessarily unlikely, especially since Hera is a beastly player who had already beaten TheViper in NSS. Considering that only Hera, DauT (MSC, not counted since the prize pool was high), and MbL have been able to best TheViper even in these tournaments, it's most certainly an elite group of legendary players regardless.
With regards to TheViper, I'm not sure if this result is unprecedented. On smaller/less conventional tournaments, TheViper isn't nearly as consistent as he is in major tournaments, getting knocked out in several. Sure, these weren't finals, but they were quarter- and semi-finals against opponents he knew were tough - times where one might think he'd turn up the heat. In fact, looking at AoE-ELO for the past two years and counting only 1v1 tournaments he participated in with prize pools less than $1000, it seems he lost about half of them:
1. eParadise ($330): Loss to Hera in the finals.
2. Fair Civs ($860): Won.
3. Mono Civ ($650): Won.
4. NSS ($500): Loss to Hera in the quarterfinals.
5. LoTH2 ($170): Loss to MbL in the semifinals.
6. KillerB's Arabia Cup ($600): Won.
Amusingly, it looks like the best way to win against TheViper is to play against him in a tournament with a prizepool of $500 or less - he's got what seems like a 100% chance of losing at some point in them! (I'm just joking. Small sample sizes cannot be extrapolated predictively like that, though it certainly seems more likely than in larger prize pool tournaments.)
As such, the result wasn't necessarily unlikely, especially since Hera is a beastly player who had already beaten TheViper in NSS. Considering that only Hera, DauT (MSC, not counted since the prize pool was high), and MbL have been able to best TheViper even in these tournaments, it's most certainly an elite group of legendary players regardless.
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