Kanes Wrath

The Kane's Wrath King of the Hill Tournament has now officially begun! In this tournament, each game is played between the King and a challenger. If the King wins, he remains the King and continues on to face another challenger. If the challenger wins, he becomes the new King. For more information on the basics of the tournament, check out the King of the Hill Info Page.

The first four games were played yesterday and the fifth today, with successive challengers attempting - and failing - to de-throne the initial King KhuFu_OwNz, a popular Expert Player who will be representing the United States in the World Cyber Games Grand Final this November. KhuFu played impressively in the first games, and already players are wondering not just when he will be defeated, but if he can be defeated at all. "From his reputation I would guess KhuFu is gonna be up there for a long time, if not the whole time," said Strategy Specialist Gromij, KhuFu's second defeated challenger. According to Game Administrator and tournament organizer methuselah, "The King is off to quite the start, chewing through challengers faster than we can keep up."


The King chooses whether the game will be on the map Tiber River Valley or Tournament Desert Redux. This option gave PANCZASU, KhuFu's third challenger, some difficulty in preparing for his game. "I was practicing on Tournament Desert Redux before KotH and I was praying that Khufu would choose this map to fight with me. Unfortunately he had chosen Tiber River Valley - and I had no idea how to win there." Each time so far, KhuFu has opted to play on Tiber River Valley, the site of Kane's initial discovery of Tiberium and the substance's namesake. Perhaps it was the large map that led to what Gromij felt was a slow first game. "The first match dragged out quite a bit as both players sat back and built their economies. It was a bit boring but it gave me confidence because KhuFu didn't look so scary (who I expected, by his reputation, to win and be my opponent)."


However, there appears to be more good about the Tiber River Valley than bad. "I don't like the look of Red Zone maps, and Tiber River Valley is a large map and has only one capturable building and no spikes," Gromij said, "but with a partial blue field close to the starting base I believe this map offers significantly different strategic options than the other 1v1 maps." These blue fields have indeed led to some interesting strategies. For example, Gromij himself bought a Surveyor to expand to the blue field even before his first Refinery was up, giving him a strong economy at the start of the game. In the fourth game, Suprise sent a pair of Reckoners to KhuFu's blue Tiberium field near the start of the game (as shown above) to deny KhuFu the Tiberium, and KhuFu had to focus his efforts on securing that field.

Besides the blue fields, "the map is great for air battles," according to Senior Strategy Specialist L3g3nd4ry, probably because the large cliffs restrict the movement of only ground forces but not aerial ones. Indeed, KhuFu won the fourth game mainly by using Orcas to combat Suprise's Reckoners and destroy his base.