[Rudi] vs. [Apes] AT 2026-07-15

If you wonder what's going on: I registered our guild for the AT 10 seconds before it started without warning anyone. Solaris came 40 seconds before the match, Reed 7 (and was invited to the party at 1 second, whew, close one). That is why our guildie Arka is in the opposing team, he didn't expect us to play and was guesting in the alliance. It's also why we filled with henchmen. (Fourth hench would've been second necromancer. Backline hench are useless, damage hench are ok.) Both paragon henchmen have received slight buffs in this year's balancing updates. Aurora has more frequent and stronger access to deep wound while Blenkeh gives more energy via TPIY (although I also ran that elite, so there was some overlap). Both paragons benefit from the aggressive refrain buff only when I'm flagging them through lava and it happens to run out, which it doesn't in normal gameplay. In my opinion the dual paragon + dual necromancer hench combo remains the best hench setup you can run on maps without obstruction. So, how could we win with a henchway? We had both build and map advantage. Paragons are stupidly powerful for 8v8 and all our players did a really good job. The opponent probably also underestimated a team with henchmen, playing too aggressively in the beginning, giving them death penalty which then snowballed. Memorial entry: https://tolkano.com/match/17841852919...