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Orangemarmalade's 1 vs. 2 comeback explained


Orange is my master now.

It's fairly common to see professional Arena teams to concede defeat after losing a member in tournaments. It happens all the time. You wouldn't fault them for it, either, considering that if you do the math, 3 will always be more than 2, and 2 will always be more than 1. So it was no surprise that when SK-Gaming Asia went up two players to one in the fourth match of their best of five series against H O N, even the commentator was congratulating them and writing H O N off. Most players would've left the match.

Orangemarmalade, H O N's Mage who was left in a lopsided situation against SK-Gaming's Priest and Mage, showed us all why he's one of the greatest Mages to ever PvP. Korean team H O N won the ESL Global Finals in a most dramatic fashion and will always be remembered as one of the best moments in professional Arena competition. This video from th Electronic Sports League gives us the play-by-play on how Orange pulled off such an improbable win.



Although impressed by Orange's comeback, my first thoughts on the match was that SK-Gaming's Kwana and Hyoga committed too many mistakes. I was wrong. Kwana and Hyoga only made one mistake, and that was overextension which you honestly can't fault them for considering they were two against one, both at 100% health, going in for the kill against a nearly OOM Mage who was at less than 1/3 life. The video breaks down exactly what Orange did, and it blew me away because every single move was calculated, clever, and displayed a complete mastery of his class and the situation.

Did he get lucky with Missile Barrage and Arcane Concentration? Sure. But he orchestrated it so that he would survive long enough to get lucky, setting it up with the use and abuse of Incanter's Absorption and Mana Shield, to Spellstealing the Power Word: Shield, and quickly target switching to cast Slow on Hyoga. Few players can retain that kind of composure with that kind of pressure. The video is something every player can learn from, if not be inspired by.