Hi-Rez Expo 2017: SMITE Console Finals Highlights and Results

It’s the last day of this year’s Hi-Rez Expo, and the top SMITE teams in the world are going head to head in intense matches for the ultimate championship title. After a hard-fought week of sets (and upsets), two teams remained in the SMITE Console League — Team Eager and Soar G2A.

With the Season 1 Console Championship title on the line, these two North American teams battled it out on the worlds stage to see who would claim the biggest win of the SMITE season. It was a well-played set on both sides, but Eager came out on top in the end with a 3-1 record over Soar.

Game 1

Winner: Eager

• Soar: Odin, Thor, Scylla, Terra, Jing Wei
• Eager: Nike, Awilix, Zeus, Sylvanus, Chronos

Soar started strong in this game, racking up 3 kills on Eager at just two minutes in. A few aggressive engages from Soar kept Eager on the back foot. But the early lead must have gone to Soar’s head, because they quickly lost their footing as Eager pushed back. 

At the 10-minute mark, Soar made a messy engage with a wasted Thor ult. Eager punished them for the bad call by picking off two kills. Soar tried to make up for it by taking Gold Fury a minute later, but they overextended and wasted another Thor ult — netting Eager another 2 kills for free. 

Soar continued making sloppy calls, and Eager patiently waited for their mistakes, then played an excellent countergame. The next engage ended in a 2-1 trade in Eager’s favor, bumping them up to 9 kills over Soar’s 8 and putting them firmly in the lead. 

Between Eager’s clear calls in comms and Soar’s insistence on picking team fights rather than farming objectives, Eager’s strong lead only snowballed harder as the rest of the game played out. Soar quickly started losing objectives, with Eager steamrolling several Tier 1 and Tier 2 towers. In a 2-2 engage at mid lane, Eager took the mid Phoenix and put some serious pressure on Soar’s base. 

At 27 minutes, Eager initiated once again and came out on top in a 3-1 trade, which cleared the way for them to take the Fire Giant for free. Just three minutes later they landed another triple kill and pushed into Soar’s base to bring down the Titan as well. 

Game 2

Winner: Eager

• Soar: Sylvanus, Odin, Susano, Zhong Kui, Cupid
• Eager: Nike, Hun Batz, Zeus, Xing Tian, Chronos

Just like Game 1, Soar hit the ground running in Game 2. They took the first blood, then made a few more picks in their lanes during the early phase. Eager was able to knock out a few Soar members here and there, but the next major engage at 12 minutes didn’t go in their favor. Soar landed a quadra kill on Eager for free, then rotated through multiple lanes to take control of the jungle and grab as many Tier 1 towers as they could. 

Eager didn’t take kindly to getting wiped out, and during their next engage turned a fight around for a 4-0 trade in their favor. Soar managed to pick off one member after the disengage, but it wasn’t enough to hold their advantage. 

After that brutal team fight, it was clear that Chapo (Soar) was getting a little bit too tilted to keep his head in the game. Eager kept punishing his Sylvanus to keep his healing out of the equation, and it was clearly getting to his head. Comms for Soar started to crumble around the same time that Eager’s anti-healing came online in full force, which lead to a snowball lead for Eager. 

Around the 25-minute mark, the teams clashed again in a 3-2 fight, which fell in Eager’s favor. This let them grab a Tier 2 tower and increase their map pressure. After their full team had respawned, Eager moved in for a 5-1 wipe on Soar. With the lane clear and the respawn timers too long for Soar to do anything, Eager brought down the middle Phoenix then took the titan for the second game win. 

Game 3

Winner: Soar

• Soar: Odin, Scylla, Terra, Cupid, Hun Batz
• Eager: Tyr, Awilix, Ra, Sylvanus, Sol

Once again, Soar came out of the gate swinging in this game. They took the first blood, then farmed their side of the map until they grabbed a 2-0 engage with Eager at 7 minutes. One more pick in lane left Soar ahead at 4 kills to 0 by the 10-minute mark. 

With Eager playing from the back foot, Soar would not stop the pressure in their lanes. They forced several team fights in the next few minutes, relentlessly forcing Eager’s gods back to base and sneaking away jungle objectives. 

Things were looking grim for Eager by 22 minutes, with Soar up on kills 17-6. Eager quickly lost several Tier 1 and 2 map objectives, which they simply weren’t able to recover from. In spite of concerted efforts to group up and sustain in team fights with the Sylvanus heals, they kept getting split up and picked off one by one. 

At 26 minutes, Soar stormed into their base and took the Titan for their first win of the match. 

Game 4

Winner: Eager

• Soar: Scylla, Odin, Jing Wei, Guan Yu, Ne Zha
• Eager: Sylvanus, Nike, Chronos, Ratatoskr, He Bo

Continuing their streak for the match, Soar grabbed the first blood and got in some good early-game aggression at the outset. But shortly after landing that pick, Eager turned around and made Soar pay in a 2-1 trade. Soar retaliated again with 2 free kills for themselves, then found another 2 shortly after. Eager made a pick too, but were still trailing behind with half the kills at 6-3. 

At 8 minutes, a fight in the mid lane fell in Soar’s favor, and it looked like they might start snowballing their lead like they had in the previous game. But an engage in the jungle left them looking a little unsteady after Eager got a few key kills, and Eager fed off that momentum to grab three more during their next engage at the Gold Fury. Although they weren’t able to secure it before having to disengage, they rotated back soon after to grab the Gold Fury and 4 more kills on Soar. 

Eager nearly took the Fire Giant uncontested, but Soar came in at the last second to try for the steal. They couldn’t pull it off though, and lost 2 people in the fight. Soar tried to regroup, but Eager’s map pressure was simply too much and they couldn’t hold their ground. 

Not too long after, Eager made their final push into Soar’s base to take the Titan and the match win — earning them the first Console Championship title and a pretty penny in prize money, too. 

All that’s left now is the PC World Championship game, where the reigning champions NRG will take on EU team Obey. Stay tuned to GameSkinny for more news as the action unfolds at Hi-Rez Expo 2017!