That being said, Hera definitly had he hardest road but JorDan also faced MBL, ACCM, and YO, names that should not be disregarded! Good job man! So great to see how well you did! Biggest 1v1 since your comeback and you snatch 2nd place. Awesome!

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T90 is top 20 most subbed channel on twitch right now!

Posted: 21 Mar 2021 05:58 PM PDT

With the likes of moistcritikal and quackity, who are fucking huge, T90 sits at 25k subs at rank 17 (https://twitchtracker.com/subscribers). His channel was also in the top 10 highest viewers on twitch during finals.While I'm sure these numbers are going to drop down in a month, this just speaks to how relevant aoe has become in esports.

Keep grinding peeps, aoe has been going up for a long time now, and there is no indication of the growth slowing down.

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I will probably have to call in sick to work now.

Posted: 21 Mar 2021 04:23 PM PDT

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Admiral Appreciation

Posted: 22 Mar 2021 03:34 AM PDT

Reading through some of the comment sections in different outlets, I come under the impression that people do not appreciate what Admiral Jordan delivered in this tournament. Saying the final wasn't competitive and that Hera had the harder bracket. Which is both true TO AN EXTENT.

Here's a guy who returned last year only, having to compete against players that have been playing nonstop for years and years. He had to qualify through a tough bracket having to best Capoch AND TheMax to make it. Even then people were doubting he could touch TheMax before he actually did it. And then the main event. Beating MBL, ACCM and Mr. Yo. He made people think he is TheViper. The level of play displayed by Jordan was mind-blowing in several aspects.

So let us be grateful to live in a time where no semi-final is a guarantee, where the people in the top 8/top 6 can beat each other any day and still new competitors emerge. Congratulations to Hera for finally and deservedly winning a huge tournament. Congratulations to Jordan for an amazing performance, put some respect on that man's name. What a time to be an Age of Empires fan.

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Hidden Cup 4 Team Appreciation Thread

Posted: 21 Mar 2021 07:41 PM PDT

Hidden Cup 4 has been an absolutely insane tournament from start to finish! Congrats to the winner and the participants, but everybody involved with the setup and execution of the tournament deserves love as well!

The casting and commentary has been top notch and has made it easy for people who aren't well-versed with the game to grasp what's going on and get invested.

CaptureAge has been refined into a very smooth looking interface that shows all the info you want and even more.

The info screens looked as sleek as any I've ever seen for a tournament.

The trailers leading up to the tournament were nuts. The highlight videos were great, and it's insane how quickly they were ready!

It was great to see the chat get into it, but when things got a little rowdy, order was maintained quite well.

I think this tournament must have met and exceeded all expectations going into it, and you guys should be immensely proud of what you've accomplished.

T90, Dave, Nili, Slam, Dash, Robo, Overlay Master, Dux, anyone I may have missed, and anyone whose role didn't get highlighted: You guys are amazing. This has been one of the best tournaments I've ever witnessed in any capacity and I can't wait to see where the future takes you guys, the community, and Age of Empires 2 as a whole.

Much love from Canada, and keep your stick on the ice!

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This community is really wholesome, NGL

Posted: 22 Mar 2021 06:04 AM PDT

Probably what was more fun for me than the post-game interviews of Hidden Cup 4 were the streams of those that didn't make it all the way. MbL streamed shortly after the final game and was really hard on himself, only to be flooded with love and support from his fans. He was expecting a full roast for getting knocked out first round and yet he got anything but. Later on, Nicov also got plenty of love and praise after Hera gave him a shoutout from his own post-tournament stream, to where he had more follows, subscribers, and popularity that night than he probably had at before that night.

I'm glad to be part of a community that's so supportive of its stars for working so hard. Of course we joke around a lot but when we're serious we really look out for people. Of course, that's the benefit of having a smaller community but as we get larger we should hold to these ideals.

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HC4 Meme

Posted: 21 Mar 2021 05:55 PM PDT

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Viper's view on HC4:

Posted: 22 Mar 2021 08:04 AM PDT

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HC4 Player Performance Analysis

Posted: 21 Mar 2021 09:40 PM PDT

analysis of each player's performance in HC4:

ACCM - beating barles 3-1 isn't a particularly impressive result however it is his first time advancing past the first round of a hidden cup so I'll call this tournament a success for him. On paper losing to Jordan 3-1 might seem a little disappointing to him but then when you consider how ridiculously jordan overperformed, i don't think he has anything to feel too bad about.

Barles - IMO, he came into the tournament as the "worst" player, and I really wouldn't have given him a strong chance against any of the players, so I would say the impressive thing for him was qualifying for the main event, i don't think he or anyone had any big expectations after that.

Jordan - do i need to say anything here other than HOW?!?! He is the dogao of HC3 except on an ENTIRELY different level (both of them beat mbl, is there a familiar tone here?). Ridiculous performance for him and he had many people convinced he was viper with how well he played. Even ACCM and Mbl guessed they just lost to Viper after their sets. And the most impressive part was absolutely CLAPPING Yo 4-1 in the semis. Really really masterclass of a tournament from him and something he will be proud of for a long time.

Mbl - I think he clearly underperformed the most of anyone in the tournament. If you had told anyone that he was gonna have Jordan, Barles, and ACCM in his path to the semi-final, i would've say he was a shoo-in for the semis, but obviously it didn't work out that way. Did Mbl play bad against Jordan or did Jordan just play amazingly well? I'm honestly not sure, take your pick, maybe its a bit of both, but I think Mbl put it best in his post-HC4 stream title - "Disaster of the Templar".

Vinchester - Honestly I don't remember much of this set other than the hideout game where he went for the crazy portuguese strategy. I think he performed decently well, and got a win on islands which is his most likely map to win, but just didn't have the quality to beat Yo. Tough first round draw for him.

Mr_Yo - Difficult to describe his performance. He looked very solid against Vinch and played very well against Daut but then got totally outclassed by Jordan. I think I would call it a slight underperformance from him, but maybe he just doesn't have high enough level teammates to help him properly prepare for a tournament of this caliber. It looked like he played very well mechanically but just got outstrategized on several of the maps.

Villese - On paper, losing 3-2 to Daut really doesn't too bad, I would expect Daut to beat him. But i would guess that he's probably kicking himself for not finishing out that set after being up 2-0. This is another set where I don't really remember too many of the individual games, but overall he just got outplayed a little in each of the last 3 games. I would say slightly disappointing for him, he probably wanted to get to the quarterfinals at least.

DauT - Really impressive to come back from being down 2-0 against Villese, and his set against Yo was very entertaining but I think he struggled with the speed of Yo to keep up and he looked a little out of sorts in some of the games. Overall i think quarter finals is probably right where I would expect him to go out, if he had made it to semis I would've said it was an amazing performance.

Dogao - Definitely the 2nd biggest underperformance after Mbl. After doing so well last hidden cup, he'll be disappointed to do so poorly in this one, but drawing Viper first round is obviously tough luck. I think a combo of him having a poor day + being up against Viper in a ruthless state of mind is gonna result in a pretty solid clap and thats what happened.

TheViper - After rounds 1 and 2, how well he played, I really though Viper was gonna win hidden cup again. He had a certain swagger about him that no other player had, and it just looked like no one could touch him. Then Hera came along. Its really hard for me to judge whether he's not playing as well as he did in previous years, or if now other players are good enough to capitalize on the few mistakes he does make, but I think we all just expect Viper to play perfectly and when he doesn't, it makes us feel like he underperformed. I think he made a few poor decisions in some of the games that really cost him, but then again its so easy to forget how easily he clapped Hera in game 1 and then had that amazing comeback in game 2. I'm gonna have to call it a disappointing result for him because he will think he should've gotten 1st place again.

Vivi - Its really hard for me to judge this guy's level. Sometimes he looks so good with macro and micro and sometimes he just looks really poor. I don't think I ever expected him to get past the first round, and even against BacT, he didn't really look like he had much of a chance. He's another player where I think he should be happy just to have qualified.

BacT - Similar to ACCM, beating Vivi is nothing terribly special although i believe it is his first time advancing past the first round, and losing to Viper 2nd round is no surprise. Strong first round and then unfortunately matched up against one of the best in the 2nd round and really didn't have a chance.

Tatoh - I think he got the most unlucky draw of anyone. I honestly think he played really really well and could easily have knocked out the eventual winner in round 1 if he had pulled out a win in the cup game. Of all the players Hera had to face, I think Tatoh probably came the closest to beating him (even more than Viper), and should be proud of his performance even though he was knocked out early.

Hera - After beating Tatoh, Liereyy, and Viper en route to the trophy, I don't think there can be any doubts that he deserves the victory. It felt like he was the most prepared he's ever been for any tournament, had strong strategies prepared and the mechanical skills to back it up. He came into this tournament determined to get his first S-tier 1v1 victory, and he pulled it off. Whether you do or don't like the guy's personality or playstyle, he deserved to win and I don't think there's any doubt about it. Really impressive performances.

Liereyy - It didn't feel like we saw peak Liereyy. He looked good but not great in round 1, and just looked slightly a level below Hera when he played vs him. I think he'll be disappointed in himself, and its another hidden cup where he's struggled to get to the later rounds. There's no doubt that he's an extremely skillful player but it seemed like either he wasn't very prepared or he just didn't quite have his A-game but something just didn't quite click for him in this one.

Nicov - Where do i start with him? Every single year, its one of the top players he has to face first round and this year was no exception. It's hard to accurately judge his skill when he's up against liereyy, but when it seemed Liereyy didn't have his best performance but still pretty convincingly beat him, its tough to foresee him being to beat many of the other players. I think he's unlucky to be up against Liereyy first round, but I just don't think he played well enough to be able to expect to go to the next round, a little disappointing from him.

Well... thats everyone, didn't think I would spend nearly this much time writing all this but it was actually quite enjoyable to think back over every set and evaluate how each player played.

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send help

Posted: 21 Mar 2021 07:25 PM PDT

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T90 viewer count for Finals.

Posted: 22 Mar 2021 06:25 AM PDT

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Hidden Cup 4 Player Reveal

Posted: 21 Mar 2021 05:11 PM PDT

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105 premium

Posted: 21 Mar 2021 11:19 AM PDT

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My last Hidden Cup meme, let's make 100k happen (post got deleted earlier)

Posted: 21 Mar 2021 12:01 PM PDT

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HC5 – The Wishlish

Posted: 22 Mar 2021 05:53 AM PDT

First off: Huge congratulations to team T90 for a well executed HC4. So many highlights, good moments and wholesome things. What a tournament.

What do we want to improve for HC5? Let's make the ultimate idea thread so T90 has a great setoff for the next tournament. At this point, when AoE2 is actually a bigger game and there are some tweaks that can be done.

How Civ and Maps pick work
The screen where the players ban and pick civs and maps are not very understandable, even for frequent viewers. It properly should be more clear what "sniping" a civilisation is.
Map drafting
My personal biggest issue with this tournament. I don't like the home map advantage if you lose, that in the end can give you the victory. I believe in a draft system (pick one, ban one, pick one) and then a fixed order for those maps. The current system might lead to unfair situations and it is not very understandable. The draft can also be made visually interesting. It follows more hero picks from Dota 2, which leads to interesting and dynamic situations – and easier to counterpick etc.
New maps shortly before tournament
Overall I am also not sure if the quality is lower when introducing new maps weeks before. I think I prefer when they are more practiced from everyone – due to better AoE2.
Interactive start of games
I believe the drafting, civ picks and everything – could be an obvious area for creating some extra stuff. I do also understand it adds to the time and makes it longer.
More casters
Huge respect to T90 for going through this tournament casting all the games. I think it's reasonable to explore a way where he can skip some games and get rest in between – it would properly lead to more a high energy level throughout everything. It's a shame they are a bit "burned out" for the finals.

Congrats on an amazing tournament and really good co-casters this time around.

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Aged like milk

Posted: 21 Mar 2021 07:14 PM PDT

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Ivaylo goes mad [OC]

Posted: 22 Mar 2021 07:55 AM PDT

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When you have to work but just want to sneak watch the HC4 Finals

Posted: 21 Mar 2021 03:55 PM PDT

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Lessons learnt for Hidden Cup

Posted: 22 Mar 2021 05:13 AM PDT

A few thoughts after the weekend:

1. Bulgarians look top tier on Arabia

Since the most recent buff Bulgarians have looked great for most elos: https://aoestats.io/civ/Bulgarians/RM_1v1.

I think hidden cup shows that Bulgarians can work at the highest level

2. The militia line have more uses that I thought

Celts vs Britons

Celts vs Japanesse

Bulgarians vs Aztecs

Mayans vs Vikings

These were some of the matchups we saw where the militia line played a key role.

3. I should play maps other than Arabia more

Hybrid maps look super fun. I need to learn a Hybrid build order properly.

4. Mayans can hard counter Indians

Hera's pick on slopes was absolutely brilliant. Eagles rule!

5. Immediate 3 TC boom is not always viable

1 TC/ 2 TC pressure can give you valuable map control before going into a 3 TC boom. There were many games where a player was 10/20 villagers behind in castle age but managed to win with superior map presence and army.

6. There were two great stories from the competition

Hera - what a beast of a player. Great to see his road to the final.

Jordan - he's back!!!

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HC format unfair?

Posted: 21 Mar 2021 01:07 PM PDT

Love this tournament and we had many great games so far. Especially this final day is amazing.

But it kinda feels like the format in the BO7 is a little bit unfair. At this point its 3:3 Ivaylo vs John. If John wins he could play on all his 3 home maps. Ivaylo could only play one of his home maps due to 2 maps (game 4 and 7) are set.

Just feels strange.

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