The grand final is here! Live from the Royal Albert Hall, team mates, friends, practice partners and friends are meeting in an amazing Best of 9, showing the Age of Empires II world the best possible match in history. The draft is coming live from stage.

Dorothea Quarry

Standard opening while Hera walls off. Liereyy aims for a more aggressive approach. Both players into a normal castle age transition. A back and forth in the fights, while Hera aims for CA and Liereyy for skirmishers. Liereyy pushes on multiple edges at the same time, while he managed to get the upper edge. Early GG from Hera after just a few minutes.

Thames

Both players went for some early aggression, scout/archer combo. Both players turn into a fast castle. Hera is now completely under pressure as Liereyy managed 2 major raids, pushing a 10 eco and military lead. Hera feels off, is the pressure to much?

Some huge shots from Liereyy pushing in. Now with a 15 eco lead and 20 military lead. He has no control over his gold or majority of his eco. After a production issue from Red Bull and a failed announcement, the game went ahead. Liereyy also continues to raid Hera at all of his outter bases, 30 eco ahead and imperial at minute 22. 40 vs. 7 military. He is so far behind, but refuses to tap out yet.

Clicked up to imperial, fully upgrading now and sitting at 100 eco. Heras main base TC is dead, now on a single town center. Imperial age came in and he called the GG. 2-0.

Stonefront

Both players with an extremely early fight in the middle. Liereyy wins the fight with a slight advantage of 16/11 k/d. Liereyy constantly keeps the aggression in Heras base, both fully focusing on a feudal age fight. He starts ramming down Heras base with the early Siege Workshop of Cumans. Pure perfection so far. Hera lost all of his military and over 10 villagers already while he is fully in his base. Hera goes out, thats a 3-0 for Liereyy. He is on his way to de-thrown the king.

Glacis

Both players rather defensive start and quick castle age. Liereyy produced some Galleys which eh thought would be enough, but those were not enough. 5 crossbows now in Liereyys. base. Liereyys complete food is lost as all fishing ships are gone. He tries to stabilize by going into farms instead. Hera seems to have woken up. He finally managed to out-micro his first fight killing multiple mangonels out of the game.

Conquisadors are currently not working out for Liereyy, as the micro of Hera is from another world. 5 town center push for Hera which is pretty unusual, but he wants to get a huge advantage. Liereyy is going for an aggressive castle, as he is already 50 eco behind. Without keeping Hera under control, he has no chance coming back.

Hera is going to click up for impterial in minute 25, with more than 70 eco difference. Liereyy is now on 4 town centers as well, however he does still require a lot of eco work to catch up. Hera would have to make some major mistakes here to give this away.

After the imperial, Liereyy calls the GG. 3-1, can Hera come back?

Hengehold

Way slower this time in feudal age. Both fast castle. Instant siege workshop for both. Fight is taken towards Heras base and pushed off his Gold. Liereyy slowly walling up. Hera transitioned into double town center after just 9 minutes. Hera left an open wall which led to Liereyys army running into Heras base. However, he managed to turn that around with an amazing reaction. Both players now on double town center.

After that initial aggression, Hera is now successfully pushing Liereyy back. So far, Liereyy banned all the new DLC matchups, but forgot to ban the Mapuche in this one, probably due to live drafting. Hera went for an all-in move right after with 5 mangonels and a bunch of unique units. We are now back, almost even, into a 3-2.

Vulpine

Early back and forth, standard opening. Hera managed to win an early fight. Both in a normal castle age opening. Hera is completely walled up, Liereyy still open. Both players going for triple town center, slowing the game down.

A huge push from hera lead to the town center with imperial age being destroyed. Hera has all the upgrades already in, Liereyy is roughly 4 minutes behind now. Liereyy manages to fight back with a huge raid, leading to an evening out of the situation. Constant back and forth.

Hera answered with a full all-in push and forces Liereyy to call the GG! That imperial town center snatch was crazy.

Rampart

Both players with their standard opening. Liereyy however ramping up the speed a lot, leading to a lot of food lost for Hera. Still no castle age for Hera while Liereyy is now fully in. After some stalemate, Liereyy decides to go fully into Heras base with early chevaliers. 18/4 eco k/d now for Liereyy which got rid of his advantage of being on triple town centers.

And another major raid. Liereyy went straight through. 46/19 k/d now. Hera tried a counter castle which did not have a major impact yet. Another raid on 2 sides, 62 villagers killed. Eco is still only in a 15 villager difference, provided through the Vikings.

A second aggressive castle. The second one however not as efficient as it is right next to the other one. 33 minutes in the game, both still in castle age. By far the closest match of the final yet. Both players now fully reset, almost no military and even economy numbers. Minute 40, both players finally arriving in imperial age.

The final phase begins. hera trying to quickwall Paladins away, but Arbs are not strong enough at the moment. An additional aggressive castle by Liereyy is up. At this point, the whole map is fully built and there is no longer a central spot in the base. Siege is now coming out from Liereyy, slowly aiming towards the castles. 51 minutes, time limit hits at 1:15. Score-wise, both are completely even. Trebuchets from Liereyy now slowly getting rid of the castles. Hera continuing the counter raids. Hera is slowly losing the map control he had the whole game long.

Liereyy now after the last gold for Hera at the northern side. If it continues, this may end up in one major game-deciding fight. 1:00, only 15 minutes left. Full military at the top while another castle is dropped at the bottom. Hera is now pushing back. The major fight broke out. Liereyy won the fight, losing his whole army. Score switched up. 8 minuts left, score difference is only 300. Liereyy took a horrible fight as a result, losing the second fight. Another aggressive castle. Score flipping for both, 5 minutes left.

3 1/2 minutes left. Both players now playing for score. No more aggression. 500 score lead now for Hera. Liereyy switched to the score win to early, leading to no more production for him and losing a lot of score. GG WP, Hera wins game number 4. What a huge comeback from the titan. Timelimit hit.

Loch Ness

Matchpoint for Hera. Liereyy goes for an early wall and water control. Fast castle as well. Hera abnout a minute behind. That wall worked wonders for Liereyy. All of the ships destroyed before the updates hit. Hera aims for triple dock now. All of the are now destroyed, Liereyy has full control over water. Roughly 10 eco in front, both players booming but Hera utilizing 4 town centers to cover the lost water. Hera managed to snack all 7 relics in the meantime. Hera and Liereyy going for imperial age at 19 minutes.

Both now in imperial age and fully upgrading. Eco completely even. Two-handed swordsman and Champions pushing through the left side. With some amazing quickwalls Liereyy managed to defend against the push of Hera just barely. Milliseconds of work! Hera in front of Liereyys base now, Trebuchets are slowly chewing through his base. Both players still holding it. Naval upgrades are coming in. After 7 games it feels like Liereyy forgot hsi navy and fails to manage all of his spots at the same time.

Both players are raiding on all sides. Liereyy is now countering Heras approach, potentially leading to another game. K/d now at 400/200 for Liereyy. Due to the 7 relics, Hera has some wiggle room to play for a longer time than Liereyy. Liereyy almost lost full access to gold, only a few hundreds left. This could be the 5th loss in a row. Both players show signs of fatigue due to the length of the games.

Hera keeps the aggression up, not letting Liereyy out of his base. We are reaching 55 minutes again. Liereyy is out of gold completely. Even though it looks close, this looks to be Heras game. By the way: 9.000 gold just earned through relics. An amazing number.

Liereyy is now completely out of wood. Water control for Hera. 15 minutes ingame left, but it looks like Liereyy is slowly losing it. Only 50 farms left. 65 villagers. Everything invested into military to keep up the score. Score is now in favor of Hera after more than an hour into the game. There is only one last thing: Take a big fight. Try to take it. Castles and buildings are slowly going down.

Final fight begins. Both players fighting. Score is dropped. GG from Liereyy. HERA WINS IT, GG!