TheViper wins first Age of Empires 4 tournament GENESIS

Many people were looking forward to the GENESIS event, which was the first Age of Empires 4 tournament to be played which also boasted a sizable $20,000 prize pool. A lot of the participants were people with a long history within the RTS scene such as Themistoklis “TheMista” Bonidis, “RecoN” and Juan “VortiX” Durán. Eight players in total made it out of the Open Qualifiers, which featured a total of 512 participants.

In the end both TheViper, one of the best Age of Empires veterans of all-time, and TheMista, who is top-tier Age of Mythology player, reached the finals. TheViper played the tournament (and the final) with a wrist injury that’s been plaguing him for quite a while now following a tumor in his wrist that was eventually removed. In the end he still came out on top, beating out TheMista with a 4-2 overall scoreline, closing it out on Hill and Dale.

Caught up on the GENESIS vods, props to TheViper. Not just a solid grasp of a handful of civs and strategies but also a solid grasp of mindgames. He won a lot of games by not doing the strategy his opponent expects and just adding tc’s instead. SC boys will get em next time!

— Ethan Zugai (@iaguz__) November 15, 2021

Interestingly enough the tournament saw some more civilizations thrown into the mix. While we saw some French versus French mirror matches, the Mongols (early-game aggression) and the Abbasid Dynasty (which TheMista used in the first game of the finals) also saw play. A balance patch is set to come out soon, which will probably diminish the use of the still prevalent French.

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