2012 started bright for some, brighter for others, but for a handful who made the trip down to Thailand for the Thailand Game Show 2012 (TGS 2012), their fortunes met with a windfall. Team Impunity, or iMp for short, were handed a very nifty sum of SGD$16,000 for their efforts at the recent Thailand Games Show, held over the second week of January. Playing in the MOBA category (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) of HoN (Heroes of Newerth) Team iMp, the only representing team from Singapore brushed of local and foreign competition to stake their claim in the first high profile eSports competition of 2012.

Team Impunity (middle) won HoN champion in TGS 2012

Team leader Ric ‘ladymelissa’ Neo was left very impressed by the entire experience, “it was the biggest most awesome tournament yet! The atmosphere was electrifying and there were literally hundreds of people watching and cheering the players’ every move, be it a kill or death!”

Fending off reputable exponents in Malaysia’s Orange and MUFC, the feat achieved by the fearless five is not to be discredited as an easy exploit. Yet in spite of the impressive foreign participation, it was the little-known neophytes that gave the champions their biggest run for their money in the former stages. “It was a particularly startling moment for us,” recalls Ric, “we just weren’t prepared for such stiff competition so early and it was a wakeup call which snapped us out of complacency—fortunately for us, we managed to prevail and take the game eventually.”

HoN is a free-to-play real time strategy game released in May 2010, but Team iMp was hardly a professional HON team from the get goes. “We are a group of real life friends who go way back,” explains Ric, “having played competitive WoW (World of WarCraft) arena previously, and obtaining consecutive gladiators and merciless gladiator titles before, we moved on to HoN after we were introduced to it and grew bored of WoW.” Alongside team members, Kenny 'ken' Widjaja, Teh 'malinger' Yuan Hing, Neo 'air' Jian Xiang and Shawn 'j’dollaemon' Ng, Ric and were no strangers to the competitive HoN scene in Thailand, having already brought home honor in the form of the ESTC HoN 2011 championship prior to their latest triumph.

“(Yet), despite our recent spate of victories, flight sponsorship was rather difficult to obtain and our trip was fully self-funded,” bemoaned the naturally jovial team leader. But having landed the sizeable bounty, Team Impunity’s little investment has not only paid for itself but paid massive dividends as well. What new adventure awaits the intrepid five is anybody’s guess, but the team is looking at some serious lull time before embarking on their next big endeavor, “we’re going to take a well-deserved break from hardcore training before getting back into the rhythm of things to prepare for our next big tournament.”

“We would like to thank all the sponsors for making the tournament happen, as well as our manager Check Ho, for the invaluable guidance,” announces the appreciative ensemble in light of their impressive victory. For more information about team iMp, please head on down to their Facebook Fanpage. As for more information on the Thailand Games Show 2012, kindly visit the official site.