[Baalz]

Sauromatia I think is a bit of "in theory this could work". Once you get reasonably good players (on both sides) trying to counter what each other is doing I don't think Sauromatia really has much of a chance. Hydras don't even come close to countering Baals if you use them right. Flesheater axe (berzerk) + snake ring (poison immune) plus some other cheapish cons-4 gear and Hinnom is basically fielding a nearly unstoppable SC every turn *very* early which Sauromatia doesn't really have anything to address. Hinnom is a very strong research nation, and cons-4 + alt-3 + thau-3 are not very high bars to have teleporting SCs who can be configured at the lab specifically to whatever Sauromatia is fielding, then drop in on them before they can move while your normal (chariots & dawn guard) troops continue to expand in every direction twice as fast as Sauro can match. Not to mention the other thing people seem to overlook because it seldom comes up - Hinnom has such broad magic diversity + strong research that they can pretty easily bring any spells they need to the party if you do manage to counter their strong suit. You don't like my SC counter to hydras? Ok, how about spamming some blade wind into those hydras & poison archers? Or casting arrow fend and paralyzing the hydras? How about both? Whatever the most devastating counter you can come up with - Hinnom can very likely do it, and do it well.

Neifelheim in a very early dual (triple) bless rush is going to give anybody a hard time, but I can't think of anybody I'd rather have in that situation than Hinnom with a strong heat-3 dominion. Neifel's a very one dimensional power, and even fully optimized in a best case scenario (not including ganging up on somebody) I wouldn't give a triple blessed Niefel rush more than a 50% chance of succeeding against an unprepared, good scale Hinnom with an imprisoned pretender (assuming equal skill levels).