EPTWhat We Learned from the July North American Open
A few weeks ago I wrote an article called “What You Can Learn by Watching Competitive Heroes of the Storm.” With the July North American Open wrapping up last weekend I thought it would be a good opportunity to look at the matches played and see what we can learn.
With over 100 teams, the largest field yet, in the Open Bracket it’s rather intimidating and time-consuming to watch every single matchup, so I’m going to focus specifically on the Round of 8. The final eight teams had a nice mix of established teams and some fresh faces, so there’s a lot you can take away from it.
If you want to look over the Round of 8 stats yourself, CyaSteve compiled a Google spreadsheet than you can find here.
Let’s start by looking at the four heroes who were picked or banned in all 28 games, as they are a good indication of the best choices in the current Meta.
Jaina was played in 24 of the 28 games in the Round of 8, and was banned in the other four. In fact, she was picked first in 19 of those 24 games which shows just how highly teams value the frost mage. Unfortunately, her popularity didn’t translate to wins, as she had mediocre 46% win rate.
What can we learn from Jaina’s high pick rate? She’s a really strong hero, even after the removal of Sprint. HotSLogs agrees as she is the most played and winningest hero across all Hero League games. Her kit gives her some of the highest damage potential in the game that she can unleash on either a single target or as AoE in a team fight. All of her abilities slow enemies which helps solidify ganks and wipe up after team fights. Water Elemental is the prefered Heroic ability for her, and with the recent change to pet control, you can control the elemental even after she dies. If you typically play Assassin heroes, you should have already tried Jaina out.
If she’s so great, why didn’t she have a winning record? No hero is so strong that they can carry a team single-handedly against a superior opponent. While Jaina can unload an insane amount of burst damage, it can be a disaster if the rest of the team isn’t taking advantage of her damage or protecting her in the back lines. Jaina’s fragility makes her a priority target so without synergy in ganks and team fights her damage is wasted.
Zeratul was played in only five games (winning three of them) but was banned in every other game, typically as the second ban. What’s the deal with that? Well in this draft system, the first ban also gets first pick, so the second team was forced to ban out Zeratul to prevent him from being first picked. Does that mean Zeratul is actually more popular or better than Jaina? It’s a good bet, but we only saw him a few times. His combination of damage and escapability makes him an annoying presence at all levels of play.
The current popular build with Zeratul combines his strengths by letting you jump on an enemy, pop all your abilities woven together with powered up melee hits, then blink back out using Wormhole. It’s incredibly powerful and it makes him especially hard to kill, unlike Jaina who is easier to lockdown and eliminate if she over-extends.
But that’s not all- he also gives you huge map presence as your enemies must always account for where you are, and you can scout or trap your enemies anywhere. Void Prison is an especially powerful Heroic ability that can set up kills or prevent team wipes, and combines with other AOE abilities to cause havoc in the enemy lines.
Another factor that lead to Zeratul bans is that many of the teams refused to let skilled melee players like Cloud9 Maelstrom’s Fan or COGnitive Gaming’s Glaurung play such a strong hero. Often his ban was just out of respect for the damage he could deal in a capable player’s hand.
Note: There is currently a bug that allows Zeratul’s Shadow Assault to be targeted globally, and while this wasn’t addressed during the July Open, it’s possible that it influenced the bans.
Jaina’s mage counterpart, Kael’thas, had eight first bans- more than even Zeratul- but he did see action in 19 games with a decent 53% win percentage. He was used in a variety of comps, and is even with Jaina in terms of the Meta’s top ranged assassins.
If you listened to the casters, one thing they repeatedly emphasized was how strong Kael’thas becomes in the late game. The popular build includes Ignite at level 16 which can completely dominate team fights, especially when combined with other abilities like Johanna’s Condemn or Kael’thas’ common Heroic ability, Phoenix. Any team facing off against him needed to be aggressive early to prevent his incredible endgame damage, and that’s something you should be practicing in your own play.
Speaking of Heroics, Phoenix is by far the most common choice for Kael’thas. It creates huge zoning issues for enemy teams, especially if they aren’t quick enough to dodge his Gravity Lapse beforehand. One thing to keep in mind about Phoenix is just how strong it can be on the new map, Battlefield of Eternity, as you can drop it on either your or the enemy Immortal and keep the opposing team from getting at it.
With that said, we saw one map where a team opted for Pyroblast instead on Battlefield of Eternity. In the finals, Tempo Storm’s Arthelon took Pyroblast because C9M was running only Tassadar and Tyrande as support so they had very weak burst healing. The Pyroblast forced the squishier members of C9M to flee any engagements since they couldn’t risk blowing up in the middle of a team fight and being easily killed. It was a good reminder to not always follow the cookie-cutter build and examine your enemy team first, in order to make talent decisions that work for your situation.
The fourth hero to be involved in every single game, and the only Specialist of the group, was Zagara. The Broodmother has always been a strong hero due to her solo-lane presence, her Devouring Maw Heroic ability, and the extra vision her Creep Tumors offer. With the recent drop off in Sylvanas play, Zagara seems to have overtaken her as the top Specialist. On the final day of the tournament, teams were even banning Zagara out in place of Kael’thas.
The tournament saw teams picking up the Endless Creep talent that allowed them to cover entire lanes and both gem turn in spots on Tomb of the Spider Queen. The extra vision allowed Zagara to solo lane effectively with three abilities that can wipe out minion waves with little effort.
Like the other popular heroes, Zagara’s popularity didn’t translate to wins, as she only had a 47% win percentage. All four of these heroes demonstrate that hero selection alone is not enough to win you a game. The professional players recognize strong heroes and would trade them back and forth from match to match. That tells us that these heroes are well-rounded and have high skill ceilings, but at the end of the day still only make up 20% of a team.
After being a dominating presence in the tournament scene going all the way back to Heroes of the Dorm, Illidan had only one pick in the Round of 8 this month. Most of this is due to his recent nerfs, but it left an opening for the new melee Assassin, The Butcher. The Butcher was played or banned in 16 games, the highest usage of any Assassin outside of the three that were in every game. Clearly he has a place in the professional Meta, and was the melee of choice for COGnitive, who played him in 7 of their 10 games.
Glaurung of COGnitive Gaming highlighted just how strong he could be with his early aggressive style. The Butcher is a hero that is best used hunting for ganks in lanes and snowballing your team to a quick lead because of his strong initiation, especially when paired with a Tyrande or Jaina who can follow up with burst damage and CC.
Glaurung also showed off some sneaky play with an Abathur hat as he took down the boss on Blackheart’s Bay right when it first spawned with only a finishing assist from the rest of his team. Butcher’s self healing is so strong that with only a little support through Abathur’s shields, he was able to let his team soak lanes on the rest of the map while securing a surprise early boss. Obviously, he’s just as effective grabbing Ogre and Bruiser camps in the same way. Make sure you keep an eye on bosses when you see Butcher-Abathur combos.
A final note on The Butcher is that nobody picked up Lamb to the Slaughter as a Heroic. This is because it can be easily countered with a Cleanse, which all of the main Supports currently have. Furnace Blast is the way to go for now, because it is his only AOE ability and can hit for massive damage on a team that is not spread out.
Tassadar has always been a popular hero in the professional Meta because of his combination of utility, burst damage, and vision, as Tempo Storm in particular leaned heavily on him in the June Open. July was no different, as he was picked or banned in 86% of games. The more surprising Support who made a triumphant return to the professional scene was Tyrande, who was played in 19 games and banned in another five. Tyrande was a popular hero in the Alpha, where her stun was paired with Arthas or Diablo to lock down enemy heroes, and she seems to be back in a similar place now with a 63% win percentage over the weekend.
Tyrande offers some similar advantages to Tassadar in that she can give you damage, strong vision with Sentinel, and assist your main Support in healing, especially with Overflowing Light at 13. The place where Tyrande most shines is when she is paired up with The Butcher to eliminate unsuspecting heroes and grab an early lead. Timing her Lunar Flare and Hunter’s Mark to follow up a Ruthless Onslaught was a common sight this weekend, and it’s a dangerous combination going forward. Her decent healing also allows for an early roam group, especially if you add in a Muradin for even more lockdown.
Typically teams were grabbing Starfall as her Heroic ability for many of the same reasons Kael’thas takes Phoenix: zoning and good AOE damage when combined with stuns. However, we did see Shadowstalk which should never be discounted if the situation calls for sneaky team . Against a novice Abathur, you can Shadowstalk into double Sentinels that can eliminate him from anywhere on the map, and it’s another tool that The Butcher can use to grab quick kills. It also counters stealth heroes and gank setups from the other team very effectively, making it situational but an absolutely gamechanger. It’s probably wasted against an Tassadar team because of Oracle though.
Both pseudo-Supports had a good showing this month, but there was also a lesson to be learned from Cloud9 Maelstrom, who in the final game of the tournament opted for Tassadar and Tyrande as their only Supports. As I detailed in the Kael’thas section, this left them wide open to Pyroblast with no sustainability in long team fights. You still need to pair either of these Heroes with one of the true Supports.
One of the recurring themes of the tournament was the drafting of Supports when there seem to be only four viable heroes in that role. Rehgar and Uther are considered top tier, with Malfurion a bit below them, and Li Li below him. Typically aggressive team comps would try to pair their melee Assassin with Rehgar or Uther to have the burst healing needed to sustain a dive, but because of the current double-ban system, this was easy to interrupt with the second wave of bans. Because of this, the top two Supports were often picked and banned in the second wave to force the enemy team into a Malfurion or Li Li, both of whom are less capable of burst healing.
Burst healing is the name of the game right now, and Uther has always excelled at it. When you combine that with his strong stun, Divine Shield, and Redemption at 20, he’s a force to be reckoned with regardless of comp. Rehgar’s recent talent tweaks give him incredibly strong burst healing that can keep your whole team up in a team fight. He also has incredible sustain with Feral Heart, a lower CD on his heal with Tidal Waves, and the best burst heal in the game, Ancestral Healing. Neither is dropping out of the scene without being hit with a nerf bat.
Despite this, Malfurion had the highest win rate of these four with 67%, because of the power of Tranquility and his MULE on Sky Temple. MULE is especially strong on that map, because the beams from each Temple do not do any splash damage, so every MULE can soak up some of that damage and allow you to weaken the effect of the main map objective.
Li Li ended up with a losing record overall, but she is still capable of winning tournament games, despite not having a targeted Cleanse. Her Jug of 1,000 Cups is incredibly strong, but you need to pop it in the right spot and your teammates need to make sure to zone out enemies to prevent them from stunning you. At level 20 with Kung Fu Hustle, the cooldown for Jug is almost always up, which means she can carry your team through team fights if you can make it to late game. Just watch out for those stuns!
The current Warrior scene is pretty static, with most games featuring the same two tanks. Johanna and Muradin are the cream of the crop because of their survivability and stuns, with Johanna taking a slight edge. Condemn is so powerful at setting up huge combos with any AOE skillshot. The current builds for her also emphasize strong wave clearing through Knight Takes Pawn so she’s able to solo lane sufficiently at any point in the game to keep your lanes pushed. Muradin offers attack speed slow at level one, and his escapability with Dwarf Toss helps him get out of sticky situations. I expect both to stay competitive because of the prevalence of burst damage and lack of burst healing in the current Meta.
Outside of those two, Anub’arak and Arthas saw some play, but neither made a huge impact as solo Warriors. Anub’arak was often paired with Muradin to provide an endless amount of stuns for Tempo Storm, and Arthas was used with his Summon Sindragosa Heroic ability to push with Immortals or Spiders. Arthas has some potential to come back into the Meta because his kit is still strong with the snares and roots, but his mobility is still suspect and he’s not as tanky as he once was.
Tyrael was only played once and he continues to be a dive-happy Warrior. It will be interesting to see how Leoric fits into the scene since he also seems to be built around aggression, but with more crowd control than Tyrael. Most new heroes are strong at first, so I expect he will be played in the August Open, but we’ll have to wait and see how he impacts the rest of the hero pool.
Dustin Browder recently announced that Blizzard will finally be adding a ban system to Team League (and possibly Hero League). This means you can now take the strategies you see in the competitive tournaments and apply them to games you’re playing for fun in Heroes. Now is a great time to pay attention to this and improve your draft strategies, as he mentioned the possibility of the same double-ban system from the July Open being used in game. Hopefully this also means there will be a built in interface for drafting, which the game sorely needs.
With over 100 teams, the largest field yet, in the Open Bracket it’s rather intimidating and time-consuming to watch every single matchup, so I’m going to focus specifically on the Round of 8. The final eight teams had a nice mix of established teams and some fresh faces, so there’s a lot you can take away from it.
If you want to look over the Round of 8 stats yourself, CyaSteve compiled a Google spreadsheet than you can find here.
Let’s start by looking at the four heroes who were picked or banned in all 28 games, as they are a good indication of the best choices in the current Meta.
Top 4: Jaina was Picked First a Lot
Jaina was played in 24 of the 28 games in the Round of 8, and was banned in the other four. In fact, she was picked first in 19 of those 24 games which shows just how highly teams value the frost mage. Unfortunately, her popularity didn’t translate to wins, as she had mediocre 46% win rate.
What can we learn from Jaina’s high pick rate? She’s a really strong hero, even after the removal of Sprint. HotSLogs agrees as she is the most played and winningest hero across all Hero League games. Her kit gives her some of the highest damage potential in the game that she can unleash on either a single target or as AoE in a team fight. All of her abilities slow enemies which helps solidify ganks and wipe up after team fights. Water Elemental is the prefered Heroic ability for her, and with the recent change to pet control, you can control the elemental even after she dies. If you typically play Assassin heroes, you should have already tried Jaina out.
If she’s so great, why didn’t she have a winning record? No hero is so strong that they can carry a team single-handedly against a superior opponent. While Jaina can unload an insane amount of burst damage, it can be a disaster if the rest of the team isn’t taking advantage of her damage or protecting her in the back lines. Jaina’s fragility makes her a priority target so without synergy in ganks and team fights her damage is wasted.
Top 4: Teams Did Not Want to Face Zeratul
Zeratul was played in only five games (winning three of them) but was banned in every other game, typically as the second ban. What’s the deal with that? Well in this draft system, the first ban also gets first pick, so the second team was forced to ban out Zeratul to prevent him from being first picked. Does that mean Zeratul is actually more popular or better than Jaina? It’s a good bet, but we only saw him a few times. His combination of damage and escapability makes him an annoying presence at all levels of play.
The current popular build with Zeratul combines his strengths by letting you jump on an enemy, pop all your abilities woven together with powered up melee hits, then blink back out using Wormhole. It’s incredibly powerful and it makes him especially hard to kill, unlike Jaina who is easier to lockdown and eliminate if she over-extends.
But that’s not all- he also gives you huge map presence as your enemies must always account for where you are, and you can scout or trap your enemies anywhere. Void Prison is an especially powerful Heroic ability that can set up kills or prevent team wipes, and combines with other AOE abilities to cause havoc in the enemy lines.
Another factor that lead to Zeratul bans is that many of the teams refused to let skilled melee players like Cloud9 Maelstrom’s Fan or COGnitive Gaming’s Glaurung play such a strong hero. Often his ban was just out of respect for the damage he could deal in a capable player’s hand.
Note: There is currently a bug that allows Zeratul’s Shadow Assault to be targeted globally, and while this wasn’t addressed during the July Open, it’s possible that it influenced the bans.
Top 4: Kael’thas is an Endgame Beast
Jaina’s mage counterpart, Kael’thas, had eight first bans- more than even Zeratul- but he did see action in 19 games with a decent 53% win percentage. He was used in a variety of comps, and is even with Jaina in terms of the Meta’s top ranged assassins.
If you listened to the casters, one thing they repeatedly emphasized was how strong Kael’thas becomes in the late game. The popular build includes Ignite at level 16 which can completely dominate team fights, especially when combined with other abilities like Johanna’s Condemn or Kael’thas’ common Heroic ability, Phoenix. Any team facing off against him needed to be aggressive early to prevent his incredible endgame damage, and that’s something you should be practicing in your own play.
Speaking of Heroics, Phoenix is by far the most common choice for Kael’thas. It creates huge zoning issues for enemy teams, especially if they aren’t quick enough to dodge his Gravity Lapse beforehand. One thing to keep in mind about Phoenix is just how strong it can be on the new map, Battlefield of Eternity, as you can drop it on either your or the enemy Immortal and keep the opposing team from getting at it.
With that said, we saw one map where a team opted for Pyroblast instead on Battlefield of Eternity. In the finals, Tempo Storm’s Arthelon took Pyroblast because C9M was running only Tassadar and Tyrande as support so they had very weak burst healing. The Pyroblast forced the squishier members of C9M to flee any engagements since they couldn’t risk blowing up in the middle of a team fight and being easily killed. It was a good reminder to not always follow the cookie-cutter build and examine your enemy team first, in order to make talent decisions that work for your situation.
Top 4: Zagara Is the New Queen of the Specialists
The fourth hero to be involved in every single game, and the only Specialist of the group, was Zagara. The Broodmother has always been a strong hero due to her solo-lane presence, her Devouring Maw Heroic ability, and the extra vision her Creep Tumors offer. With the recent drop off in Sylvanas play, Zagara seems to have overtaken her as the top Specialist. On the final day of the tournament, teams were even banning Zagara out in place of Kael’thas.
The tournament saw teams picking up the Endless Creep talent that allowed them to cover entire lanes and both gem turn in spots on Tomb of the Spider Queen. The extra vision allowed Zagara to solo lane effectively with three abilities that can wipe out minion waves with little effort.
Like the other popular heroes, Zagara’s popularity didn’t translate to wins, as she only had a 47% win percentage. All four of these heroes demonstrate that hero selection alone is not enough to win you a game. The professional players recognize strong heroes and would trade them back and forth from match to match. That tells us that these heroes are well-rounded and have high skill ceilings, but at the end of the day still only make up 20% of a team.
The Butcher Brings Fresh Meat
After being a dominating presence in the tournament scene going all the way back to Heroes of the Dorm, Illidan had only one pick in the Round of 8 this month. Most of this is due to his recent nerfs, but it left an opening for the new melee Assassin, The Butcher. The Butcher was played or banned in 16 games, the highest usage of any Assassin outside of the three that were in every game. Clearly he has a place in the professional Meta, and was the melee of choice for COGnitive, who played him in 7 of their 10 games.
Glaurung of COGnitive Gaming highlighted just how strong he could be with his early aggressive style. The Butcher is a hero that is best used hunting for ganks in lanes and snowballing your team to a quick lead because of his strong initiation, especially when paired with a Tyrande or Jaina who can follow up with burst damage and CC.
Glaurung also showed off some sneaky play with an Abathur hat as he took down the boss on Blackheart’s Bay right when it first spawned with only a finishing assist from the rest of his team. Butcher’s self healing is so strong that with only a little support through Abathur’s shields, he was able to let his team soak lanes on the rest of the map while securing a surprise early boss. Obviously, he’s just as effective grabbing Ogre and Bruiser camps in the same way. Make sure you keep an eye on bosses when you see Butcher-Abathur combos.
A final note on The Butcher is that nobody picked up Lamb to the Slaughter as a Heroic. This is because it can be easily countered with a Cleanse, which all of the main Supports currently have. Furnace Blast is the way to go for now, because it is his only AOE ability and can hit for massive damage on a team that is not spread out.
The Pseudo-Supports
Tassadar has always been a popular hero in the professional Meta because of his combination of utility, burst damage, and vision, as Tempo Storm in particular leaned heavily on him in the June Open. July was no different, as he was picked or banned in 86% of games. The more surprising Support who made a triumphant return to the professional scene was Tyrande, who was played in 19 games and banned in another five. Tyrande was a popular hero in the Alpha, where her stun was paired with Arthas or Diablo to lock down enemy heroes, and she seems to be back in a similar place now with a 63% win percentage over the weekend.
Tyrande offers some similar advantages to Tassadar in that she can give you damage, strong vision with Sentinel, and assist your main Support in healing, especially with Overflowing Light at 13. The place where Tyrande most shines is when she is paired up with The Butcher to eliminate unsuspecting heroes and grab an early lead. Timing her Lunar Flare and Hunter’s Mark to follow up a Ruthless Onslaught was a common sight this weekend, and it’s a dangerous combination going forward. Her decent healing also allows for an early roam group, especially if you add in a Muradin for even more lockdown.
Typically teams were grabbing Starfall as her Heroic ability for many of the same reasons Kael’thas takes Phoenix: zoning and good AOE damage when combined with stuns. However, we did see Shadowstalk which should never be discounted if the situation calls for sneaky team . Against a novice Abathur, you can Shadowstalk into double Sentinels that can eliminate him from anywhere on the map, and it’s another tool that The Butcher can use to grab quick kills. It also counters stealth heroes and gank setups from the other team very effectively, making it situational but an absolutely gamechanger. It’s probably wasted against an Tassadar team because of Oracle though.
Both pseudo-Supports had a good showing this month, but there was also a lesson to be learned from Cloud9 Maelstrom, who in the final game of the tournament opted for Tassadar and Tyrande as their only Supports. As I detailed in the Kael’thas section, this left them wide open to Pyroblast with no sustainability in long team fights. You still need to pair either of these Heroes with one of the true Supports.
The Support Ban Meta, or: Which Team Will Get Stuck with Li Li
One of the recurring themes of the tournament was the drafting of Supports when there seem to be only four viable heroes in that role. Rehgar and Uther are considered top tier, with Malfurion a bit below them, and Li Li below him. Typically aggressive team comps would try to pair their melee Assassin with Rehgar or Uther to have the burst healing needed to sustain a dive, but because of the current double-ban system, this was easy to interrupt with the second wave of bans. Because of this, the top two Supports were often picked and banned in the second wave to force the enemy team into a Malfurion or Li Li, both of whom are less capable of burst healing.
Burst healing is the name of the game right now, and Uther has always excelled at it. When you combine that with his strong stun, Divine Shield, and Redemption at 20, he’s a force to be reckoned with regardless of comp. Rehgar’s recent talent tweaks give him incredibly strong burst healing that can keep your whole team up in a team fight. He also has incredible sustain with Feral Heart, a lower CD on his heal with Tidal Waves, and the best burst heal in the game, Ancestral Healing. Neither is dropping out of the scene without being hit with a nerf bat.
Despite this, Malfurion had the highest win rate of these four with 67%, because of the power of Tranquility and his MULE on Sky Temple. MULE is especially strong on that map, because the beams from each Temple do not do any splash damage, so every MULE can soak up some of that damage and allow you to weaken the effect of the main map objective.
Li Li ended up with a losing record overall, but she is still capable of winning tournament games, despite not having a targeted Cleanse. Her Jug of 1,000 Cups is incredibly strong, but you need to pop it in the right spot and your teammates need to make sure to zone out enemies to prevent them from stunning you. At level 20 with Kung Fu Hustle, the cooldown for Jug is almost always up, which means she can carry your team through team fights if you can make it to late game. Just watch out for those stuns!
The Warrior Meta is Waiting for Leoric
The current Warrior scene is pretty static, with most games featuring the same two tanks. Johanna and Muradin are the cream of the crop because of their survivability and stuns, with Johanna taking a slight edge. Condemn is so powerful at setting up huge combos with any AOE skillshot. The current builds for her also emphasize strong wave clearing through Knight Takes Pawn so she’s able to solo lane sufficiently at any point in the game to keep your lanes pushed. Muradin offers attack speed slow at level one, and his escapability with Dwarf Toss helps him get out of sticky situations. I expect both to stay competitive because of the prevalence of burst damage and lack of burst healing in the current Meta.
Outside of those two, Anub’arak and Arthas saw some play, but neither made a huge impact as solo Warriors. Anub’arak was often paired with Muradin to provide an endless amount of stuns for Tempo Storm, and Arthas was used with his Summon Sindragosa Heroic ability to push with Immortals or Spiders. Arthas has some potential to come back into the Meta because his kit is still strong with the snares and roots, but his mobility is still suspect and he’s not as tanky as he once was.
Tyrael was only played once and he continues to be a dive-happy Warrior. It will be interesting to see how Leoric fits into the scene since he also seems to be built around aggression, but with more crowd control than Tyrael. Most new heroes are strong at first, so I expect he will be played in the August Open, but we’ll have to wait and see how he impacts the rest of the hero pool.
Final Note on the Importance of Watching Competitive Heroes:
Dustin Browder recently announced that Blizzard will finally be adding a ban system to Team League (and possibly Hero League). This means you can now take the strategies you see in the competitive tournaments and apply them to games you’re playing for fun in Heroes. Now is a great time to pay attention to this and improve your draft strategies, as he mentioned the possibility of the same double-ban system from the July Open being used in game. Hopefully this also means there will be a built in interface for drafting, which the game sorely needs.
@BababooeyHots Will add bans after further testing of two ban system you see in our esports. Thanks for playing. =)
— Dustin Browder (@DustinBrowder) July 21, 2015Stray Observations
- The competitive scene is growing so fast, it’s great to see new teams in the Round of 8 this month. Obviously Tempo Storm continued their run as the top team in North America, but new blood like COGnitive Gaming, Pool Plato Some Tangos, and Goon Squad are a breath of fresh air that may be able to bring some new insight into the game. It seems like the popular method of attacking Tempo Storm is to be aggressive early and try to grab an early advantage. It’s yet to work very effectively, but with more practice by the newcomers, we might see a new champion crowned in August.
- I understand that Blizzard wants to keep a clean interface for their tournaments, but the lack of a talent tracker really makes it hard to follow what builds heroes are using. The casters do their best to point things out, but when watching live, it’s extremely hard to follow. I hope they can add a talent tracker that can be toggled on and off so casters can better highlight choices. It doesn’t need to be up all the time, but can be pulled up when teams hit the milestone levels. This would really help viewers learn new talent builds without having to memorize each talent’s name and jotting them down during the frantic action.
- Gazlowe had a 100% win rate! He was picked once by compLexity against COGnitive’s triple melee comp, and actually held his own on Sky Temple. He’s actually perfectly suited for that map because he has time to set up a perimeter at a temple, and the melee had a difficult time diving into all his turrets to fight.
- Sylvanas is still around but has been severely diminished with the change to Envenom and her Wailing Arrow nerf. She was still in 10 games, but nowhere near her June performance where she was often first picked or banned.
- Lost Vikings seem to be dead in North America. The major talent overhaul has not gone over well, but it will be interesting to see if other regions continue using them. Recently TeamLiquid won DreamHack Valencia while playing them twice in the finals against Na’Vi, so there might be a chance for them to play again.
- Nazeebo is sneaking back into the Meta, while Valla has continued to dip after being one of the top Assassins since the Alpha. Nazeebo dropped out for a while after the nerf to Ravenous Spirit, but the trendy spider build with Gargantuan shows promise. Maybe Leoric will give his friends from the Diablo franchise a chance to come back onto the scene.
- Only 19 heroes were played in more than 4 games. That’s exactly 50% of the current hero pool, which means there are a lot of interesting strategies and playstyles we aren’t seeing on the tournament scene. When will we see more Murky or Sgt. Hammer?
- Sky Temple was played 11 times out of 28 games, and Dragon Shire and Haunted Mines were skipped entirely. What does this mean? I have no idea, other than people like the mechanics and strategies on Sky Temple. Battlefield of Eternity has already bumped Haunted Mines out as the two-lane map of choice. (Edit: Apparently there was a bug on Dragon Shire that lead to it being banned out. Thanks to DocDestroy on Reddit for this!)
- Speaking of Battlefield of Eternity, the prefered strat here is to wipe out the other team, then kill their Immortal while they run away or respawn. Take note of this for your own games!
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. (or hit two heroes)
