One week ago, eight Heroes of the Storm teams entered the well-known Fragbite Masters tournament. The prize pool wasn’t anything spectacular, but the tournament was an important testing ground for many teams to explore roster changes and consider new recruits.

In the wake of BlizzCon, the player market blew wide open as several teams dissolved or made major roster changes. Free agents became abundant. Teams like Fnatic and Liquid officially released all but a few core players, and many other teams sought minor roster changes to augment their strengths for the upcoming BlizzCon Circuit in 2016. Among the teams at Fragbite, there were numerous player swaps and several incidents of players playing against their previous teams, making for a chaotic but fascinating experiment in player exchanges.

For instance, GranPkt, formerly on Team Liquid, ran trial on ROCCAT while Cris subbed in for Team Liquid. Virtus.Pro tried out the newcomer NathaN, and Wubby replaced KnowMe in Spartanien’s roster. Fnatic played with two Pirates in Pyjamas players, Smexystyle and Quackniix, and players from the former Team ALTERNATE were scattered between ROCCAT and Fnatic. Even Dignitas had a hybrid team with Na`Vi players scHwimpi and JayPL filling in for adrd and Zarmony. The only team rosters that remained untouched were G2 Esports and the relatively unknown team Kiev6-1. To add to this chaotic atmosphere, the newest patch with scaling changes hit just before the final bracket and forced players to quickly adapt their Hero pools and strategies to the latest changes.

In Group A, Fnatic showed nothing less than dominance, dropping only a single close game to G2. In spite of having an almost entirely different roster, they managed to synergize excellently, and the shotcalling of Breez pulled them straight on through to the final bracket. ROCCAT fought hard and brilliantly, but it appeared as if the team synergy for them hadn’t quite kicked in yet. Team Liquid’s coordination looked similarly clunky, but after a challenging series against G2 -- a team plenty worthy of a first place finish in any tournament -- they were able to claw their way to the final bracket with Fnatic.

Group B was very similar in terms of results. Spartanien looked flawless in their games and came out of the group 4-0. Meanwhile, Dignitas and Virtus.Pro fought through two close series to vie for second place. Dignitas did not look like they were on point compared to the team we saw at the Europe Championship or BlizzCon, making it appear that adrd and Zarmony are key components to their lineup, but even with minor setbacks, they managed to secure their place in the top 4. Kiev gets an honorable mention for taking a fairly convincing game off of Virtus.Pro on Infernal Shrines, but they will need to step up their game in order to play with the rest of the world class teams in the future. In any case, look out for them as they begin to play more tournaments in the European scene.

The Semifinals lined up to be Fnatic vs Dignitas on one side of the bracket and Team Liquid vs Spartanien on the other. Fnatic showed outstanding teamwork with their new roster while Dignitas appeared to be experimenting with different compositions and roles within the team. For instance, in Game 1 Bakery decided to go solo support Tyrande. Though it’s a rather odd healer for him to play, the bigger issue was that he also took the Hero away from scHwimpi, who is known for his world-class Tyrande play. Dignitas didn’t play poorly by any means, but their ease in trying out new things and experimenting may have led them to a shorter end in the tournament than they deserved. For Fnatic, they continued to look invincible and likely to take the tournament.

On the other side of the bracket, Team Liquid’s new roster came into their own. During this time, they discovered the power of Divine Shield on ETC during Mosh Pit and used it to great effect. Lowell, Team Liquid’s newest official recruit, broke out a fascinating bruiser Kharazim build to great success. Spartanien lost some of the dominant spark they had the day before and seemed quite thrown off by Liquid’s clever and unorthodox usage of Heroes. Nonetheless, the games were unbelievably close, and Liquid only narrowly managed to secure a win to the finals of the tournament.

Ironically, the two teams with the most gutted and reconstructed rosters showed enough coordination to make it to the Finals. Both teams appeared to make a comfortable transition into the newest patch and immediately picked up new power picks like Falstad, ETC, and Tassadar in almost every game. Fnatic played perfectly in the first two games of the series with a Brightwing/Falstad/Muradin/Sonya combo. Long, drawn out clashes between the teams were the norm, often with almost no one dying, but Fnatic was able to capitalize on their map control and catch Liquid in the very few moments when they dropped their guard to try something risky, including sneaking a boss on Tomb of the Spider Queen, which was interrupted and subsequently set up the win for Fnatic. It looked like the tournament was going to end in a quick 3-0, but Liquid bounced back in Game 3, again with an incredibly risky boss capture. This time, however, Lowell on Leoric manages to capture the boss by dodging the Mighty Gust from Falstad with a well-timed (Unstoppable) March of the Black King. In Game 4, Liquid continued with their trademark ingenuity by drafting a bruiser Kharazim. Yet again, they took an incredible risk fighting in the boss pit on Cursed Hollow. Luckily, they managed to pull off an impressive team fight victory despite losing the boss capture, but after several aggressive forward Blinks to secure kills, Liquid decided to base race the boss for a win. The last map was played on Garden of Terror, so Liquid had no chance of trying to capture a risky boss. Similarly, Fnatic didn’t have to deal with the chance that Liquid would again go for a boss and somehow win a corresponding team fight, so it was a win-win for everyone. Game 5 looked amazing for Fnatic as they seemed to consistently out-rotate Liquid at every turn, continually gaining traction as Team Liquid’s structures tumbled to the ground one by one. However, in a huge misstep Fnatic went for a sneaky snipe on Liquid’s top keep, only to find themselves sandwiched in a dangerous place. In an attempt to ambush Liquid, Fnatic hides in a bush, but damage hits them from all sides, and a Mighty Gust from Cris on Falstad pins them against a wall and into a barrage of spells and auto-attacks. Liquid makes a split second call to go straight for core, managing to barely take it out before the last two members of Liquid fall.

In an unlikely and exciting comeback, Liquid managed to reverse sweep the series and walk home as champions of Fragbite Masters. This may be a season of change, but this tournament was important for testing the waters. Dreamhack is coming up in a week, and teams will need to organize themselves and refine their styles in order to prepare themselves for the big stage. The time for experimentation is over.