Heroes Weekly Roundup: December 8 - December 14

Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the news in Heroes of the Storm. As a new, blooming game, there’s a lot of stuff going on. Don’t worry, we've got you covered.

We are pleased to present to you our new and improved layout, now with an actual banner! As for news, well...whew, we've got a long week full of stuff, from roster trades to Blizzard events to lots and lots and lots of tournament action. Strap yourselves in, we've got a lot to talk about!


News

• Last Tuesday, Blizzard announced a Recruit a Friend opportunity. Referring four friends in total could score you a sweet new Vulture mount. Interestingly enough, this has led to the outbreak of many many smurf accounts....
  
  
• This week will be the Winter Veil event! Blizzard is offering a plethora of unique skin options in the shop as well as stim boost quests for playing at least 15 games. The Festive Treasure Goblin mount will also be available to all players during the event (though it will sadly go away afterwards).
  
  
• Dustin Browder has been at the tweets again. Unfortunately, we didn't get Lunara when we wanted her, and DB still won't tell us when (hopefully tomorrow though, fingers crossed!). However, what we did get from him was confirmation on bans in Hero League once they implement the new matchmaking. This will surely be a huge addition to the game and create much more depth to Hero League.
  
  
• On a recent episode of Town Hall Heroes, Zoia announced that, unfortunately, Dreadnaught, support player and team captain of Tempo Storm, is retiring from professional play He will be staying with TS as a streamer, but it's a shame to lose perhaps the best support player in NA.
  
  
• On the flip side, Zoia also announced that top ladder player Srey and former Luminosity member Goku will be joining the ranks of Tempo Storm. While the two players don't have incredible history in professional play, Tempo Storm seems very confident in their skill level and coordination, so it'll be interesting to see what becomes of the new team.
  
  
• Virtus.Pro, after long consideration, decided to clean out their roster too, releasing all but CEBKAJE from their contracts. Team captain CEBKAJE is now on the lookout for new players to bring on board as the team reforms during the next few months.
  
  
• ROCCAT is also undergoing a reformation. After the departure of Cris, the team looked shaky and couldn't seem to gain the confidence they had before, even with the sub-ins of top support player GranPkt and Redx at Dreamhack. With this in mind, Sportbilly also left the team in search of a more confident group of players. It will be a long and difficult road for the remaining roster of ROCCAT as well as Sportbilly, but hopefully they can find a place of comfort before next year.
  

Tournaments

• We had a lot more action in http://wiki.teamliquid.net/heroes/Gold_Series_Heroes_League_2015/Season_2 this week moving into the playoffs. Brave Heart and ahq were the first to go down followed by YL and OMG in the lower bracket. Meanwhile, eStar blew through the upper bracket all the way to the finals. Unfortunately, C9 got knocked out in 4th place, but they DunkTrain promises that C9 is getting first place next time
  
  
• The past week has been a marathon run for Khaldor as he streamed and casted almost all of Enter the Storm NA and EU as well as Heroes Battle Arena, and even some of the C9 games from Gold League. The man is on a roll, make sure to subscribe to his Twitch stream to keep up with all of the action.
  
  
• The Bob Ross Fan Club, the motley crew of ex-Tempo Storm members and other highly rated individuals, came out to http://wiki.teamliquid.net/heroes/Enter_The_Storm/North_America/1 strong, taking first place and dropping only a single map to Murloc Geniuses throughout the entire tournament.
  
  
• http://wiki.teamliquid.net/heroes/Enter_The_Storm/Europe/4 has only just started, but the games so far have been excellent. Likewise for http://wiki.teamliquid.net/heroes/Heroes_Battle_Arena . There are dozens and dozens more games to be played in both tournaments, so keep your eyes open for opportunities to watch.
  
  
• Meanwhile, in Korea, http://wiki.teamliquid.net/heroes/Community_Open_Tournament/2 has been going down, with MVP Black looking as dominant as ever. It's unfortunate that Korea could not be represented in Gold League, but in their own sphere, they are showing that Korean esports are still top of the line.
  
  
• This week is the beginning of http://wiki.teamliquid.net/heroes/World_Cyber_Arena/2015 in Yinchuan, China. This is going to be our second premier international tournament for Heroes, so expect to see a lot of sparks fly. Make sure you tune into this, IT IS GOING TO BE AWESOME :D.
  
  
• We also have http://wiki.teamliquid.net/heroes/Esports_Champion_League_2015/Autumn and http://wiki.teamliquid.net/heroes/OGSeries_Storm_League going on as well until the end of this month, so it's a busy busy month for esports.
  

TeamLiquid Spotlight

• Once again we remind you that the LiquidHeroes team is still giving out free skins in our skin giveaway contest! All you have to do to win a skin is submit a creative skin design to us via Twitter or post it in the thread, and we will get you a skin soon afterwards! This won't last forever, so grab your free skin ASAP!
  

Community:

• Tank player Atheroangel for Dignitas released an awesome guide for Tyrael. As one of the best Tyrael players in the world, this is a wonderful treat!
  
  
• In the Team Liquid forums, we started a pretty good discussion on the differences between Heroes of the Storm and other MOBAs. Give us some of your input on why you chose Heroes over Dota or LoL!
  
  
• CarlTheLlama, after disappearing for several weeks, is finally back with another quality post, this time on tips and tricks for mind games in Heroes of the Storm. Drop by and let him know what you think.
  
  
• Reddit user GetEquipped wrote a short guide on not dying which underlines the basic fact that MOBAs are all about minimizing risk and keeping your opponents from getting ahead by just playing safe.
  
  
• Mr. KendricSwissh released a bit more of his Rank 1 Gameplay videos as well as episodes #56 and #57 of his Epic Plays of the Week. What a busy man.
  
  
• Totally unrelated to Heroes of the Storm, but I don't care: Grubby casts WC3. As a personal hero for me, I love to watch Grubby go back and put himself in the shoes of his former self using some of the knowledge he's picked up since from SC2 and Heroes. This series is awesome.
  

The Funnies:

• Na`Vi at HBA - "WOW WHAT...OH MY GOD WHAT WAS THAT...HOLY MOTHER OF GOD" -Khaldor 2015
  
  
• Carbot Animations: Support Group
  
  
• Reddit user Reghar34 (BTW, your name is spelled wrong, bro) brings us rare footage of flying Murky.
  
  
• Reddit user aurastorm shows how Chen may be in fact broken.
  
  
• Dear god, what.
  

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Lunara Hype?




That's everything for the week, see you next time!