After a long month of intense battles and mind games, the Gold Series Hero League comes to a close with eStar on top. As China’s premier league, the Gold Series defines the paradigm of what it means to be “the best Chinese team”. Unfortunately, season 1 ended poorly for China’s home teams with Korean esports clubs Snake and DK taking the top positions. This season, though, outside competitors were limited to only the Taiwanese team ahq and BlizzCon champions Cloud9, making it essentially a Chinese-only arena. For China, this was a tournament to prove once and for all, without the risk of usurpers, who was the best in the region.

Maintaining the Status Quo

The group stages were a grueling two week grind to separate the wheat from the chaff, eliminating the bottom four teams from the tournament. Super Perfect Team, ironically, was the first team to go, followed closely by NeXT, AG, and X-Team. While some of the teams seemed fairly evenly tied like Cloud9, YL, and Brave Heart in Group B, a few teams really stood out above the rest: EDG, eStar, and Zero Gaming. These Chinese monsters swept their groups convincingly (with eStar only losing to EDG in Group A) and poised themselves to take the top positions in the tournament.



In the playoffs, eStar and EDG tore through their opponents and quickly separated themselves from the rest of their competitors before meeting once again in the winners’ finals. This time around, eStar was able to get the edge over EDG in drafts and ride their advantages to a spot in the grand finals where they, no doubt, were expecting to face EDG once again. However, in a fascinating turn of events, Zero Gaming showed up in force against EDG, securing their own spot in the final and undermining all of the momentum EDG had going into the tournament. The finals between Zero and eStar started out very closely, but then eStar took it up a notch and showed exactly why they’ve been winning every Chinese tournament in the past few months. With a crushing 4-1 victory, eStar stood victorious. They finished the tournament with a strong 22-6 score, re-establishing themselves as the Gold standard in China and one of the teams to beat at the upcoming WCA World Finals.

Fallen from Cloud9

On the American side of things, it was natural for us to cheer for Cloud9 after their big win at BlizzCon, but it became apparent within the first week from their performance that there were some serious issues. Cloud9 had numerous flaws and obvious indecisiveness, causing them to lose to some adversaries they should have easily been able to beat. A combination of coping with the Chinese stage as well as several roadblocks prevented them from playing their best and no doubt caused a lot of frustration on the team. According to tweets from KingCaffiene and Fan, one day they were told they couldn’t even practice because all of the computers were taken, despite making reservations. Later, this was allegedly resolved, but it was still a mental blow to the team. In multiple interviews, DunkTrain admitted that the team was underperforming and that they were looking to find their stride as a cohesive team again.



In the end, the team pulled through with a respectable 4th place finish, but at the cost of their confidence. Cloud9 suffered multiple embarrassing losses, particularly in their series against eStar, and no doubt it was a blow to their pride. Nonetheless, C9 captain DunkTrain held his head high and made a promise that they would be back in force for the upcoming Gold Series Grand Finals in January.

Rockin’ Cows, Wolves, and Gryphons, Oh My!

The scaling changes introduced in the Cho’Gall patch have unquestionably brought a lot of changes to the metagame, but the most notable among them were the emergence of ETC, Falstad, and Rehgar in China. ETC was previously used to great effect in the European scene alongside Uther’s Divine Shield and Tyrael’s Sanctification to ensure a successful Mosh Pit, but it actually originated in the Chinese scene months before the scaling changes. With ETC becoming one of the top pick tanks again, the Chinese meta overflowed with incredible Mosh Pit plays and counter strategies, making this tournament one of the best to study for warrior players.

Falstad also made quite an appearance, topping the list of “auto-attack” Heroes due to his high burst damage and excellent utility with Mighty Gust. While Kael’Thas and Jaina still took top priority for assassins, Falstad was almost always on the table once the two mages were either taken or banned, knocking Valla and Raynor down lower on the priority list. Unlike ETC, China wasn’t playing much of the Wildhammer Thane before the changes went live, so Falstad players seemed a bit clunkier compared to the cool and collected precision of EU players like Quackniix or Cris. Nonetheless, watching his emergence in Gold League is still quite interesting when it comes to how it affects drafts across all regions.



Finally, the most surprising trend in China is the re-emergence of Rehgar, who was, after receiving a few nerfs, dethroned by Kharazim and Brightwing. In other regions, we see Rehgar by and large ignored, but in China, he has become a staple pick; even C9 seemed to agree, picking him numerous times in their games. So what makes him good now? Perhaps it’s the return to single-warrior compositions, perhaps it’s the prevalence of Tyrande and Tassadar who can pick up the healing slack, perhaps it’s that he just scales a lot better now. It’s hard to tell, but the Orc Shaman looked good, and it’s only a matter of time before we see other regions take him up again.

The Future in China

If we learned anything from this tournament, it’s that Heroes of the Storm is thriving in China. The stage at Shanghai was spectacular with tons of lighting effects, smoke streams shooting upward from the stage, and tons of falling confetti. The production was outstanding, and the casters looked very professional and enthusiastic. China is a nation that is well-known for latching onto other MOBAs like Dota 2 and LoL, and they have embraced Heroes wholeheartedly as an esport and will likely continue to host an active and vibrant community of supporters.








At the close of the tournament, NetEase announced the Gold Series Grand Finals, a chance for the top 4 teams from Season 1 and 2 to go against each other in a battle royale.

In addition to Gold League, the World Cyber Arena 2015 Grand Finals are also being held in China. At Yinchuan, the best teams in the world will come together once again to crown a king. Today, eStar was king, but now a larger kingdom is at stake.



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