EPTAfter a couple of exciting weeks the EU Nexus Contest is finally over, and it’s been a wonderful sample of what the community can achieve in hosting its own tournaments. For many of us, it has become a rediscovering of Heroes esports, a whole new beginning.However, it doesn’t follow the path of previous esports tournaments, which seems to herald the beginning of a change in the European balance.
The 2017 Nexus Games was dominated by Poland, who cleaned house with an overwhelming 15-3 map score. The rest of the top four consisted of teams from Sweden, Germany and France (not something that should be too unexpected). These are the countries that have birthed some of the great players in the HotS scene and in esports overall. Whichever esports title you follow, you'll notice these four countries popping up again and again.
However, the 2017 champions didn’t make it out of groups this time, losing first to Ukraine—a team that last year placed last in its group but this year achieved fourth in the whole tournament—and Russia, the new Nexus Contest champions. Though not a part of HGC, these players have been competing at the Agon League, a tournament for the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) region. But what’s changed from last year to make these two teams so much stronger? We’ve talked to some of their players to find out.
Congratulations, Team Russia @eu_nexus #savehots #agon #agonleague #season2 #hgc #hots #heroesofthestorm pic.twitter.com/leOIx0KmVV
— AgonLeague (@AgonLeague) December 24, 2018
Team Russia: Stalk
If we’re going to discuss Russian history in Heroes of the Storm, we must first go back to the beginning in 2015 to a team called ArthasStroitHram, later Virtus.pro). After its disbandment, Synergy would rise from its ashes as the only Russian team to make it into HGC. Stalk was once part of ArthasStroitHram, later on lending his talents to the other mythical Russian team of the time, GoogleIshetZont (picked by Epsilon eSports for some months). Since then he has been a regular of the European Open Division.
“I was always here and trying to create teams, but it was hard because people can't play with each other. So when we got new people who play this game as Mrbanabear and Farlender, I could create a Russian team and play with an all-Russian roster.
We played Agon as a practice for the Nexus Contest, to practice all our strategy for the tournament. We prepared hard for each playoff game. You can see the VODs on my twitch channel. We as a team streamed every practice to show our small community what we did to prepare for this tournament, and we were not really scared to show anything to our opponents because we just play meta, but better.
I know two teams that can be more or less decent in Russia, but they lack experience, and you see it in drafts and in shotcalling. I wish them luck and if they’re gonna play 100% HotS when all other play mostly other games, they got some chance to win against good teams.”
We played Agon as a practice for the Nexus Contest, to practice all our strategy for the tournament. We prepared hard for each playoff game. You can see the VODs on my twitch channel. We as a team streamed every practice to show our small community what we did to prepare for this tournament, and we were not really scared to show anything to our opponents because we just play meta, but better.
I know two teams that can be more or less decent in Russia, but they lack experience, and you see it in drafts and in shotcalling. I wish them luck and if they’re gonna play 100% HotS when all other play mostly other games, they got some chance to win against good teams.”
As Stalk says, the Nexus Contest hasn’t been the first tournament for this Team Russia roster. In fact, they intend to keep the same roster for Division S qualifiers and other upcoming tournaments (as we saw at All Hallows Cup 3). However, the Nexus Contest had some inconveniences for the Russians, namely a time zone that’s slightly different to the European ones:
“Nexus Contest was great, but sadly you can't first-person stream it. As we as a team stream all stuff, it was really sad. And start time of games was really late. We finished the semi-final at 1.30am and finals at 2am, when we got two players who are fifteen and sixteen years old. It's not really cool stuff, but everything else was great. A lot of streamers on almost every language.
Thank you and all who cheered for us in games. I see that at the quarterfinals nobody followed us and all cheered for Denmark, but after it we got some guys who follow us on the English stream, and at the final we got a big fan base. I hope you’re gonna still follow and cheer for us on tournaments. Almost all of our team practice can be watched on my twitch channel."
Thank you and all who cheered for us in games. I see that at the quarterfinals nobody followed us and all cheered for Denmark, but after it we got some guys who follow us on the English stream, and at the final we got a big fan base. I hope you’re gonna still follow and cheer for us on tournaments. Almost all of our team practice can be watched on my twitch channel."
Ukraine: Witness and CandleLight
We talked before about Synergy, the last great Russian team, but not all of them were Russians. Synergy’s roster wouldn’t have been nearly as big without CEBKAJE and PowerOfDream, their two Ukrainian players. After Synergy disbandment, both of them disappeared, and that was almost everything we knew about Ukraine…until now.
After a poor result in the 2017 Nexus Games, the Ukrainian team has been almost fully revamped, keeping only two of its members: CandleLight and Valamaks. However, the team we’ve watched in this Nexus Contest has been a fearsome one, taking down Germany and Poland and forcing the Swedes to a fifth map. Witness and CandleLight from Team Ukraine explain the emerging talent in their country:
Witness: “Ukraine generally has a good amount of presence in every esport, but with CEBKAJE and PowerOfDream departure from HotS a few years back, there were only three Ukrainian Grandmasters left that I knew of: Valamaks, Shamzik and CandleLight. During 2017, Blizzard ran Nexus Games Europe, but since Shamzik was unable to participate due to being underage and a couple other players not making it for other reasons, Blizzard barely collected 5 people for Ukraine and we had no subs. In later stages of 2018, Witness and Denardo joined the ranks of Ukrainian Grandmasters and showed up to play in the competitive scene, which gave birth to our strong national roster this time.
The HotS esports scene is rather limited in number of leagues and tournaments available for semi-professional players, so most commonly I observed players and teams participating in every available competition: Open Division, HeroesLounge, HalloweenHeroes, ESL Go4Heroes, Agon League, and local tournaments. CandleLight played on Flavia Felix roster for about a year and he took tenth place during 2018 Winter Open Division cycle, barely missing the OD Playoffs. He also had a Go4Heroes victory, Agon League third place finish (Valamaks and his team took second), HeroesLounge Season 5 first place finish in Division 1, and second place in Season 5 Championship, all under his belt. We also won four local prized tournaments out of five we played in.”
The HotS esports scene is rather limited in number of leagues and tournaments available for semi-professional players, so most commonly I observed players and teams participating in every available competition: Open Division, HeroesLounge, HalloweenHeroes, ESL Go4Heroes, Agon League, and local tournaments. CandleLight played on Flavia Felix roster for about a year and he took tenth place during 2018 Winter Open Division cycle, barely missing the OD Playoffs. He also had a Go4Heroes victory, Agon League third place finish (Valamaks and his team took second), HeroesLounge Season 5 first place finish in Division 1, and second place in Season 5 Championship, all under his belt. We also won four local prized tournaments out of five we played in.”
Witness tells us that currently there are about ten high-skilled Ukrainian players, but they’re split into different teams. In fact, only Shamzik and Witness were in the same team before the Nexus Contest.
CandleLight: “I would have loved to stick together as this awesome national roster for Division S and whatever tournaments come up for HotS this year, but I think we are going our separate ways for now. Valamaks returns to his team NoRofl, Witness and Denardo are currently playing for team Nameless, I think Shamzlo is also on a team and I'm a free agent since Flavia Felix disbanded on December 14th.”
Witness: "Nexus Contest was awesome and we enjoyed every match we played. Huge thanks to all the amazing people who organized, casted and managed this tournament. We are deeply grateful for this opportunity to represent our country. And a special thanks to everyone who watched and supported our team.”
We’ll make sure to keep track of all these amazing players through the Division S qualifiers and Season 3 of Agon League, which will take off next March.
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Writer(s): Koznarov
Editor(s): Buckingham
Formatting: EsportsJohn
Design: shiroiusagi
Art Credit: EU Nexus Contest
Editor(s): Buckingham
Formatting: EsportsJohn
Design: shiroiusagi
Art Credit: EU Nexus Contest
