The group stage of first Division S edition is now over. It has gone on for about three months, giving us back the feeling of a time-stretched competition, but if we look into the statistics of this tournament we notice that only a single hero has failed to see play in both the EU and NA regions. The unloved one is the Flesh Carver himself, the Butcher.

What brought us here

This huge amount of diversity has its pinnacle in North America, where 83 out of 86 heroes have been picked. Of the remaining three, Nazeebo and Orphea have been played in Europe (although the region has a remarkably smaller hero pool, with 21 unpicked heroes). If we compare these data to the last HGC Phase, North American players contested 71 out of 82 heroes, which is great, but far from their current mark.



There are a few reasons for this diversity. The most obvious one is the league duration: three months for regular stage and almost an extra month until playoffs end. In this time period two of the biggest balance updates have been released: 2.44.1 and 2.45.1. The first one brought many changes for ranged assassins, whereas the second one was more focused on tanks. These two updates affected 44 heroes, more than half of the complete roster, and we should add the Chen rework on 2.46.0 for the last few games.

Besides all these updates, the new talent arriving to the scene was the other main reason for this diversity. Some players brought in their signature picks, such as stalk’s Anub’Arak (which helped raise the hero’s ban rate in Europe) or CoorgiBooty’s Rexxar, which has been drawing a lot of attention in North American drafts.

While in Europe most teams played around a single meta, in North America each team seemed to have its own interpretation, often adding their own unique flavour to the draft. That’s because some teams and players came directly from the amateur scene, where they had tried out uncommon picks and made it work. So, when they arrived at Division S and this diverse meta emerged, they made many of these unusual heroes work, enriching the meta even more.

Heroes showcase

Now you may be intrigued and longing to see how Division S players made these strange picks work. Here we bring you some examples:

Orphea

Granit Gaming vs. Washed Up, Game 1 (Week 5). Map: Dragon Shire. Player:T (aka Kari)

Granit decided to open this series against one of their hardest rivals with an Orphea pick. In Europe Orphea was played only four times (none in North America), three of them by Granit.

Ragnaros

Order of the Sleeping Dragon vs. Revive Esports, Games 4 and 5 (Week 12). Maps: Volskaya Foundry and Battlefield of Eternity. Player: Bizmarkie

Revive brought Ragnaros to this series not one, but twice, so they could melt some cores and wave some lava. Bizmarkie picked different definitive abilities in the two games - guess which one he won…

Mephisto

Wind and Rain vs. Divine Vendetta, Game 3 (Week 9). Map: Infernal Shrines. Player: Makke

The HGC veteran Makke chose to go for a questing Lord of Hatred picking Unyielding Power as level 1 talent, and that seemed to work better than Furious Spark, the most popular choice for that talent tier.

Nova

Looking for Work vs. Celeb Gaming, Game 3 (Week 6). Map: Garden of Terror. Player: Droplets

Looking for Work has been one of the most creative teams. Here we can see an infamous combo: Murky and Nova, a nightmare nobody would like to witness in their Storm League games. The worst thing is they used this combo again in Week 8 against Order of the Sleeping Dragon, and both times they won. Grab and shoot!





In this first Division S we’ve seen new heroes, old heroes and reworked ones, which may count as both categories. It has been amazing to have such a diverse meta, where every game teams can bring in a surprise. It doesn’t always work, but teams are willing to try some new things, and that’s really good. We hope this trend goes on in the upcoming tournaments, and we hope it even gets better. How? Easy, a little bit of fresh meat should do the trick.