China and South Korea, the last strongholds of competitive Heroes, have been two of the most affected Asian countries in the COVID-19 pandemic. However, things are slowly getting back to some kind of normal, which means the celebration of HotS: Revival and GHL 2020 are just around the corner.

REVIVAL Season 5

Revival isn't the only South Korean tournament now. Back in March, a new tournament emerged called Heroes of the Storm RE:Fresh. It gathered many of the best Korean players, but one of the teams was far above its rivals. Team AF (Frankle, Gondar, Hide, Lockdown and Ttsst) swept all the other teams without dropping a single map. This team—under the name Carrot—had also taken the trophy from the last 2019 Revival season.

After RE:Fresh, teams suffered an intense rosterpocalypse which resulted in a completely different scene. Gondar, Hide, and Lockdown parted ways to lead their own projects (BCK, Dowon Resolution* and 3 People Dream* respectively). The two other teams participating in Season 5 also had former HGC players among their ranks such as NaCHoJin (DDingGuRPG) and kcb (Flying Tech Ho).





The format for Season 5 was the same as Season 4: a single round robin group stage followed by a 4-team gauntlet playoff. The first team to fall was Flying Tech Ho. DDingGuRPG was taken out next after losing 3-1 at the first playoff round. After their victory in the first round, 3 People Dream faced Dowon, and despite having a lower seed, Lockdown defeated his brother Hide in a decisive 4-0 victory.

The script for the finals seemed clear. Crow and Gondar, the recent Chinese champions, had the upper hand. After taking the first two games of the Bo7 series, the BCK victory seemed almost secured. However, 3 People Dream wouldn’t give up, and they began to hold their ground and fight back. They took a couple games with Xul and Garrosh and tied up the series 2-2. BCK wondered if those two heroes were the problem, so they picked them for themselves, but the momentum was already against them and they lost once more.





With their backs against the wall, BCK drafted an unconventional hypercarry composition with Chen and Zarya as Raynor’s bodyguards for Battlefield of Eternity. They secured some immortals despite losing most of the teamfights, but it wasn’t enough. When 3 People Dream took their first objective, they broke through BCK’s structures and made a grab for victory.

*Approximate translations for 도원결의 and 3인황꿈.

GHL 2020 Season 1

Two words define the first 2020 season of GHL: Lost Cavern. We’re not sure if this was a joke or an adaptation because of COVID-19, but it’s definitely entertaining.

The single lane map was the only map in the pool, and it forced the teams to adapt their gameplay to this brawl scenario. Removing the map diversity hasn’t been a complete disaster. We’ve witnessed many different situations, from base races to backdoors; from 10 minutes sweeps to 32 minute (plus pauses) back and forth struggles. And to spice up all this variety, double support compositions and a huge pick diversity that could rival Meta Madness.

The 48 participating teams were seeded in six different groups with only one spot per group to advance to the main group stage. This situation was specially dramatic in Group C, where the finals resulted in a showdown between Tsunami (Gondar, Crow, Unicron, zio and sunXchuan) and HOTS (365, Hide, Lockdown, H82 and Wind), two of the most stacked teams of the whole tournament. Tsunami got the victory in this clash of titans, advancing to the next stage as one of the favorite teams.

Only four teams out of the six from the main group stage advanced into the playoffs. West Eight Team and PMF couldn’t make it, so (in order) GTP, Tsunami, Complex, and FLY took the playoff seats. Every team had lost at least two maps at that point, so nothing was written in stone yet. The teams with Korean players—Tsunami and GTP, with PanDaGom and SaMaT—seemed to be the stronger ones, but it turned out GTP couldn’t take down FLY in a long and intense 3-2 series.





On the other side of the bracket, Tsunami showed no mercy by defeating Complex in an overwhelming 3-0. At the finals, both teams showed what they had learned about the Lost Cavern meta. FLY tried different strategies to deal with the Tsunami Thrall pick, (one of the most contested heroes in the whole tournament), but none of them worked and Tsunami signed another 3-0 victory to claim the Chinese crown. For them, it was revenge for falling short in 3rd place during the 2019 Season 2.