Thanks to its slower patch cadence, the Heroes of the Storm meta has become quite stable. Every now and then some heroes get out of the charts due to buffs and nerfs, but most of the heroes are—to some extent—viable. However, some characters are too situational or just don’t have a place in competitive games. That’s where META Madness comes into play.

META Madness is a series of tournaments organized by Khaldor where some of the most popular heroes are banned during the whole event or during some of its stages. Moreover, once a certain hero has been picked in a series, they can’t be played again until the series is over. This format forces teams to consider almost every available character and to come up with unconventional drafts and strategies, even if some of them don’t work and end in very one-sided games.

Apart from the bans system, each META Madness edition had its own format. The first editions were short events celebrated over a weekend, but that evolved into larger events with groups, playoffs, and even qualifiers, as it happened in META Madness 5. Some editions featured teams drafted by captains and others were disputed by regular pre-existing teams, such as Granit Gaming, Chilly Mountain, Wurst And Homies or Team Russia. The sixth edition of META Madness has just finished. Eight drafted teams disputed both a group stage and a double elimination playoff, showing us many interesting and unconventional picks.

META Madness HYPE! The teams have been decided as the captains drafted the teams earlier today! Who do you think is the favorite? You can find all the details and the schedule for the event at https://t.co/SEFoA96xjK pic.twitter.com/3mxmksElwn

— Thomas Kilian (@Khaldor) March 27, 2022

As usual, this META Madness edition had many unavailable heroes. Abathur, Blaze, Brighwing, Hanzo, Hogger, Johanna, Lúcio, Rehgar, Stukov, Tracer and Valla were banned during the group stage. Anduin, Anub'arak, Blaze, Dehaka, Genji, Hanzo, Hogger, Johanna, Junkrat, Li-Ming, Lúcio, Medivh, Muradin, Rehgar, Sgt. Hammer, Stukov, Sylvanas, Tracer, Valla and Zeratul were banned during the whole playoffs. Apart from the heroes banned throughout the whole tournament, every character was played except for The Butcher and Sgt. Hammer.

Due to these draft restrictions, players needed to come up with builds for some of the unusual characters in the Heroes of the Storm roster. We’ve gathered some of those builds for you to try them. Disclaimer: the builds might be far from optimal, as there may not be much data on the infrequent heroes for players to come up with a proper build. They might also include situational talents chosen as an answer to the enemy draft. To try out the builds just copy one of the codes to clipboard and import them at the ingame character selection screen.

Chen

The Warcraft brewmaster is no stranger to the meta. As usual, the pandaren warrior has shown some talent diversity. This is the Chen build used by most of the players:

[T2131413,Chen]

The alternatives to this build used during META Madness 6 relied on Chen’s other ultimate, Storm, Earth, Fire:

[T3132433,Chen]
[T1322432,Chen]

Gazlowe

Since Gazlowe became a bruiser after his rework, the goblin hasn’t been the most popular hero in his role. At META Madness we’ve seen a great talent diversity in his builds. These are two of the builds used at the tournament:

[T1332322,Gazlowe]
[T2111233,Gazlowe]

Li Li

Li Li has been out of the healer meta for a while now. Her kit was updated back in September and we almost hadn't seen her since. Most of the teams picked Li Li, but she was built quite differently on each occasion. These are some of her builds:

[T1231211,LiLi]
[T2222232,LiLi]

Mal'ganis

Despite a little talent diversity, Mal’Ganis’ players opted for what used to be his standard build. It came as a little surprise, as many build variations had emerged in his last competitive appearances before META Madness:

[T1121111,MalGanis]

Orphea

Each player adapted Orphea’s build to their own style. Though picking Crushing Jaws as ultimate was a unanimous decision, each one opted for different talents throughout the talent tree:

[T3312222,Orphea]
[T3212212,Orphea]

Rexxar

Rexxar’s builds focused on slowing down his targets. Some players chose to empower Misha, though most of them relied on Spirit Swoop to deliver their crowd control.

[T1212122,Rexxar]

Samuro

The Blademaster became a helpful ally for Team Drakyr, being ignored by their competitors. His performance was overall good and allowed Drakyr's squad to begin their comeback against Team Nic.

[T3211333,Samuro]

Valeera

Valeera was picked in only one game throughout the whole tournament. It was the third map of the opening series of Group B: Team Nic versus Team Dynouh. The Warcraft assassin took Nic’s squad to victory.

[T4112314,Valeera]

Zul'jin

Zul’jin has always struggled to find his place at competitive games. He appears from time to time and… usually does not work. However, with most of the hypercarries out of the picture, the troll has become an interesting pick during META Madness 6. Though Zul’jin is usually built around his Q, the level 7 talent Arcanite Axes seems to be a good failsafe in case the enemy comp has tools to blind our beloved troll.

[T1311211,Zuljin]
[T2221321,Zuljin]