After months of anticipation and hundreds of matches across the world, the Heroes of the Storm World Championship’s inaugural tournament happened at BlizzCon. The tournament began a week before BlizzCon with the preliminary group stage taking place during Opening Week. No teams were eliminated on Opening Week, as every team deserved the chance to compete on the big stage. BlizzCon, on the other hand, featured seven elimination matches in a row, and by now you probably know that North America’s Cloud9 came out victorious over Europe’s Team Dignitas in the Grand Finals.

It was a great tournament considering Heroes has only been officially launched for a few months. We saw a lot of new strategies, but teams didn’t stray too far from their comfort zones with so much money on the line. It was interesting to see how the various regions’ metas unified and became one over the course of the tournament. All of the matches are now up on the Heroes of the Storm YouTube page, or you can read my Friday and Saturday recaps for the official Heroes esports site.

Of course, BlizzCon isn’t just about the tournaments, Blizzard also announced four new heroes, a new map, and several other big updates to Heroes as a game and an esport. Stay tuned to TeamLiquid.net for a full analysis of everything, but for now, let’s talk about what we learned from the tournament itself:

For the Alliance: Uther and Jaina

Uther and Jaina continued their run as two of the most powerful heroes in the game with both having 100% involvement, meaning they were either picked or banned in every draft. For those who have been following the Road to BlizzCon, this comes as no surprise as both heroes have been very strong for months. In previous tournaments, there were often other heroes that had high involvement purely through consistent bans (remember Zeratul?), but that wasn’t the case at BlizzCon.

Jaina is such a great hero because she has two viable Heroic abilities, talent diversity, and a high skill cap. She is good with random people in Quick Match, but extremely powerful when in the hands of the best players in the world. Properly landing her Frostbolts and Blizzards can turn the tide of battle, and combining Ring of Frost with Devouring Maw or Void Prison is devastating and we saw a few big plays with that combo over the tournament. Of course, Water Elemental is always great for applying constant slows and giving you a little more burst.

Uther has been the top Support hero for a long time, and it’s been especially noticeable recently with Divine Shield taking over for the nerfed Cleanse. Blizzard addressed his omnipresence in the competitive scene at BlizzCon and on the current PTR build they’ve adjusted his Divine Shield and Eternal Devotion. The stated goal of this change is to make him a little weaker in competitive play, but not hurt him too much for the majority of players. These changes will be rolled out in the next patch, but I’m not sure if they are enough to knock Uther out of the top healing spot.

Divine Shield x5

If you like Divine Shield, maybe I could interest you in one that covers your whole team: Sanctification. Tyrael wrecked face in the tournament by going 13-0 on his way to the Semi-Finals, where teams realized that he needed to be insta-banned. He had a significant impact role for both European teams, who both reached the Semi-Finals by using him six times in the Group Stage. Cloud9 banned him first in six of their ten games, including every game of the Grand Finals against Dignitas and openly spoke about not wanting to deal with his Sanctification.

is tyrael still 100% win rate?

— iDream (@C9iDream) November 7, 2015

The change to Sanctification in August laid in wait for months when it suddenly roared into BlizzCon. What makes it so lethal is exactly what we talked about with the old Zeratul-Uther compositions (see: WWL Masters Gaming Arena): it allows teams to pause a fight and reset. Those few seconds of invulnerability give Tyrael’s team a chance to heal up and reset cooldowns, and during that time the enemy team has nothing to do but run. When you combine Sanctification with AOE heals like Malfurion’s Tranquility, or pulse AOE healers like Kharazim or Brightwing, it gives Tyrael’s team a significant advantage in fights.

We saw the Metas clash at BlizzCon as some teams embraced the Tyrael strategy while others clearly weren’t prepared or interested. Cloud9 showed the best way to handle a strategy you don’t like: ban it! This is yet another reminder that Blizzard still plans to bring bans to online play. Dustin Browder announced it is still coming, so just always remember if you hate facing a certain hero or strategy, you can just ban it out and get rid of it. Alternatively, you can learn it yourself and steal the necessary heroes before the enemy team can take it.

I Dream of Murky

Cloud9’s team captain, Dunktrain, claims they always look for a way to fit Murky into their team compositions, and iDream certainly showed off the strength of the murloc menace in their dismantling of Team DK in the Semi-Finals. After the tournament, TeamLiquid.net’s very own Heyoka interviewed Dunktrain for Battle.net, and he said this about the Murky-Leoric-Abathur-Brightwing-Tassadar composition:



Cloud9 used this composition on Cursed Hollow, a large map that requires constant team fights around the Tributes which was the perfect place for it. The idea was to be constantly alive in the late game to overcome the lack of big damage dealers on the team, and to rely on the constant harassment of Leoric and Murky. Meanwhile you have Tassadar with Dimensional Warp talents making him virtually impossible to kill, and Brightwing who can quickly get back into the fight even if she does die. And if all that wasn’t enough, there’s also the constant lane pressure of the world’s best Abathur player, Fan, who is dropping Locusts in lane, capping Tributes, and still somehow in every teamfight with Symbiote and Ultimate Evolution. Dunktrain also explained that the key to the team was to draw Team DK into long team fights near Cloud9’s base where they would eventually have to flee. When they started running, iDream on Murky would chase and pick off heroes with the help of whatever teammates were still alive. If Brightwing or Leoric died, they were instantly back in the fight, and the longer the fights lasted, the more soak and pressure Abathur got. It was a treat to watch this comp methodically take apart the top team from the supposed top region in the world, and you should watch it for yourself. Bravo, Cloud9!

And We Thought Kharazim Was Underwhelming…

The first month or two after Kharazim was released, I criticized his lack of presence and success in the competitive scene. Well, pro players like Team Dignitas’ Bakery have proven that the monk is a top level Support with Bakery in particular showing just how powerful he can be. He’s a very viable Support now, and thanks to Team Dignitas’ performance, he had the highest winning percentage of any healer for the tournament. But that’s actually not what this point is about. Instead let’s talk about how terrible the new medic hero is.

Lt. Morales, was played in three games and only got a single win. Sure that’s not a very decisive sample size, but the real point is that nobody wanted to play her. Pro players have been criticizing her lack of self-healing ever since she came out, and it looks like nobody really wants to use her when there are better options. She is so easy to counter by focusing her in all fights and never allowing her to get out of combat long enough to regenerate her health. Since she cannot heal herself, players need to have perfect positioning in every team fight, and she has no escape or survivability cooldown if you screw up. Over the next few months, maybe Lt. Morales will crawl into the Meta as players get more comfortable with her, but for now she looks even worse than Kharazim did at first.

When Medivac Dropship was first announced, there was a lot of hype for it, but it’s so situational that we had a situation where it was barely used at all in a game. In the Grand Finals, DunkTrain snatched Kharazim away from Bakery and the casters noticed Bakery did not use her Medivac Heroic until after Level 16. An opportunity to use it just never came up which speaks to her overall viability. Maybe her Stim Drone Heroic would be more useful, but both are underwhelming and not game changing in the same way as Divine Shield, Divine Palm, or even utility spells like Force Wall. Medivac could probably be improved by removing the global announcement which removes most of the surprise it could give you.

Who the Pros Hate Facing

We already talked a bit about bans to Tyrael, but overall teams have gotten more strategic in their banning. Teams did ban out powerful heroes, but no hero was banned in more than half of the games, as teams used bans to break up key hero synergy or deny comfort picks.

The most banned hero of the tournament was Sonya (48.48%), who is the top melee damage dealer and continues to chew through squishies. Sonya was especially dangerous when paired with Divine Shield or Sanctification, because it allowed her to dive even more aggressively and avoid stuns that could stop her Whirlwind.

Tassadar and Tyrande both saw big buffs to their Support viability in the Artanis patch and it contributed to them seeing a lot of involvement at BlizzCon. Tyrande already was a force in both the American and European Championships, but the change to Shadowstalk gave her another tool to help her team. She had the seventh highest involvement of any hero and the third highest ban rate (39.39%), showing that teams still value and fear her Lunar Flare-Hunter’s Mark combo. Tassadar meanwhile had been dipping in the pro scene, but saw new life with the buffs to his Plasma Shields, making him an actual Support now. He was the second most banned (30.30%) Support hero because of how unkillable he makes his team. Neither hero is completely viable as a solo healer, but combined with another healer (like Brightwing) they are bringing the double Support Meta back.

Finally, Abathur (30.30%) saw a decent amount of bans because teams did not want to deal with his split soaking, lane pressure, and global presence. He had the most first bans, showing that teams opted to quickly remove him as an option before they even knew what strategy they would be using. Cloud9 used all of its first bans on Tyrael (6) and Abathur (4), and Fan played Abathur in both deciding games in the Semi-Finals and Grand Finals.

Stray Observations

• North America is #1! That’s great news because if you’ve been reading all the other WWL columns, you are well-versed on North America’s superior Meta. Congratulations to Cloud9 and to our readers!
  
  
• That said there’s a bit of salt from some people in the Heroes scene who feel like Cloud9 had an easy road to the Championship since eStar Gaming (China) and MVP Black (Korea) were not in the tournament. Both teams were considered serious contenders for BlizzCon throughout the summer, but Cloud9 didn’t have to face either. For eStar Gaming it was a case of not having travel visas to visit Anaheim, which was likely out of their control. MVP Black, on the other hand, lost in the Korean Championship in a terrible match where they were using weird heroes and missing skillshots. In their defense, Korea might have deserved two spots at BlizzCon this year, and the tournament structure might change in 2016. Neither MVP nor eStar’s absence were Cloud9’s fault, though; they beat each team present at the World Championship fairly and looked completely dominant in the process. eStar and Cloud9 have a chance to match up in the upcoming Gold Series in Shanghai, but for now we’ll have to wait for a chance to see MVP Black against Cloud9.
  
  
• Speaking of fantasy booking, we will never get to see the much-hyped Tempo Storm versus Team Liquid matchup that many people wanted earlier in 2015. Both teams will be undergoing major turnover after disappointing ends to their individual Roads to BlizzCon. Both teams had stretches where they could have claimed to be the top team in the world, and both ruled their regions in the early days of Heroes eSports. Unfortunately other teams caught up and surpassed them in the last few months, but both teams deserve recognition for helping to establish the scene.
  
  
  
  
  
• What happened to Na’vi? They looked unbeatable in the European Championship and Opening Week of BlizzCon, and then they ran into their European rivals, Team Dignitas, in the Semi-Finals. The former Bob? team completely dismantled Na’vi, despite losing to them twice in the the regional stage. I wonder if the two European squads practicing together in preparation for BlizzCon helped Dignitas more than Na’vi. Na’vi won all four of its Opening Week games by using Tyrael, but Dignitas stole him in the first game of the Semi-Finals, forcing Na’vi to ban him in the second game. Europe should still be proud to have two of the top four teams in the world though, and the region continues to have the most depth.
  
  
• The tournament was awesome, but there was one issue. On Saturday morning, there was a nearly three hour delay to fix a communication problem on stage. That was brutal to have to sit through and countless fans left the area out of boredom. Technical delays are a part of esports, but this one was especially frustrating for fans in attendance who had to either give up their seats or go look at something else on the showfloor. On the bright side, the organizers sped up the time between games after the delay, and the rest of the tournament went at a good pace. Professional Heroes definitely needs to work on having shorter downtime between games, because long breaks are a major barrier to becoming more popular with viewers. Drafts analysis is useful, but when drafts are longer than your games, you might have a problem.
  
  
• I didn’t mention him anywhere else above but Muradin continues doing work. He’s not flashy, but he’s a well rounded tank. Check out the final game of the tournament for a strong example of Muradin’s dwarven dominance. Zarmony alone kept Dignitas in the game by being so disruptive and impossible to kill. As long as he was alive, Cloud9 was not able to do much to end the game, but when he finally died they were able to win the game and the tournament.
  
  
• If you’re looking for the best players in the world on certain heroes, you have to put KingCaffeine’s Leoric up there with Fan’s Abathur and Bakery’s Kharazim. If you play any of those heroes, you should be watching how these players play them and absorbing as much as possible. But note that KingCaffeine is very aggressive with Leoric and his team knows he is going to die a lot, so playing that way in Quick Match might get you yelled at.
  
  
• Cloud9’s iDream was not limited to rolling out a god-like Murky, he also made Rexxar look great on Dragon Shire. With the changes to Misha’s controls, you can use her to easily cap Shrines and defend that while you soak and avoid damage, especially in top lane. The only times Rexxar was used in the tournament was in those two games, but it’s a nice niche pick to keep in your backpocket.
  
  
• Artanis was banned from this tournament, which made sense, but it would have been interesting to see if teams would play him with limited experience on him. Early thoughts on him are that he needs some help, but it seems like we say that about every new hero. His lack of escape definitely hurts, but he should have some situational use as a brawler.
  
  
• Sylvanas made a comeback in the tournament as the top Specialist in total involvement. That spot seems to change every month as teams keep switching between all the different heroes there. Gazlowe was mentioned at the BlizzCon panels and he might see some buffs soon, so watch out! Zagara was around as always, but missing a Devouring Maw is almost as bad as getting hit by one. This tournament once again featured several big momentum swings from the powerful ability, just remember: using it defensively is fine, just don’t whiff!
  
  
• Cho’Gall is going to be ridiculously overpowered or ridiculously weak, but I can’t wait to see him drafted next year at BlizzCon. If you thought Murky hype was big, just wait for the two-headed ogre.
  
  
• Heroes is going into the off-season for now, but it will be fairly short as the Global Championship Circuit will kick off in January with $500,000 in prizes. By then we should have a new Meta and new heroes to learn about in the next WWL. See you there!
  
  
• As always, make sure to check out Dthehunter on Twitter @Dthehunter2510 for more statistics on these tournaments. You can view his full stats from the World Championship by match or by team.
  
  
• Let me know what your BlizzCon predictions are down in the comments below, or follow and tweet me @Xingua. And don’t forget my esteemed editor @Vaalia_, who seriously swoons for almighty alliteration.
  
  

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