EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/D7qYqOV.png)
Heroes Rising just finished up as the first major NA LAN for 2016. After a crazy weekend filled with excitement Bob Ross Fan Club (BRFC) walked away the eventual champions. Who walks away with their heads held high, and who's got to back to the drawing board?
Quick Note: This is a concept common in MMA and thought it would be fun here!
The Biggest Winners
North American Heroes
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cvz43jB.png)
North American Heroes
While Bob Ross Fan Club took the entire event as winners, the real winners is the NA scene as a whole. In almost every tournament in NA Heroes history there have been several long standing elite teams above the rest, and then all "the others". The "others" could not take games let alone series off the best of the best, and rosters on those teams never changed. This was very different today. All three top teams have made roster changes in the last several weeks, and the new rosters defeated the long established rosters.
Additionally Cloud9/old Tempo Storm were incapable of defeat, and boasted over 90% winrates vs anyone except themselves. In this tournament Cloud9 dropped games to Tempo and a series to Bob Ross Fan Club. Bob Ross Fan club dropped games to Tempo, SK (9th/10th place), and Cloud9. Aside for a couple of the earlier series like BRFC/oVo almost every series had very close games that could have gone either way. Even some of the "gimme" series ended up being close such as Tempo Storm vs King of Blades Alpha.
The old guard of roster locked teams has fallen and led way to new amazing teams full of insane talent. We are looking at a very competitive 2016 NA scene, and I could not be happier!
Bob Ross Fan Club
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1fyWRHP.png)
The hype is real. After a shaky start dropping 0-2 to C9 and BARELY squeaking past SK, Bob Ross Fan Club seemed as if they might be looking at an early exit from Heroes Rising. However, they rose to the occasion. While not as dominant as old TS/C9 in 2015, they looked like for sure the team to beat in 2016. Great drafting, amazing rotations, and insane mechanics all led them to the win.
What stands out in particular is they were put in very bad spots multiple times (being down 0-2 in finals, being down to TS on match point, being dropped to losers bracket early) and were able to overcome. Many people (myself included) wondered when the roster was announced how they would deal with adversity and today they made those fears look silly and unjustified. If there was an event to tilt and fall off in, they had plenty of chances here and never faltered when it mattered most.
McIntyre and Fan especially looked like the absolute best of the best throughout the rest of the tournament. McIntyre played some of the best Falstad ever recorded in pro games, and Fan looked to be carrying as hard as is possible in Heroes of the Storm. Every single one of the five members looked like world class players, and all in all it was an amazing debut LAN performance by the unsponsored team.
Two things are sure after this event. 1: BRFC will not be unsponsored for much longer and 2: They will be the NA team to beat in the early part of 2016 with C9 in China.
BRFC is a world class team and they proved it this weekend.
Tempo Storm
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qPv0Lgf.png)
Tempo Storm was the biggest question mark heading into this event. They have not played a single tournament game (offline OR online) since their loss at Blizzcon 2015. They made MAJOR roster changes swapping out a total of three players including their long time captain and shotcaller Dreadnaught for what were largely unproven players.
The swap seems to have been a good thing. When I first learned 2-3 members of Tempo Storm were leaving (two of them being Zuna/Arthlelon) I could not help but ask myself "How do you rebuild from that and come out still a top NA team?"
Tempo Storm appears to have done it. They looked amazing throughout the tournament, and came within a hair of beating BRFC and Cloud9. While a 3rd place finish is lower than their slew of 1st/2nd's from 2015, it's still a hell of a start. The new shotcaller Srey seemed on point, Goku played well, and Zixz had some amazing support play.
If they can improve further from this performance Tempo Storm will become quite a feared team in 2016, both in NA and Internationally. I'm really excited to see how Srey fills in the leader and shotcaller role long term, as he seems to be well suited to take the role and try and continue the Tempo Storm Heroes legacy.
The Biggest Losers
Cloud9
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Jcm1kut.png)
While they only had limited time for this event to practice with the new recruit Arthelon, 2015 World Champions Cloud9 were fully expected by most to take 1st place at this event. After only making 4th place in Gold League, Cloud9 headed back to NA for what most assumed would be a quick and easy 1st place finish, but it was not so.
Any time you are the World Champions all the pressure is on you to win, and Cloud9 failed for now two times in a row. They struggled across multiple matches (both vs BFC and Tempo Storm), and while they entered the Grand Finals from the Winners Bracket, they did not do so with the usual show of domination we have come to expect since they snapped the "Tempo Storm Curse" they used to carry.
From winning the World Championships to a 4th and 2nd place finish, Cloud9 is in a bad spot. They need to put out a convincing season in Gold League to put the message back out they are a top contender vs anyone. They have only boasted a 21-19 (52%) mapscore since winning Worlds, hardly what you expect from the "Best Team in the World".
Not all is down for them however, they recently swapped out Fan for Arthelon and had very little time to practice as a new five man unit for this event. Maybe with more time and sync they can return to their old form, but if they fail to progress they could possibly not even make the Spring World Championship event, which would be a disaster.
I can't help but wonder if going to China for Gold League is coming back to haunt them. From accusations of top Chinese teams refusing to scrim them, to being allowed almost no proper practice time one can't but wonder if their time would be better spent going after something like OGN or a more NA team friendly region.
All I know is if this is the Cloud9 that shows up come time for NA regionals, they will not make it as far as they want.
Murloc Geniuses
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/he5Npes.png)
Another major event, another disappointing result for Murlocs. The team that has had the same roster forever is now at a very important crossroads for the future of their team.
It's time for Murlocs to decide if they want to just be a good group of friends that stick together no matter what, or if they want to be a world class team and top contender. The current roster cannot do both. While they have had flashes of brilliance over the 9~ months they have been together, when it comes to the biggest events they fail to produce time and time again. What was different this time however is they used over $2,000 of the community's money to get to Heroes Rising and showed very little for it boasting a 3-4 map score.
Murlocs has some amazing players they could use as a backbone (Faye, CauthonLuck) and a pretty decent shotcaller (Equinox) if they did decide they want to be world class and want to make swaps. Faye has consistently been one of the very best NA players since Alpha, and CauthonLuck is one of the most consistent players in NA, finding proper shot caller (Equinox) is like finding a Unicorn on Mars, so keeping all three would be a great possible place to start.
If they don't want to swap, then they need to start being honest and realistic with their fans and themselves. There is nothing inherently wrong if they choose this route, however trying to tell fans you go in trying to win events should not be what they promote. Additionally they have talked quite often about getting a sponsored gaming houses with proper salaries for 2016. That won't happen with this roster. Not when you have been to two LAN's and put out a total map score of 5-9 (35% win rate) and two 5th/6th place finishes. It's not like these are big LAN's with 32+ teams either, they have took 5th/6th in an eight team and ten team tournament, far below what is expected.
9 months is long enough to expect results. You should be able to take a single BO3/5 off of the Top 2 teams at that time frame, yet since they came together in April 2015 they have NEVER taken a single BO3/5 series off Tempo/C9 and now BRFC. Not one. With the NA scene growing by the day, their status will only get worse and worse. They appear to have peaked some time ago and have reached the limits of where this roster can go.
Cognitive Gaming
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/uUkLv4x.png)
In traditional sports there is the concept of "Winning/Losing the offseason". In NA, COG has lost the off season and no one else is even close. All the other NA teams that existed in 2015 and still exist made improvements to their rosters overall. COG has continually downgraded their roster time and time again in by and far the most puzzling roster decisions I have ever seen in Heroes.
While things like adding Syracuse may have been unexpected and strange, nothing even comes close to their decision to remove two of their three best players in Glaurung/Hospital leaving Iakona stuck in MMR Hell. I can't even fathom how on earth it came down to removing a proven superstar like Glaurung when litreally 2015 was more or less "Watch Glaurung carry COG to Top 4". They were barely getting Top 8 at best before Glaurung, and after shot to Top 3/Top 4 in NA on Glaurung's back. With him removed they have fallen out of the Top 8, and look like they have nothing of value except Iakona.
I don't know what COG does here, because there is almost nothing to build off of. Iakona is a top tier support, but in Heroes a support is a role that cannot carry the game in any way, and playing 100% correct is expected, as mostly only your mistakes show through. Scylol cost them multiple games this event alone (and previous events) with horrific mistakes like picking Judgement over Sanctification, and failing to clear the shaman from a merc camp. Syracuse has shown not one instance of being a top tier player since joining, and their results have been worse since his addition, even when Glaurung was still around.
They used two subs for this event in Cattlepillar and Killick. Both looked stronger than two of the three starting players on COG, and that's not a good sign for the future.
Maybe it's time for COG just to buy BRFC instead? Unless they 100% secure Cattle I don't see how they become a Top 8 team otherwise in 2016. You can't have a team where your sub (Cattle) is better than everyone on your team.
Ending: That's it. I hope everyone enjoyed the article as much as I enjoyed Heroes Rising, it was SUCH a good event! Please leave any constructive feedback you wish, I will read it all for future things I write!
