HGC West
Week 10 Recap
By: Emperor/Larkin and Phantom
Genji Patch
HGC Europe Brackets and schedules on Liquipedia
HGC North America Brackets and schedules on Liquipedia
We are finally at the end of the season! Everything is said and done, and we're moving into the Playoffs/Crucible over the next few weeks and the Mid-Season Brawl shortly after that.Since there are no games to preview next week, we decided to add a "season summary" section instead. If you haven't been able to keep up with all the teams and their rankings, hopefully this section will benefit you! Without further ado, let's move into the final week recaps!
Must-watch Games
Tricked eSport vs Team Dignitas G4 on Cursed Hollow
No Tomorrow vs Team 8 G3 on Tomb of the Spider Queen
No Tomorrow vs Team 8 G3 on Tomb of the Spider Queen
Friday, May 12
Fnatic [3-0] Synergy
The results of this match didn’t affect the end results in any way, so this series brought out a some flavorful drafts. The one game with relatively standard drafts was the first game on Infernal Shrines. Synergy combined Auriel with Cassia while Fnatic went with the Void Prison setup into Apocalypse/Sulfuras Smash wombo. Fnatic had some flubs in the early game, but once Heroics kicked in, Fnatic took control of the game. A two man takedown with the combo late game sealed the deal for Fnatic.
In the second game on Tomb of the Spider Queen, Synergy went for a Cho'gall/Auriel composition while Fnatic played a more standard crowd control composition featuring Alarak and Diablo. Unsurprisingly, Fnatic pulled ahead early and stayed there by capitalizing on the mispositioning of their opponent. After a major fight in the middle lane, Fnatic took down four members of Synergy and ended the game.
Synergy changed it up with an interesting Murky pick in Game Three on Sky Temple, using March of the Murlocs to contest the shrines. However, a Xul/Abathur combo allowed Fnatic to put on too much pressure bottom while the three remaining members controlled mid and top. Following up with a series of camp invades, Fnatic took the superior trades and eventually snowballed into a victory.
Team Liquid [3-0] beGenius
Team Liquid had a rough start against beGenius on Towers of Doom. After a solid early game, Team Liquid was up 28 points to 12 but overextended while pushing with the sappers in bottom lane and gave beGenius a way back into the game. This snowballed further after beGenius took down three members of Liquid during the next altar phase, and the game equalized in experience and Core health. Team Liquid managed to win later teamfights and take back the advantage, but it was not an ideal game for them.
Despite some struggles in the first game, Team Liquid dominated the rest of the series. On Infernal Shrines, Team Liquid stayed in control at every shrine and got further and further ahead. beGenius pulled off a strong defense against the punishers of Team Liquid, but as both teams hit 20, Team Liquid executed a four man Void Prison into Sulfuras Smash combo, wiping 3 members of beGenius and giving them the game. In the final game on Sky Temple, HasuObs soaked with The Lost Vikings while a combo of Uther, Dehaka and Anubarak stunned and killed anyone out of position. Up a talent at 16, Team Liquid set a successful bush trap on the side of beGenius to end the series.
Gale Force eSports [3-0] Team Freedom
The first game on Tomb of the Spider Queen was very close until Team Freedom started to gain an advantage thanks to good engagements and great rotations. The highlight of the game was a crazy quasi-base race where Freedom had the boss and Gale Force had webweavers. Unfortunately, the boss died quickly after destroying the keep, leaving Freedom unable to push down the enemy Core without minions. After getting wiped on Core (twice), Gale Force was able to easily push across the map and win with the remnants of their webweavers.
The second game’s story was very different. Gale Force dominated from the beginning, securing multiple 100% strength Zerg waves on Braxis Holdout. Team Freedom tried to recover by taking the boss twice, but it was futile. In a deja vu scenario, GFE wiped Freedom on their Core again for the win.
Team Freedom got an early advantage the final match on Cursed Hollow with the first curse, eventually getting the bottom Keep. Unfortunately, during the next curse point, they took a terrible teamfight and couldn’t defend against GFE during curse.
Superstars [3-1] Team Naventic
Even in the final games of the season, Naventic continued to disappoint. Naventic did manage to win the second game on Tomb of the Spider Queen, but it was more due to a terrible teamfight with bad positioning from Superstars than Naventic’s play.
The Genji/Chromie comp from the Buetcher brothers in the first game on Battlefield of Eternity failed to make a difference, with Superstars scoring almost twice as many kills by the end of the game. It was more of the same in the rest of the series. Genji/Chromie failed again on Towers of Doom, and despite a long drawn-out final game on Infernal Shrines, neither team was particularly impressive.
Saturday, May 13
Team Dignitas [3-2] Tricked eSport
Tricked was expected to give Dignitas a difficult series, and in the end Dignitas only just barely squeezed out a 3-2 win. Tricked went out of the gates in Game One determined to beat Dignitas, making the Tychus and Li-Ming picks from Dignitas seem ineffectual.
Dignitas responded in Game Two with a full slam Stitches on Infernal Shrines, though JayPL uncharacteristically struggled to land hooks. Even on levels and pushing Tricked’s top keep with a Punisher, Bakery landed a game winning Divine Storm right as Gnappe’s Malfurion bolted forward to Twilight Dream.
The momentum was with Dignitas as they went to Towers of Doom and brought out The Lost Vikings against Abathur. In a scintillating game which Tricked again led on kills but behind on the objective, Dignitas were able to take the lead in the series with a climatic finish. Tricked came back on Cursed Hollow, again ahead in kills and this time leading in objectives. With a curse, they pushed in bottom keep but unfortunately all died on Core—except for Gul’dan, who came in late to secure the final 1% with a single Fel Flame. No Kaelaris Core here.
It all came down to the final game on Tomb of the Spider Queen with Tricked opting for a double support comp with a Resurrect Auriel and Uther and a Cassia solo assassin. Dignitas responded with a late game power spike comp with Leoric, Johanna, Kael’thas and Nazeebo. Tricked were ahead in kills and xp again, but as the late game dawned, Dignitas started winning fights, hit their power spikes, got two consecutive turn-ins, and pushed through for the win.
Team expert [3-0] Playing Ducks
Playing Ducks vs Team expert, on the other hand, was an entirely one sided affair for the high ranking team. In Game One, expert went for a double support Lucio/Auriel with Resurrect and just bodied the Ducks around the map without losing a single fort. In Game Two, they went back to solo support Lt. Morales with a Stitches/Kael’thas combo. They had some difficulties in the early game but began finding their mark once they got level 20 and Nic’s Greymane picked up Gilnean Roulette to churn out huge damage rapidly against the Ducks’ experimental Genji composition.
Cursen played consistently well throughout the series on support, but it was in Game Three that expert really showed some flexibility in the role. They drafted three—yes, three (hello China)—supports on Battlefield of Eternity. Li Li, Auriel and Malf came to play behind Sonya and Arthas, leaving expert with no assassins whatsoever against an Abathur pick. It had been predicted that expert would bring out something funky in this series, and this delivered in spades. Ducks responded with a Zeratul and were able to pull ahead in the early game by securing the first immortal without much difficulty, but once level 10 hit, they were completely unable to contend with expert’s insane sustain and considerable damage. At one point, expert pushed into the top keep and the Ducks were able to secure a wipe, but it was not enough to bring them back into the game or the series.
Tempo Storm [3-0] B-Step
B-Step got completely crushed in the series. In the first game on Dragon Shire, cattle picked everyone’s favorite panda, Chen Stormstout, which enabled him to hold the top shrine for an extended period of time. Coupled with strong rotations in mid and bottom lane and Falstad’s global presence, Tempo Storm secured the first two Dragons and snowballed their advantage. B-Step tried their best to recover, and though they had some good engagements, they weren’t able to achieve the comeback.
Genji made yet another appearance in a pro game during the second match, this time paired with Abathur and Uther. The combo was very effective for Tempo Storm as they gained an early lead after taking the first Immortal on Battlefield of Eternity. B-Step was behind from that point forward. Their double warrior team composition was simply insufficient to deal with the supported Genji and Cassia combo.
The last game on Cursed Hollow was a disaster from the beginning for B-Step. They lost all three of the first tributes and fell way behind in levels. Alongside the first tribute, Tempo also captured a boss, destroying a keep in the first eight minutes of the game.
Team 8 [3-1] No Tomorrow
This matchup was do anticipated is because Dyrus, a former League of Legends progamer and popular streamer, substituted for one of Team 8’s members in this series. How did he perform? As it turns out, very well. While he didn't carry the team to victory, he played his part.
On the first game, the experiment didn’t seem to be working. However, Team 8 showed why they were in one of the top spots of the standings by winning the next three matches in a row. On Battlefield of Eternity, Team 8 simply dominated and won in a straightforward manner. The following game on Tomb of the Spider Queen was very back and forth with both teams showing their strength on rotations and teamfighting. After a great engagement from Team 8 and an exceptional display of skill by Glaurung’s Genji, the team was victorious.
The last game of the series was played on Sky Temple. No Tomorrow started considerably ahead, even capturing the boss and destroying a keep in the first half of the game, but not long after that, a fight on the top temple turned the tides in Team 8’s favor after wiping No Tomorrow in a decisive fight. Team 8 went on to capture the boss despite their opponent's’ best efforts to prevent it, and shortly thereafter won the game with a great teamfight.
Season Summary
By: Larkin and EsportsJohn
It's been a crazy ride from the beginning of the season to now. As the inaugural season of HGC's league format, there have been many doubts, but most of them have been put to rest. Without a doubt, this has been the most stable, most competitive season of Heroes to date, and Phase 2 (aka "summer season") looks like it will be even better after the Crucible sorts out the best of the lower teams.
As a commemoration of the season so far, we decided to summarize the main themes and the journeys of each team. Unfortunately, brevity prevents us from writing as much as we'd like at the present; suffice it to say that this season was great, and we look forward to more.
Europe
Despite some significant improvements made from the lower ranked teams in the division, weeks 6 through 10 followed the same patterns as weeks 1 through 5. No team was able to consistently challenge the ‘Big Three’ of Fnatic, Dignitas and Liquid or truly threaten to overtake them.
Team Liquid (formerly Misfits) started the season on a high, but after the break they struggled, and lost their first place spot to Fnatic. They showed a return to form in the final weeks and did just enough to take second place over Dignitas. Undoubtedly, though, most consistent team was Fnatic, who look almost unstoppable at their best and determined at their worst. They showed a great deal of mental fortitude to stage comebacks when down in series, including a reverse sweep against Dignitas.
Tricked and expert both had moments of brilliance throughout the season, with expert in particular looking great in the first few weeks. However, a poor start for expert in the second half of the season made it clear they still have a way to go to compete with the top three. Tricked also have a lot to improve on, by Alex’s own admission, but the core of their team is solid and has a lot of potential.
Playing Ducks were the most inconsistent of all the teams, occasionally showing brilliant play, and at other teams falling completely flat. It remains to be seen if their talented roster will stick together, or if they will try swapping things around come the start of the next league.
beGenius spent most of the first half getting stomped, but they looked a new team in the final weeks, and Synergy also showed ingenuity during drafting and some moments of genuinely good play. Both teams stepped their game up as the season went on and went from being walkovers to genuine competition, but in the end it wasn’t enough to drag them away from the Crucible.
North America
North America lived up to its standard of inconsistency even in the best of circumstances. Despite the stability that HGC provided, the region is like the wild west of esports where anything goes. The one exception to this rule was Tempo Storm, whose continued consistency throughout the season (outside of a few questionable drafts) allowed them to take first place without incident.
On the other hand, most of the other teams were wildly inconsistent. On their best days, Gale Force eSports and Team 8 looked unstoppable, but on bad days, they looked completely ineffectual and lost to teams they never should have lost to. Team 8 in particular slumped hard in the second half of the season compared to their outstanding performance in January and February. After trying out the "four flex players and a support" strategy, Gale Force decided to move into a more standard setup during the second half, but even that was enough to save them from their unpredictable performance.
B-Step, a team largely made up of former Cloud9 players, looked like they would go far this season, but their momentum quickly ran out in the first couple of weeks and they ended with a negative record. Even though Team Freedom finished just blow them in sixth place, the newcomers showed extreme tenacity and even looked like a championship quality team at times after rallying in the second half of the season. Similarly, though Superstars looked a bit rough at the beginning of the season, they stepped up their game significantly in the second half to finish in fourth place with an even 7-7 record.
No Tomorrow and Team Naventic go out in dead last. Despite sporting some of the best rosters in NA, both teams had a dismal performance overall. Every once in a while, they would have an outstanding series, but those were few and far between and well overshadowed by their overall play. They will go on to the Crucible to fight for their tournament lives, and considering the talent rising through the ranks in NA right now, it may be tough for them to stay in the game.