BlizzCon has arrived! That means it’s time for the World Championship competition of Heroes of the Storm and the $500,000 pot. After an exciting opening week we saw Americas Champions Cloud 9 and NaVi, european champions advance to the semi-finals stage. It’s still anybody’s game as we progress into the second half of the group stages.
BlizzCon is an epic celebration of Blizzard Entertainment’s game universes and the global player communities that bring them to life. With it’s art contests, costume contests, and panel discussions, BlizzCon is where it all happens in the world of Blizzard. Traditionally, the Opening Ceremony is Blizzard teases all of the upcoming content that has been in development over the past year few months.
We’ve seen three characters announced for Heroes of the Storm that are bound to disrupt the meta for sure, as well as tons of Legion content was discussed during the Content Overview Panel for WoW featuring the lead designers. The state of the Nexus is looking pretty promising, as we have a new two-player double headed ogre Cho’Gall being previewed, along with the shapeshifter Worgen leader, Genn Greymane promising to close the gap with his Darkflight ability.
As for the World Championships, if Tempo Storm can overpower Team DK’s objective based strategy in the rematch of Group B’s first round, they will advance to the semi-finals to take on Na’Vi, assuming they make it past the elimination round. Group A also has a potential rematch in the decider round with Team Dignitas needing to reclaim their victory over Team YL in order to step up to the plate against Cloud 9.
The heroes gather in Anaheim California in the Anaheim Convention Center on Friday and Saturday and I don’t see any of these teams who are playing on Friday to advance to the final round. Despite the innovative strategies the Korean and British teams bring to the scene, they haven’t shown to be able to be able to handle the pressure of the live tournament environment. All the lights and fans may prove to be too much yet again for Tempo Storm when they make it face off against Na’Vi, and none of the teams in group A have proven to be much competition for Cloud 9.
The nationalist in me is rooting for Cloud 9, but deep down inside I’m rooting Na’Vi to take the crown simply because of the potential they have to change the meta in the HoTs community. We all know Cloud 9 is a great team, using the most popular heroes of ranked play and executing all of their plays with laser cut precision. Na’Vi however is an exciting team to watch playing to their strengths and exploiting every weakness they can find in the other team’s draft picks. The diversity that Na’Vi brings to the gameplay highlights what makes MOBA’s awesome, any combination of any “tier” of character can win assuming the team knows what they are doing. No matter who takes home the crown, if the finals feature Cloud 9 and Na’Vi it will be one to tune in for.
