By Ruglord
Under Newb Management takes it 2-1 over Came From Behind!
Game 1, both teams drafted some pretty solid comps. Now on paper, I like UNM’s quite a bit. They have a cleanse (probably the MOST cleanse healer) healer into a CC heavy comp. CFB’s strategy is simple: anub stun + stukov silence + tychus drill for the easy kills. Lucio puts a stop to all that at the low low cost of 20 seconds cooldown. And Garrosh himself has a cleanse, both for himself and allies. Back in my day, I believe it was Start Slow then Taper Off that terrorized Div B with this style of comp and I was always wondering what tank you’d want to throw into the meat grinder; Garrosh was always something I wanted to see. Moreover, I think the Leoric pick on CFB is quite bad. The entomb can mess up Lucio but Leoric really does not usually like playing into ranged carries like Valla and Falstad who can mess up his main gameplan of draining and outtrading.
In reality, however, it was CFB that took the game and very easily too. Talents aren’t everything, but I think Garrosh absolutely picked the wrong build here. Not only did he not go unstop at 4, he went this extremely greedy stat check build with W CDR and Decimate. This build absolutely farms some comps but I think it’s really hard into Tychus. The idea is that you have a ton of damage reduce and healing but Tychus kills you all the same because of his % damage; I imagine Zagara doesn’t help either. I think Garrosh with Taunt here poses a much larger threat. Without Taunt, Anub is a lot less scared of Garrosh because he can burrow out. With Taunt, that completely changes and Anub has to be very mindful of his spacing because E + R is his doom. To make matters worse, his healer has no cleanse.
As a result, I think CFB had a lot more opportunities to look for kills than they really had the right to have, which they exploited with a plom. Stukov + Leoric is also a terrifying combo, basically giving Leo 20 Entomb without needing 20. Speaking of, I do not think Leo needed to go Silence at 20 because of that but that hardly mattered.
Game 2 was on Towers and it was a real scrappy match, as that map tends to be. Early game was slightly in CFB’s favor but with 16, some random kills swung the game massively in UNM’s favor. CFB swung back with their own late game powerspikes and XUl’s constant lane pressure meant they even held mid fort briefly. However, it was a little too late, as they had already been brought down to 4 core HP. UNM simply had to survive until the next double towers objective, at which point CFB had to fight through Chromie Sands 20 and Hammer to reach UNM’s altar on the left, which is probably HOTS’ equivalent of climbing up a cliff with only your fingernails. It was a brutal siege but ultimately, UNM would take the game.
Draft wise, I think UNM made things a little harder than usual for themselves with the hammer. They took Varian very early, probably in response to CFB’s early stukov pick. I think this is a great trade for UNM since they get to play Varian into a cleanse less healer; a Tychus or Greymane probably just kill whoever you go on and you still get siege damage with Odin.
Game 3 was a similarly scrappy match on Shrines with CFB pulling out the main tank Blaze and Kerrigan flex. I think Blaze was a very risky pick, as UNM had not revealed their healer yet; I think if they picked lucio like they did game 1, CFB may as well uninstall. But they instead picked Deckard, who is quite strong on Shrines, but has no way to stop Blaze stun nor Kerrigan combos. I think my biggest MVPs this game are Dehaka and Joh. CFB’s melee heavy comp frequently had to clump which meant a massive slow from Joh and then they were just eating Orphea damage. Dehaka went speed build and just landed a ton of tongues. CFB were able to strike back after a top objective got them several kills, thanks to a Stukov root. It actually looked like they were gonna end right then and there but UNM were able to hold and a couple team fights later the game was over. Again, I think UNM made their team fights a lot harder than they had to be, in this case it was drafting a completely cleanse less healer into a Kerrigan. But I also think CFB drafted a melee heavy comp in a game where it’s quite hard to play. Either way I think UNM proved to be a slightly stronger team fight team, but the scrappiness of this and the previous game convinces me that CFB can absolutely prove to be an equal. Expect this matchup to be very close in playoffs!
Crit Kickers took it 2-0 over Gen.M Esports!
Game 1 was on Shrines and I’mma be honest, I think this was just an outdraft. After Crit Kickers pulled out the Varian, I think GenM needed to focus their healer pick on something that can save the taunt target. They picked Malfurion which I think might actually be the worst healer you can pick. Malf is a sustain healer with very little burst healing; he can do very little to stop Varian’s game plan of taunting and bursting a target. He can’t even cleanse Varian’s taunt since his cleanse doesn’t stop silences. I’m guessing GenM thought it would be okay since they also had Lunara and she can cleanse taunt. Even then, they were losing very hard before 13 and Johanna even had to go Falling Sword, which gave her team a cleanse but came at the cost of her engage. Lunara didn’t even go cleanse, instead opting for spell shield. A couple late game picks did allow GenM to scrap together level 20 in time for the final objective. This final fight was CLOSE and a well timed gust meant GenM were able to save themselves and actually walk away with a kill. But the poor map state meant that Falstad had to back, making it a 4v4 once more and once again, taunt was able to claim a victim. Barely and I mean just BARELY, Crit Kickers were able to survive and claim the game from there.
Game 2 is the 5th game I’ve watched today and I think the 4th one I’ve seen a stukov. Dear Div A, Stukov is a great character but he HAS NO CLEANSE. If you are gonna pick him, you have to be very proactive, see CFB vs UNM game 1. This game, it was Crit Kickers, the ones without Stukov, that were very proactive, with their Anub constantly looking for picks. And why not? He has no cleanse to fear. I think GenM also made their lives harder by taking a squisky tank like ETC, who really relies on pressing his buttons to be tanky. If he’s CC chained, he just dies. ETC did have some really great slides and moshpits, including a 3 man at the very end, but it was hard to make anything stick with Crit Kicker’s Anduin. The only reason Crit Kickers even lost a building all game was becuase they chose to do a fort trade late game, which was probably correct since they had forts to spare while GenM was running low on buildings. For the most part though, this game was Anub and Li-Ming blowing stuff up.
In a massive upset, Can’t Pause Wont Pause took it 2-0 over Under Newb Management!
Game 1, CPWP once again busted out their special sauce: the chen main tank. Last week they ran it on Dragon Shire, this time it was on Alterac. I think I understood the pick even less than I did last week. Last time they had Lightbomb and Probius shield stacking shenanigans. This time they had neither and they even went SEF into a bunch of CC (Anub, Sonya, and Valeera) but hey it worked. Not once was SEF interrupted and if that’s the case, yeah it’s a much better ult. Chen didn’t even feel pressured enough to take unstoppable at 20. I’m not really sure what UNM could’ve done better tbh, it just seemed like every fight, they got out traded, I guess not too surprising since that’s kind of what Chen enables at 13 with the AOE shields. The Valeera pick is a bit odd to me, I do wonder if a more traditional DPS would’ve done better or worse, I’m genuinely not sure. One thing CPWP definitely did a lot better was boss. UNM got two bosses done right under their noses.; again, I guess SEF is pretty good if you don’t need boss control.
Game 2 was a fun one on Dragon Shire. CPWP continued their trend of unorthodox tanks with a main tank Leo, which I actually LOVE seeing because it counters Johanna so hard. I’m not sure I would’ve picked it into Valla, but before late game, it was super insane. Both teams basically played a 1-1-3 and Leoric was able to generate so much space and win his 3v3 every time. Then whenever UNM had to back off, Leoric’s 3 man would get a camp and get seige damage. Meanwhile, Dehaka and Genji were effortlessly able to match the extremely slow, pre-10 waveclear of Samuro and Thrall. In fact, the first two early game objectives were both stolen this way with Dehaka holding top while Genji rotates mid at the speed of light for a very fast cap. As the late game loomed things became a lot harder for CPWP as both Thrall and Valla were now able to punch through Leo’s sustain. A lot of fights began with Leoric dropping a Silence entomb and then dying immediately afterwards; in total, Leo would get trait value TEN TIMES, which is as many deaths as UNM’s entire team combined. But that’s the thing, Leoric comes back. One late game team fight, which would secure another dragon knight, was even won by Leoric dying immediately after entomb, then coming back later and dropping a 2nd entomb. UNM absolutely fought tooth and nail but they were just never able to actually wrest control of the objectives, especially since the kills they were getting were almost exclusively on Leoric, who’d just come back before they could make much progress. It was unironically a trait value game. This was perhaps most exemplified in the very last fight, where Thrall died after the Skeleton King in a 1 for 1. Despite only dying 15 seconds earlier, Leoric would come back 42 seconds before Thrall; keep in mind Entomb is a 50 second cooldown. This was enough for CPWP to get the objective and win the game. All in all, UNM only got a single fort all game I don’t think they won a single dragon knight.
The High Inquisitors would continue their dominance with a 2-0 over Spooky Ghosts!
Game 1 was on Volskaya and I gotta the early game here was very clean from both teams. Both teams soaked mid and top and got to their turret camps on time. I love that Inquisitors stalled Ghosts’ rotations and that Ghosts fought for healer camp because they knew they could with Garrosh. The breaking point was 10s, notably when Inquisitors now had Mind Control. Spooky Ghosts did have some cleanses, in the form of Ally Toss and Crystal Aegis but the latter just CCs you in a different way and the former requires Garrosh to not be the one CCed. And Garrosh got mind controlled a LOT. In fact, when Spooky Ghosts tried to invade healer camp post 10 the same way they did pre 10, Garrosh ate an MC and they lost the fight, in a complete reversal of the early game. Garrosh basically had to self-cleanse the MC every tiem but that left him very vulnerable to things like Powerslide and Sands from Chromie. It was honestly jsut a really hard game to be Garrosh as Inquisitors had ample tools to make him regret walking up. I also love Inuisitor’s confidence. Once they know they have the advantage, they make very aggressive map-wide rotations, which often caught Blaze out. The winning team fight was even won by them catching SG on Healer Camp once more; this time, SG didn’t even have 20s and they lost easily. A very clean game from the Inquisitors.
Game 2 was another Shrines game and I quite like SG’s draft here, at least on paper. They have Uther main tank, Kerrigan, Tassadar, and Leoric. My main issue is their 5th pick, Anduin, who somewhat occupies a similar niche as Uther as a healer that excels at saving you against burst damage. Anduin absolutely can be used a sustain healer, but it’s contingent on him using landing a lot of AAs; I’d much rather have seen something like an Ana or Malfurion picked. Otherwise, I really like the idea of a damage reducing Leoric in double support and Tassadar has a lot of very greedy talents for long team fights, such as infinite Archon or 20% spell power for the whole team. I’m not sure if Tassadar not going those talents really mattered but Inquisitors were able to smash through the double healer nonetheless. The Garrosh’s ability to isolate targets proved difficult for the double support to deal with as they have to stick together to get value and Auriel has incredible ability to sustain a team all by herself even against double support. But the biggest difference between the two teams, in my opinion, was decisiveness. When Inquisitors got an opportunity, they went straight for the biggest, juiciest thing on the map, whether that be an unattended fort or a keep. When SG got a several kills late game, all they got was a mid fort when they could’ve definitely at least gotten bottom keep. The only thing stopping them was their in the moment decision making. I’ve been there; sometimes having more people in comms is harder to communicate than just pinging something in SL. But it’s what differentiates a good team from the greats.
Looking Ahead
With only weeks 10 and 11 left, the elite four of The High Inquisitors, Under Newb Management, Crit Kickers, and gillyShark at !Bingo night retain their massive lead above the rest of the div. Each of them have 26 points EXCEPT for the Inquisitors, which has just one point above the rest. The 5th place team of Can’t Pause Wont Pause sits at 18 points, which is a whopping 8 points behind 4th place. To put that into perspective, you get 4 points per 2-0, so that’s at least two matches behind. And this is in part because CPWP has already played a match this week; if they hadn’t the gap would be even larger, as Magnitude: Epicenter sits at 17 points. As of right now, the standings are looking less like the reverse bell curve of last week, and more like a massively skewed curve with 4 teams at the VERY top and the rest scrambling for scraps. We’ll see what happens as Div A begins to wrap up.