What We Learned from Opening Week(미국 공홈 전문 복사)

Dylan Walker, Blizzard Entertainment

November 1, 2017

Fifty-two out of 72 Heroes saw play at BlizzCon Opening Week, and the main event still lies before us. The rest of the HGC Finals Playoff bracket will unfold live at BlizzCon on Nov. 3, with a best-of-three quarterfinals and best-of-five play for the semifinals and finals on Nov. 4.  Catch all the action live at BlizzCon.com, MLG.TV, and Twitch.tv.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Now is the time to reflect on what we saw at BlizzCon Opening Week.

Where We Are at in the Tournament Meta

The predictions of the mad scientist Adrian 'adrd' Wojcik were correct.Opening Week consisted primarily of double-support and dive-oriented compositions. Looking at the newer heroes to the Nexus, there was not as much Ana as anticipated, but plenty of Maltheal, Garrosh, and even a few Kel’thuzad games.

Brightwing saw a new level of priority, with many teams taking the faerie dragon on the first rotation. Part of the reason for the elevated preference is because of the impact a well-positioned Emerald Wind can have on a team fight. In order to get Brightwing into the thick of things, Heroes such as Tyrael wind up to dive into the enemy team as Brightwing phase-shifts in, at which point she uses her heroic and splits the front- and backline, hopefully isolating a squishy Hero in the process. This dive-and-displace method is an especially powerful tool that incapacitates multiple Heroes and acts as one of the most impactful methods of initiation when it’s time to fight.

Cheese, and How to Fight It

It would seem that Zarya and Lt. Morales are at the center of the cheese at this tournament, as they have been for the past year. (For the uninitiated, cheese is slang for a draft strategy that will likely only work one time, because the enemy will never let you get the same draft again.) These two heroes in particular tend to play a role in taking early bosses or death-pushing: two risky strategies that are difficult to deal with or diffuse without the proper draft.

As the enemy team, dealing with cheese is difficult, and oftentimes when opponents pull these picks out in the middle of the draft, it will inspire more reactive drafting—which leads to untested, unproven, and unpracticed hero combinations. If a team responds incorrectly to cheese in the draft, they will lose right then and there before the game even begins.

A perfect example was seen in game two of the series between Roll20 esports and Team Dignitas on Cursed Hollow. Dignitas started out the draft fairly safe, locking in the synergistic power duo of Tassadar and Tracer. When it was time for the second ban, Roll20 was showing Brightwing, Dehaka, and Lt. Morales. Seeing the Medic come down, Team Dignitas assumed correctly that Roll20 were up to some funny business and decided to play it safe by banning out Zarya. Unperturbed, Roll20 proceeded to pick D.Va and Sgt. Hammer. Looking over the opposing team’s picks, it was clear to Thomas 'Ménè' Cailleux that the North Americans were looking to push as four at some point in the game. Mene decided to call for an audible at the end of draft, locking in Garrosh for his strong anti-siege.

Highlight Reel

Harrison 'psalm' Chang proved himself a world-caliber carry at Opening Week, landing countless multiple-man combos with Kerrigan and Kel’thuzad. One of the most memorable moments from the first day of competition was watching Psalm complete his baseline Kel’thuzad quest in under 4.5 minutes in bottom lane on Tomb of the Spider Queen vs. Deadlykittens. 

Team Freedom showed they were no chumps when they took on Fnatic on Towers of Doom in Group B, with the North Americans running a standard composition featuring Leoric and Abathur. While Fnatic was able to pull the series back in their favor, Freedom proved they have the chops to hang with the world’s best (as Fnatic is one of the teams favored to take home the trophy in Anaheim).

Possibly the most exciting game of Opening Week, Tempest stole away Infernal Shrines from Team Dignitas, the first Battleground of the Group C series. The VOD here includes a failed core call, and the kind of fake-backing shenanigans Dignitas is known for. However, Tempest were able brute-force their way to the core with the help of Tracer and Maltheal. Dignitas salvaged the series 2-1, emerging as the first-seed from Group C.

Check back with us tomorrow as we pore over the playoffs’ first-round matchups and give our best guess as to how things will turn out at the main event.

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https://esports.heroesofthestorm.com/en/news/21182942