by JR Cook - 8 years ago     show comments

Forget everything you know about competitive Heroes of the Storm. Aside from MVP Black’s dominance, almost nothing went as expected today.

Team Naventic looked shaky on day one, and things didn’t get any better for them on day two. They were easily defeated by MVP Black in their first match, and then they fell to Team Dignitas 2-1, despite winning the first game of the series. The real story isn’t that they lost, it is how flawed they looked in the process. They are a very momentum based team, and seem to have trouble bouncing back when facing adversity. When things are going well for them they look great, but when things go bad, they go very bad.

Cloud9 was at the center of several exciting matches. They dropped their first series against EDward Gaming 2-1. They didn’t look especially sharp, and it took an unconventional Murky pick in game 2 to even force a game 3. Next they faced off against mYinsanity, considered by many to be the weakest of the eight teams that advanced to the second group stage. C9 was severely test, and while they eventually manage to avoid elimination and take the series 2-1, they were on the verge of defeat multiple times. Instead of looking like a team that was expected to contend for the title, they looked like a team that was lucky to still be alive.

In the surprise of the event, EDward Gaming was able punch their ticket into the playoffs by defeating eStar in the Winner’s Final for Group A. eStar has long been considered one of the world’s best teams, but Visa issues have prevented them from competing against western teams. That hasn’t stopped them from beating up on other Chinese teams however, which includes EDward Gaming. In fact, eStar has never lost an event to a Chinese team, so no one expected to see them fall to EDG, but fall they did.

In the Group B Winner’s Final, MVP Black faced Team No Limit with a playoff spot on the line. In the last few weeks these two teams have met each other twice in the Finals of other events. Both times MVP Black was able to sweep TNL, so it was no surprise to see them defeat TNL once again without dropping a single game.

The EDG upset of eStar set the stage for an epic elimination match featuring eStar vs. Cloud9. Instead of facing each other in the Finals, as many people expected, they instead met on day two to decide which team would even qualify for the playoffs. Game one was an epic battle that may have been the best game of the tourney so far. The late game advantage changed multiple times, but eventually eStar was able to claim the win. While Cloud9 had their moments in game 2, eStar was in control for most of the game and eventually took a relatively easy victory to advance to the playoffs.

The other elimination match featured Team No Limit vs. Dignitas. TNL has looked vulnerable recently, and Dignitas was dominant during the EU qualifiers, so naturally TNL was able to knock Dig from the tournament in a 2-0 sweep to earn their way into the playoffs

Play will resume on April 2nd, at 7:00 p.m. PST, with the remaining four teams competing in a single elimination playoff. The best of three semi finals will pit EDward Gaming vs. Team No Limit and eStar vs. MVP Black. The winning teams will advance to the Grand Finals, a best of five series with a first place price of $150,000.

You can watch all of the action on the official Heroes of the Storm Twitch channel. Not only will you get to see the next World Champion crowned, but you will also get your first look at Tracer gameplay.

Cheers love!