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Heroes of the Dorm: Upsets Abound

by - 7 years ago

Over four hundred teams registered for Heroes of the Dorm in hopes of making it onto the big stage and winning free college tuition. After today, only four teams remain to chase that dream.

The early story of the event was the large number of upsets.

Group A was particularly volatile with the 3, 4, and 5 seeds all falling in the opening round. The chaos continued in the second round when top-seeded Illinois fell to Stony Brook University and 6 seeded Texas A&M fell to Bellevue. With so many top seeds eliminated, the path was clear for second-seeded LSU to make their way out of the bracket and they did so in style by not dropping a single game. LSU is a team of HotD veterans and they also feature two members of the top-ranked HGC Open Division team, LFM eSports. Expect them to be a favorite to reach the Grand Finals, especially considering how Group B played out.

Group B was anchored by the top seed University of Connecticut, who advanced to last year’s Heroic Four only to fall to eventual champions Arizona State University. While UConn was a popular pick to advance to the Heroic Four for a second straight year, the real story of this group turned out to be Kentucky. As a 13 seed, they started bracket play by facing Texas Tech, a 4 seed. They were able to pull out a 2-1 victory and advanced to face fellow underdog, Cal State – Long Beach. They dispatched the 12 seed in a sweep and moved on to face UConn in the Round of 16. Not only did they beat the favorites, but they did so in a 2-0 sweep. Facing the University of California – San Diego with a spot in the Heroic Four on the line Kentucky proved that their unexpected run was not a fluke. They dispatched UCSD, the 2 seed, in a sweep to book a trip to Las Vegas. Don’t be fooled by their 13 seed, Kentucky has proven that they have what it takes to compete with, and even beat, the higher seeds.

Group C featured the tournament favorite the University of Texas – Arlington as the top seed. This region was much more predictable than the other regions with the top seed winning every match with the exception one. UTA met second-seeded Laval in the Round of 8 in what turned out to be one of the better matches of the tournament. Game 1 was a back and forth thriller with several epic team fights. This was arguably the most exciting game of the event to that point and well worth watching if you missed it live. After pulling out a hard-fought win in Game 1 UTA dominated the action in Game 2 to advance to the Heroic Four for the second year in a row. UTA has also been doing well in the HGC Open Division, leading for most of the season before recently falling to second place.

Group D also played out mostly according to plan with no real upsets of note. The University of California – Irvine was the 1 seed and they faced off against the 2 seed Indiana with a trip to Vegas on the line. What followed was an amazing series. Indiana claimed the win in Game 1 and seemed poised to take the series before UCI took control late and grabbed the win in Game 2. Game 3 was another back and forth affair. On multiple occasions, it looked like UCI was gaining the advantage only to have Indiana fight back and even the game. There were several extremely close team fights that could have easily gone in favor of either team, but UCI came out on top in enough of them to emerge with the victory. UCI has a rich esports history and they will be looking to add to it at the Heroic Four.

The 2017 edition of Heroes of the Dorm will conclude on April 8th at the Cox Pavillion on the campus of UNLV. Tickets are still available if you would like to attend the event in person or you can catch all of the action on Facebook Live. You can find out more about this event including brackets, statistics, and team information at HeroesoftheDorm.com.


JR Cook

JR has been writing for fan sites since 2000 and has been involved with Blizzard Exclusive fansites since 2003. JR was also a co-host for 6 years on the Hearthstone podcast Well Met! He helped co-found BlizzPro in 2013.


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