In your opinion, Is it too soon to implement this in the league? Considering we're not at Western Clash yet, are players concerned about this change or excited for it to finally arrive?

How are teams preparing for third ban? Are they preparing now?

What impact do you expect the third ban to have on the current HGC results?

The HGC will kick off this Friday on the Yrel Balance patch from June 27th. This shouldn't change much considering professional players played last week's matches with these new changes in the game: a spacegoat buff, Rehgar changes, and a plethora of buffs and nerfs to various heroes across all roles.While the patch won't shake up too much for this weekend's league play, the following week (July 20th - July 22nd) will introduce a third ban into the HGC. This is a very big shake-up in the middle of the first split of phase 2. It could add more interesting choices, bans and metas in the HGC that will make viewers excited.Today we asked a variety of professional players and coaches in NA about their opinions on the incoming third ban in the league. Check out some of their thoughts below:I think it's probably not great to do it in the middle of the season as it gives teams a really short time to learn the "new meta." On the other hand, we're playing an ever-changing game at the professional level so I feel like everyone should be pretty adaptable to whatever they throw at us. Altogether I'm really happy for the extra ban since it means there will be less oppressive heroes in the games, which means there's more hero diversity.I think 3 bans actually could've been implemented even sooner. Perhaps even as soon as after the MSB and coming into Phase 2 of the 2018 HGC. I think that this change is exciting because it will change the pace of competitive drafting, which is something that's felt pretty stale for a while. There will be a lot more potentially variety with this 3 ban system and that's something that going to add a whole new element to the possibilities in draft.: We aren't really thinking too much about it because we have a set this week on 2 bans but we've scrimmed on it previously and gotten some ideas for how to utilize the feature to make certain meta picks even stronger or even set up for something spicy that normally wouldn't be possible.: Yes teams are preparing for third ban, we have known for some time that the third ban was going to be implemented during the middle of the season. We actually scrimmed for a few days using the third ban and I much preferred it over the two ban style just because it adds diversity in the meta. For now we're more focused on the current draft to prepare for our upcoming HGC matches but we have theory crafted certain strategies for the future.The most likely impact will be teams looking to either target a specific role or a specific player's hero pool through the extra bans. In either case, the more comfortable a team or player is with playing a wide variety of heroes within their role, the less susceptible they will be to a drop in HGC results following the change.I don’t think the 3 bans will have an impact as far as standings are concerned, because teams will have had ample time practicing in the 3 ban environment. The biggest impact will be that more Heroes that were in a specific department, say Ranged, that didn’t see play because other Heroes in the same category were available will now see play due to the extra bans. To me, that’s refreshing and exciting.Thank you, various players and coaches, for answering our questions! You can click on their names and get redirected to their social media pages. Give them all some love!Follow the HGC action over at https://heroesofthestorm.com/esports for schedules, team news, and much more.