2017 proved to be an amazing year for competitive Heroes of the Storm. After the confetti settled and the year’s World Champions were decided there was a clear message from the community: We. Want. More. And so the long, arduous wait for 2018 began. Our patience (or impatience for those like myself) was rewarded this past weekend with the commencement of this year’s iteration of the Heroes Global Championship.

In North America, every team has something to prove not only to themselves but to the community at large. No match was without a compelling narrative, but the competition I was most looking forward to was Tempo Storm taking on the past and future kings of Heroes, Heroes Hearth Esports.

Tempo Storm made moves before the new season began, with superstars like Glaurung and Fan joining the lineup. On paper, I feel like this team is about as close to a superteam as the region has ever seen. With so much talent on the active roster, expectations were certainly high.

HHE entered the HGC this year by way the Crucible, and they’ve brought a little bit of the old and little bit of the new. Longtime mainstays Mcintyre, Khroen, and Arthelon joined up with fresh faces ishb00 and BBJ to bulldoze their way through the Open Division and beyond. Can the newer talent thrive under the pressure of professional play? Will the veterans come back with a vengeance, showing why they are players who should never be doubted?

I think both teams came into the match with largely different goals aside from reducing the enemy team’s core to rubble. To me, I think it was important for Tempo Storm to show that the dominant personalities on that team could act of one accord. For HHE, they were being put in a whole different kind of crucible by starting Phase 1 off against arguably the strongest team in the region. They needed to bear fangs and show that they came ready to play.

All considered, I feel both teams succeeded in laying the groundwork for strong showings this year.

On the side of Tempo Storm, Psalm in particular showed that he hasn’t been slacking in the offseason. Feral was no fluke, landing KTZ chains from beyond the curvature of the Earth itself it felt like to secure victories in team fights. His ability to take quasi-meta heroes like Kel’thuzad and Kerrigan and make the argument that they should be banned away from the capable hands of the self-proclaimed Sidestep King could open avenues to S tier heroes like Genji and Hanzo showing up in their draft.

I was most curious to see how Cattle would fair, transitioning back to the role of main tank. In theory, I felt his job might have been the easiest of everyone on Tempo Storm right now. With so much firepower on the backline and in the off-lane, realistically all he had to do wass avoid running it down mid. He was no pedestrian though, with near flawless CC chaining, rotations, and anchoring that made the case that he’s a top 3 tank in the region, at least.

If Tempo Storm keeps playing to the level they showed this weekend, they better make sure their passports are up to date and that their trophy-hoisting skills have been sharpened.

Against an opponent of that caliber, it could easily be said that we haven’t yet seen the true valuation of Heroes Hearth Esports. While they did fall in the best of five series 3-1, moments of sheer brilliance were evident often enough to make me feel like they will bounce back from this weekend ready to put up an even better performance going ahead.

Khroen’s Greymane play felt scrappy to me. Gutsy, even. With no allergy to diving in deep and instigating a fight, it was encouraging to see that the rest of the team was right there with him when the moment called for it. There’s burst damage and then there’s what Khroen was doing to Tempo’s backline. His ability to net serious numbers was a huge catalyst for the success HHE found in Tomb of the Spider Queen.

I feel ishb00 also had a standout performance in the opening weekend. It felt apparent that Tempo Storm’s strategy was to harass the frontline, and there were plenty of times it felt like Muradin had Tracer’s health pool with how much attention he was receiving by way of steady poke damage. A lesser player could have easily felt intimidated, taking some of the proverbial bite out of their team’s ability to engage. The newcomer held up remarkably well I felt, and even came away from the experience ready to up his game further still based on his post-match Twitter comments.

I do hold some concerns for both teams however, having seen them square off. The meta, even just at week 1, has felt stubborn at some points and rigid at others. The Shimada brothers got to spend a lot of time quarantined, though Hanzo was let through enough to show why he has two builds who might see some revision in the near future. That said, HHE’s reliance on Greymane and Leoric could leave one wondering if the consistent choice to draft those heroes is a nod towards comfort, an acute understanding of the current meta, or potential weak spots in hero pools.

Tempo Storm looked solid throughout, but the superteam qualities of their roster make me wonder how they will respond if games and matches start to not go their way. It felt to me that they went into the match with a specific plan of action and were mostly successful in executing it. But what happens if Plan A has to be thrown out of the window? While we may not see it until an offline event, I really would like to see how Tempo Storm responds to pressure and play that matches or exceeds their own level of play.

When all was said and done, the promise and potential of this matchup did not disappoint by any stretch. We saw some high level, precise play from both sides and were given a solid taste of what’s to come for both teams. If week 1 is any indicator, we are going to be in for a ride this Phase.