Battleground Picks and Bans - The Raw Data

North America Prefers Towers of Doom

Europe Has Warmed Up to Volskaya Foundry

Hello again, everyone! Today, we're here to talk about the HGC....specifically, the HGC Western Clash! The tournament at IEM Katowice pit the best 4 teams in North America against the best 4 teams in Europe. For today's article, I'd like to take a look at the map selection for both regions, and see how it compares to their regular season games. We'll also take a look at some of the most popular hero picks on a few of these maps, so that you can better understand the tactics that the pro teams are using and integrate them into your own games!Here are some tables showcasing which battlegrounds were selected the most during the Western Clash.Here are some tables showcasing which battlegrounds were banned the most during the Western Clash.Now that we have the data available, let's break it down into something more manageable. What have we learned from this Western Clash?Towers of Doom was selected the most frequently of any battleground at the Western Clash with a 24% pick rate. This is largely due to North America, having selected Towers for 50% of their games at IEM Katowice. Towers of Doom was the second highest map pick in the first 5 weeks of HGC NA play, so this doesn't come as much of a surprise. This is not exclusive to NA, of course, as EU was also happy to pick up the map in about 13% of games. Towers of Doom is a very strong competitive battleground which has often yielded some of the most intense results in Heroes of the Storm history, and without spoiling much, this year's Grand Finals was no exception!To understand why this map is so favored, let's look at its design (shown on the map above). On most battlegrounds, when a pro team can secure multiple kills on the enemy team late in the game, they will try to push for the enemy team's core as quickly as possible while they have an advantage in manpower. But Towers makes this common "core rush" strategy (often employed by teams like Fnatic) completely impossible, as the core cannot be reached by the enemy team directly. Instead, teams must fight over altars that allow them to deal damage to the enemy's core. Because of this, the map strongly favors team fighting compositions to protect and secure altars, as well as to go after mercenary camps that can inflict further core damage. This also makes comebacks far more likely on Towers of Doom, because every team fight could allow a team that is down in core health to bounce back and make a big recovery later in the game by taking multiple altars or mercenary camps.When playing Towers of Doom, being able to "soak" is a critical factor in helping to keep your team ahead. As a result, the pros tended to emphasize heroes who were very good at soaking lanes while the rest of the team roamed the map in search of kills. Abathur was picked or banned fromTowers of Doom game in the Western Clash for this reason, as he provides the rather unique ability to push every lane and take advantage of a team that isn't paying attention. Blaze had a 91% popularity rate on this map and boasted a 5-4 record, likely due to his contributions as a hero that can handle lanes all by himself with his impressive wave-clear. Dehaka saw more emphasis on this map as well with a 73% popularity rate and a 3-2 record, as he also provides very strong wave-clear in addition to the ability to burrow across the map quickly to soak multiple lanes....or to join a team fight and strike an unsuspecting team from behind.Europe's battleground priorities remained mostly the same, with Battlefield of Eternity and Infernal Shrines as high priority selections. However, with Tomb of the Spider Queen banned in nearly 29% of all matches across the event, Europe turned to an unusual map choice instead: Volskaya Foundry, a map they had previously prioritized as their second most banned. And yet, Europe opted to turn to this map for 19% of their overall games. Why the change of heart? The answer to that question likely lies with recent changes brought to the Nexus that made Volskaya's objective, the Triglav Protector, significantly stronger.On this battleground, teams compete to take control of one of three "control points" on the map (shown in the map above). Securing these control points gives them access to a hulking mech called the Trivlag Protector, which is the game's first objective to feature two controllers. The first player is the "pilot", who controls the mech's movement and has a variety of engagement tools, and the second player is the "gunner", who has access to multiple damaging abilities to put pressure onto enemy teams trying to defend their structures. In previous versions of the game, the Trivlag Protector was not strong enough to justify committing two players, because it would restrict your team's overall fighting strength. As such, we would often see some very strange tactics employed on this battleground, especially in the North American region where heroes like Cho'Gall or Azmodan would see some unique use.Enter the new patch on February 6th, which gave the Trivlag Protector 10 Armor and 25% more damage when it is under the control of two players, as well as 10% more health and some other changes to further increase its damage and utility. This new strength made the Triglav Protector strong enough that the loss of a second team member no longer restricts your ability to fight the enemy team, leading to much more standard drafts and pushing teams towards a more Protector-oriented play style. Of course, the best professional teams demonstrated some skillful manipulation of this by swapping in and out of the Protector as needed to help their team in critical moments.When playing Volskaya Foundry, the newfound strength of the Triglav Protector can now help supplement teams with weaker siege potential, and can be a real terror to defend against later in the game. Because of this, you should try to put more emphasis on having a strong team fighting composition to help secure this powerful objective as often as you can. Blaze is again a strong choice here, having appeared in every Volskaya game as a pick or ban, with a 4-2 record. His strength in team fights cannot be denied, with the ability to output tons of damage at close range as well as dropping AoE stuns onto a clustered enemy team, and of course, being able to save an ally with his Bunker is a critical element that can turn the fight in your favor. This battleground also saw the use of multiple successful healers in Malfurion and Stukov, who both had an 86% popularity rate and a 3-3 record on Volskaya Foundry. Malfurion and Stukov both provide a variety of handy crowd-control tools to help your team secure kills by rooting the enemy in place, as well as abilities which can deter or isolate enemy attackers for an easy kill.That's all for today's segment. Next time, we'll go over the hero selections of the Western Clash and see which heroes were the biggest priorities! I look forward to seeing your feedback about the new format of my articles! Let me know if there is anything you'd like me to include in these articles in the future.