The Heroes Global Championship Finals at Blizzcon is the most hyped event of the year. You can win a MId-Season Brawl and people will call you the world champions, but it is the dream of every pro team to win Blizzcon specifically. All the stops are pulled out, nothing is held back. Over the last weekend the top 16 teams were narrowed down to the top 8, the teams that will actually play on that coveted Blizzcon stage. Three from NA, three from EU, and two from Korea.



Each team coming into the event has strengths we know about it, both from their season play and the games we’ve seen from them in the group stages. Some teams had easier groups and could hide strategies, some teams were forced to show part or all of their hand. This is my take on what we’ve seen so far and where the teams stand in a few categories. Synergy, Mechanics, Team Fighting, Macro, Drafting, and Pocket Strats. Bear in mind with a week to grind and scrim against each other any or all of the teams could level up in some of these areas depending on what they choose to focus on. This is also a direct comparison, ranking the teams where they stand against each other in these areas. I will organize the teams by their expected match ups, to make it a bit easier to make head to head comparisons.

MVP Black

MVP Black is widely considered the best mechanical team in the world. They have one of the top two off-laners in the world - arguably the best - in the form of Rich. Drafting is an inconsistent aspect of their play, but for the purposes of this event they have Noblesse, the former captain of L5 and debatably the best competitive drafter ever in the pro scene, coaching and drafting for them. However because they are so straight up strong, they rarely have pocket picks or unusual map strategies. Their synergy is very strong, with lots of crisp, well executed multi-hero combos, but it is not their major strength.

Drafting: 1

Mechanics: 1

Macro: 4

Synergy: 4

Team Fighting: 4

Pocket Strats: 7

Average: 3.5

Team Freedom

Team Freedom is I think the closest in style to the EU and KR teams. They macro, they play straight up strategies, they try to have strong synergy and coordination in team fights, there is a focus on mechanics from all the players. They also have a strong coach which I think is invaluable for all teams. They have a very rough opponent for their style, but they well be the NA team that walks out of Blizzcon with everyone talking about how well the played and how close the match was.



Drafting: 6

Mechanics: 6

Macro: 6

Synergy: 7

Team Fighting: 7

Pocket Strats: 8

Average: 6.7

Team Dignitas

Dignitas might seem like an underdog to many people, coming out of the EU region where they have consistently lost to Fnatic, but I think they are actually ahead of Fnatic at this event. In their last series Quacknix admitted that he felt Dignitas out drafted them in most of the games and Dignitas lost to very small mistakes that, frankly, they don’t make against other teams. I believe there is a headspace issue with Dignitas against Fnatic. But they too have picked up a coach who is really good about keeping them in a good headspace and they traditionally perform better at LAN events. If the brackets had worked out differently, my money would have been on a Dignitas vs MVP Black finals. As it stands, I think their semi-final match will be the most exciting series of the tournament.



Drafting: 2

Mechanics: 4

Macro: 3

Synergy: 2

Team Fighting: 1

Pocket Strats: 4

Average: 2.7

Team Expert



Full disclosure, seeing innovation instead of refinement in the draft is the most exciting thing for me in HotS. So I have a strong bias for Team Expert because they give me a lot of it. Expert is the hardest working team in HotS I think, by sheer number of hours they try to put in. Nic is possibly the most under rated professional player in the carry role in all of HGC, but somehow it always feels like there is one element missing. Some spark that truly top teams have that seems to elude Expert. I am sincerely hoping that this experience of going to Blizzcon brings that out in them and they surpass themselves, as they have worked so hard all year to do.



Drafting: 5

Mechanics: 5

Macro: 5

Synergy: 6

Team Fighting: 5

Pocket Strats: 3

Average: 4.8

Fnatic



The current world champions and by far the most hyped team heading into Blizzcon. There was a moment in one of their games versus Team Freedom on Sky Temple where Breez jumped in and missed a Stormbolt. Which happens. But Wubby on Dehaka started his Brushstalker on Dehaka just before the jump happened and if that Stormbolt had hit, Wubby would have popped up from the bush and cast Drag, which would have hit right before Stormbolt’s stun ended. Coordination down to tenths of a second across four abilities and across the map and that isn’t some rare exception, that is Fnatic all day, every day, in every game they play. Wubby is the only player in competition with Rich for world’s best off-laner. However, they do occasionally left themselves get out drafted and from there it is an always an uphill battle.



Drafting: 4

Mechanics: 3

Macro: 1

Synergy: 1

Team Fighting: 3

Pocket Strats: 5

Average: 2.8

Tempo Storm

One of the consistent top teams from NA, they have never performed well at an international event. There is some reason to think this time is different however. Mechanically they have always been outclassed by international teams and they are grinding hero league constantly right now, which is frankly the way to improve at mechanics, the grind. They also seem to be thinking really critically about drafting and exactly what each piece of the draft does. Their all melee composition with Kerrigan was inspired in many ways, because they played in a way that didn’t require a ranged hero. Obviously this carries risks, but I doubt it is the only card up their sleeve and clever, unexpected drafts have always been their trump card over everything else.

Drafting: 8

Mechanics: 8

Macro: 8

Synergy: 8

Team Fighting: 8

Pocket Strats: 2

Average: 7

Roll20 eSports

The surprise team. Not so much their ranking or where they are, but the team that somehow always seems to surprise their opponents, even when pulling out strategies they have already revealed. Roll20 is the first NA team to have their own play style, their own meta, their own way of thinking about the game that has worked at the international level since 2015. I don’t know what else can be said about them outside of that. They are leading the way for NA to be a distinct region in HotS and not just a worse version of EU or KR but that also means everything they are doing is going to be relatively untested by comparison.

Drafting: 7

Mechanics: 7

Macro: 7

Synergy: 5

Team Fighting: 6

Pocket Strats: 1

Average: 5.5



Ballistix

Ballistix is still the most terrifying macro team in Korea. With the way they constrict the map I really wish they’d get sponsored by Razer, because they deserve a Snake as their logo. It always feels like watching them, they have no weaknesses and distinct strengths in playing to the map. Any map. It feels like there is very little that is clever or cunning that teams can do to beat them; most victories are pulled away through sheer grit at forcing their strangle hold off the game.

Drafting: 3

Mechanics: 2

Macro: 2

Synergy: 3

Team Fighting: 2

Pocket Strats: 6

Average: 3