pleb2pro - A recount of my past year in HotS

Hi everyone,



Some of you probably don’t know me but I’m Moops, captain and support player for ANZ’s 2017 BlizzCon representatives Dark Sided.



You’re probably thinking right now “wait what? There’s another ANZ team that isn’t Nomia?”. And rightfully so. Nomia have had a stranglehold on the ANZ qualifier spot for over a year now. But like with everything, their reign over ANZ couldn’t last forever, and at the start of the year I set a goal to usurp them by BlizzCon 2017, to go from pleb2pro in a year. This is my story.



Everything in this post is a recount of my own experiences and opinions expressed are my own. There is going to be a LOT of text but I’ve tried to condense it as much as possible while still maintaining my key messages. The intention of this post is to inform and assist the greater HotS community, ANZ and Worldwide, of the basic framework which I think greatly contributed towards the forming of a championship team from nothing.



The beginning



My path towards BlizzCon started in January 2017.



My partner is currently studying and living away from me. Her schedule to complete her degree by the end of 2018 left me with two years of free time. Looking for something to fill the empty nights after work, I decided to make the yearlong commitment to strive towards competing at BlizzCon 2017.



I played HotS for approximately a year before taking a six month break mid-2016. I came back and placed in Platinum 4. My MMR was absolute garbage compared to other competitive players. No one in ANZ had respect for me, and a lot of the friends I once had in the scene had left HotS during my break. So I began my grind where all good things start, in the dark depths of ANZ Hero League.



During the planning phase of this journey, I had decided I would commit to a role swap and begin again as a support player. I’ve always had a great passion of playing support from back in my DotA days and so with a huge hero pool to learn from scratch, HL wasn’t the worst place to start.



In my second week back, Morton, a respected advocate of the scene, was hosting a one day pre-season tournament. Wanting to get a feel of the state of the competitive scene, I spammed good ol’ ANZ chat and asked four random players to come and team with me for the day. One of those players ended up becoming the best ranged assassin in ANZ and a trusted teammate, Hacky.



I don’t think anyone would’ve believed me if I told them I was going to conquer ANZ and compete at BlizzCon back in January. Some people probably still can’t believe we actually did it. After all, ANZ is renowned for big talk and little action. Well, it happened, but it definitely wasn’t something that occurred overnight.



I’ve been striving towards this every day for the past year knowing I had set out to achieve something ANZ believed to be impossible. Over the course of this journey, I’ve formed incredible friendships and learnt some brutal lessons which have all contributed towards our success. The following sections outline some of the main factors that I feel have led to our rise to the top of ANZ HotS.



Goal Planning



Before anything even begun, I sat myself in a quiet room and did nothing but think. I set myself a series of short and long term goals to strive towards over the year ultimately ending with qualifying for BlizzCon. A common flaw with goal creation is writing goals only for them to be forgotten by the end of the week. Throughout the year, I made an active effort to continually refer back to these goals and modify them accordingly to how well I was traveling towards achieving them.



Once I formed this vision and knew the direction required to achieve it, the next step was to find people to share it with.



Team Creation



Team creation is probably the most important factor in achieving success in HotS. Unlike other MOBAs, HotS is truly a team game where a single weakness in your team can result in total team dysfunction. Without the necessary building blocks in a strong roster, it would be an almost insurmountable feat to succeed in HotS.



For this reason, over the four seasons of HGC I’ve competed in this year, I have never played with the exact same roster. The four iterations throughout the year were as follows:



- Moops, Hacky, Demise, Fizix, Godzilla

- Moops, Hacky, Sashin, Aeternanyx, Enaigon, (Morton)

- Moops, Hacky, Sashin, Demise, Vicarrak, (Morton)

- Moops, Hacky, Sashin, Demise, robadobi, (Morton)



The methodology I employ into determining my team members has always been less about mechanical skill and more about individual values and work ethic. I honestly believe that no matter how mechanically talented individual players are, in order to make a dominant championship team, I had to assemble players who share the same work ethic and values as myself. Unfortunately, despite what people tell you in the beginning and how well early results might have shown, the only way you can really tell whether or not your team members share the same vision as you is by playing through a gruelling season with them and experience a lot of losses.



As with many things in life, the success of a HotS team occurs in cycles. It would be unrealistic to expect a new team to perform well when it first comes together. Upon forming a team, there is always a downhill period where members are learning about each other and figuring out what works where. The low points of each team I was on highlighted people’s fundamental flaws and whether or not they were determined to address them directly in order to achieve their goals, or overlook them until their eventual resurface.



As such, over the four seasons of HGC in 2017, I have made multiple roster swaps that have at times gone under fire by the community, but I truly believe that each swap had merit with the time frame I had and to date I have not come to regret a single one.



Given more time, I truly believe that any of those team iterations could have ended up at the top if I was less hasty and dedicated more time towards team member development. This personal growth is what helps me be a better and better captain every day.



Roles and responsibilities



The structure which I’ve instilled in our team revolves around predetermined roles and responsibilities. Outside of playing our in-game roles we have distributed responsibility as follows:



Moops – Captain

Sashin – Drafter / Shotcaller

Morton – Manager



Having this distribution of power is incredibly beneficial towards the team atmosphere. Having this break down makes no one person ever in a position to take advantage of their labels. It also allows us to effectively do what we need to without bleeding into other members responsibilities. I don’t have to worry about drafting or shotcalling in game. Sure I’d offer my opinion whenever I have a good idea, but knowing that when it comes down to it I can sit back and trust in Sashin has allowed me to concentrate on my role as captain and support player.



I wanted to touch briefly on the importance of having a manager for ANZ in particular. Certain individuals in the community have always managed to find the time to give Morton a lot of flak as our team’s manager. He got to come to Sydney with us, and now he gets to attend BlizzCon. But what does he do?



To us, Morton is as much a team member as any of the players. Without him we would undoubtedly be nowhere near where we are today. As a manager/coach, Morton analyses all of our games and makes sure that each player has strict goals they strive towards day in and day out. Leading up to events, he ensures the team is prompt and that all of our concerns are dealt with. Morton is the primary liaison with all officials during events and connects us with who we need when we need it.



Those duties seem straight forward enough? Why don’t I do it as a captain? Sure, I could do everything Morton does. But. If I was to do that, I’d have less time to concentrate on MY role as captain and support player. Why disperse my limited mental capacity when I can have a sixth team member to dedicate their time to management? While Morton concentrates on outputs, I can concentrate on outcomes.



A lot of my previous team’s downfall has come when players feel like other individuals are stepping on their shoes and bleeding into their ‘jurisdiction’. This occurs when there is a lack in definition of what is required of each individual. Without this strong framework, a team will never truly be efficient and this is why I find incredible value in outsourcing and delegating as much responsibility as possible.



Deliberate Practice



Deliberate practice is a system I employ in everything I do, and I’d like to think that I’ve taught the rest of the team what it means to make the most of each moment we spend playing or even thinking about HotS. As mentioned previously, I work full time and it’s no surprise my total game time compared to other competitive players is almost trivial. So, how does a low skill, previously hard stuck plat 4 player like me get to BlizzCon? I try maximise what time I do have.



Whenever I play HL and grind my heroes, I’m always going into games actively thinking about ways to improve my play. I don’t play 20 games of HL and finish my day looking at how many points I gained. Instead, I play five games and remember what I could have done better in each one. MMR is a result of what you’ve learnt in your games. It should never be the central performance indicator if your goal is to win competitive games.



Oh, but don’t get me wrong. There has been plenty a time where the feeble tilted within comes out. I’m not the infamous ANZ Glogan for no reason. However, after a tilted Gazlord game or two I’ll try stop playing and do something productive instead. Watching HGC replays or our team’s replays are an example of something I’d do while I de-tilt. It’s all about being efficient with your time. There is no doubt that mindlessly grinding HL games can win you titles, Nomia have already proven that this is possible. But I’d like to think that our rapid rise to the top of ANZ proves deliberate practice can get you there in half the time.



Conclusion



That sums up my main points I wanted to cover about how we came to be where we are now. I’ve personally come a long way this year with my improvements to gameplay and captaining. But more than that, the boys have come so far and I couldn’t be prouder of them for the amount of work they put in. Further to that, I honestly can’t thank them enough for the absolute trust they’ve instilled in me to make the hard decisions knowing that ultimately I always have their best interests in mind.



When I originally set out my goals at the start of the year to compete at BlizzCon it was all for personal achievement. I wanted to do something for myself and prove to myself that I’m capable of anything I put my mind to. Now that I’m here I’ve realised that there’s so much more than my own interests on my shoulders. After going through so much with the boys, I now feel personally responsible for the other five members on the team, in and outside of HotS.



The Dark Sided management have believed in us from day one when no one else did. Without them and all they’ve provided us with we wouldn’t be competing at BlizzCon this year and I wouldn’t have been able to achieve my goals. We can’t thank you enough for going above and beyond for us at every opportunity. I have no doubt that DS will be an internationally recognised esports organisation within the immediate future. This is just the beginning.



And lastly but most importantly, ANZ. We’ve always been a proud region and that’s probably why there’s always been so much tension and beef between top teams. In the history of HotS we’ve never been more competitive and there has never been this many people hungry to represent us internationally. I can’t say who will be there at the end of next season to represent us, but for now, while we’re at the top, if you’ll have us, we’ll do everything we can and proudly represent ANZ at BlizzCon. Let’s turn this minor region stigma around and show them what ANZ is all about.





Moops

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