In July the live LAN ‘The Mastersclash’ was played in Paris. I attended the event as the English host & caster. Six different teams brawled on a live stage to take home the precious cup for this live event. I had the opportunity to speak with MaxPassion from Wind & Rain to talk about certain teamfight perspectives that went on during the LAN. In this article we're going to dive into one of the series and look at it from different angles.

We will take a look at examples where his team faces off against the team ‘Schubertwalk’ with some big names from the scene such as HasuObs, Mene, and Granit Gaming’s Tai. Due to some technical difficulties with accounts getting locked, some players were playing on different accounts. So for this series, Virtual is playing on the account of Groonia and Schwimpi is on his smurf ZZZ. Wind & Rain showed full control and knowledge on the different maps throughout the tournament and took home the cup.

If you look at the current state of this game on Cursed Hollow, what do you pay attention to? What stands out?

MaxPassion: Schubertwalk is about to get cursed, they want to fight before we hit level 13. Curse might snowball the game quite fast for Wind & Rain. The two bosses are up, which can do a lot on this map, so you have to take that into account aswel. SW have a teamfight comp with double support, they want to take longer fights to get value from that.





What are each team’s strengths in a teamfight?

MaxPassion: Schubertwalk outsustains the enemy with double support and Tyreal. That's definitely their strength if the fights go on quite long. Wind & Rain has Johanna. She is a good choice into AA and forces them back easily by stepping up. She's a threatening presence on her own. Both teams have a global, with ETC’s Stage Dive and Falstad is of course a global hero. SW has a good draft into Stage Dive with Gust and Sanctification. On the other side, the WR members have good defensive tools and escapes with Iron Skin, ETC’s Powerslide and Face Melt. Both damage dealers have mobility tools. Only me as Malfurion doesn’t have an escape.





What are each team’s weaknesses in a teamfight?

MaxPassion: SW depends on a good Sanct to save the target that's being dove. They have no CC, so they can’t lock a target down and kill it. And that means they lack a bit of threat overall in teamfights since they have double support and double backline with Valla and Falstad. Our only weakness would be if we get split off by Mighty Gust, but both our tanks have tools to make up for that and disengage.





Who is favored in a teamfight, and why?

MaxPassion: We have the defensive tools to save me as Malfurion and we drafted that really well. It's hard for them to get value out of their composition. We had the better single target collapse and CC. Taking long sustained fights is the only situation where SW would be stronger than us. In the late game if we would take a longer fight and look for plays around bosses, SW could've done a better job and maybe make a Wind Tunnel play with Falstad.





Do we want this teamfight?

MaxPassion: Most teams wouldn't want it in a level 12 vs 11 situation. You’d make a call like, play for level 13 first so the lead is bigger. But the position was very good for us. We're not threatened by their comp because we can just back out whenever we want, and we lose nothing by giving up the tribute. We wanted to play it slow and let ETC get value in the toplane. Also, the chokes are good for us with Hanzo and we let them split when Johanna moves up. As soon as they split, we had the tools with Blessed Shield and, of course, Tracer in the flank to punish them for splitting up and take the fight in our hands.





Who do you ideally aim to kill first?

MaxPassion: Valla is of course the high priority target, she is their only damage dealer. And as soon as we saw that Tassadar's shield was down and so was Elune’s chosen from Tyrande, that's when the call was made to Stage Dive and just go in.





What is your role in the teamfight?

MaxPassion: Playing the support, I have to threaten to capture the tribute as soon as we move up. But I had to move around as soon as we engaged since my job is to follow up on the CC with my root and then pump out the heals as the fight goes.





How do you see the teamfight going?

MaxPassion: They have no threat at all, no surprise factor except for Gust. If we die, it’s because we made a mistake. They can't force a fight without Gust because they lack the CC to do so. And that’s what happend. The gust comes out, but Valla still dies and we get to capture the tribute after we won the fight.





Why this line of play, instead of another one?

MaxPassion: They have to collapse on the same person and we have to be really far apart, too far to come in to help, for anyone on our team to die. We have a very strong presence with our two front liners so we knew that we could force them into this situation.





Were there any risks?

MaxPassion: There was a risk that we overcommit. If they managed to save Valla, they could’ve chased us down or killed ETC, but that is very hard for them. They have to engage with an aggressive Gust, but Falstad has to put himself in danger to make that play and considering we have a Tracer, that might be something he doesn't want to do.





So what do you do in the aftermath? Do you chase for more kills?

MaxPassion: We don't chase, we used our stuff and all heroic abilities are on cooldown. So the call is to capture the tribute and get as much value out of the curse as possible.





How do you capitalize on the won teamfight?

MaxPassion: So ETC splits off again, we end up getting the middle fort as 4. Falstad can't defend solo with the threat of us rotating on him and ETC got top fort by himself. We could snowball that so easily by after that taking our boss and getting the bottom keep.





How could this snowball so fast? Did it come down to the drafts?

MaxPassion: They did need a bit more of a threat in my opinion and to take longer and slower fights where they out sustained the enemy. And that's how you play double support. We had a threatening frontline with a lot of CC and they lacked that frontline presence and drafting that into a Tracer means you’re constantly being threathened. Think of yourself as Valla. You're the only damage and you need to get value, but it’s super hard for you. And Malfurion is great at sustaining on his own. I could in this game for example almost sustain as much as the two supports on Schubertwalk combined.

The formation of our comp is very clear and easy to execute. Our positioning is two tanks in the front, support in the middle, Hanzo with the support and Tracer in the flank. Tracer is constantly threatening to come around and go on one of their backliners. Even not seeing Tracer causes a threat for the enemy and keeps them on their toes. This is for newer players maybe also a composition to try, simply because the positioning is so easy and clear.





A bold statement to say you sustained almost as much as two supports combined. Can you back that up a bit more?

MaxPassion: Haha. Yes, I can. A good situation was here, where Gust and Sanctification overlapped each other.

Valla did a lot of damage, she got all three of us down to half HP. But Tranquility heals all 3 of us up again. They won't get on top of me as Malfurion because they have no cc, so i picked Tranquility to contest their sustain. And you see it working here. And because of the threat of our tanks, Valla cannot step up even though you see in her movement she wants to keep going, but no one else on their team is taking the aggro. As the solo dmg, she knows that if she steps up, she will die if nobody follows.



They can never move onto our backliners with ETC/Johanna, because they are so tanky. You see ETC Stage Dive in and that could’ve gone wrong, but that is where the overlap happens. Perhaps a miscommunication. Also ETC can just get out after, because he still had slide up and wouldn't tank the keep, the boss was doing that.





Thank you for your time! Have any final thoughts or shoutouts?

MaxPassion: Well, shout out to my girlfriend for being so supportive. Shout out to my team and to Wit and Schwimpi for subbing. And of course a big shout out to everyone who watched the MastersClash and made the event happen! It was amazing to get a chance to play at a live event.



Like our content? Support us by getting our merchandise in our shop