Last weekend Team Dignitas faced off against Fnatic, a team who gave them quite the workout. Team Dignitas was able to take the series 3-1, but it was not easy. Fnatic took the first game by getting multiple objective turn-ins in a row on Tomb of the Spider Queen and snowballing the late-game, eventually winning with an objective and boss push to the core. Team Dignitas collected themselves after Game 1 and took the next three games quite convincingly.

We saw both Fnatic and Team Dignitas draft Whitemane, although she only won in the hands of Zaelia. In fact, out of the seven games she saw in EU last weekend, the only game where she won was when played by Team Dignitas. We also saw quite a bit more Junkrat than usual and less Fenix for Team Dignitas. Yrel was, of course, picked or banned nearly every game, and Medivh, Genji, and Maiev were banned every single game.

Team Dignitas have two series this weekend, one against Granit Gaming on Friday and the other against Team Liquid on Sunday. It’s an important weekend for scores, so the team will have to make sure they continue to play strong and make sure they dictate the meta, especially with Whitemane’s uncertainty as a viable Support hero.

Team Dignitas vs. Granit Gaming - Friday, August 31st at 11:00 am PDT / 8:00 pm CEST

The assassin meta has been extremely varied lately. Mages, ranged auto-attackers, and melee heroes all have their places on certain battlegrounds and compositions. For assassin players like Vilhelm "POILK" Flennmark and Tobias “RaiDbawZ” Podeszwa, there is a need to be very flexible with their hero pools. Both players fill the mage role for their teams, with Chromie being a popular choice lately, but last weekend also showed that Gul’dan may be making a bit of a comeback for some teams to help deal with the popularity of Sgt. Hammer.

Junkrat has his place as a great tool for pushing out lanes, dealing decent poke damage, and disrupting teamfights. He will most likely be a contested tool for both teams. While Sgt. Hammer’s popularity is very strong with Team Dignitas, she hasn’t been picked up by Granit Gaming nearly at all. If Team Dignitas is able to get compositions that compliment Sgt. Hammer and she is uncontested, it will be a difficult draft for Granit Gaming to counter.

Team Dignitas vs. Team Liquid - Sunday, September 2nd at 9:00 am PDT / 6:00 pm CEST

Team Liquid attended the Western Clash as the second seed of Europe, but had a surprisingly difficult run at the event, finishing in the 7th/8th slot. In their first series back in HGC League play last weekend, they won 3-0 against Granit Gaming. It’s difficult to judge their exact skill level currently, but they are still a team to be careful of. One thing that was quite surprising in those three games against Granit Gaming was that Team Liquid drafted Thrall every game. He’s definitely a hero that has been making appearances here and there, but after his popularity at the most recent Eastern Clash, he seems to be popping up even more.

Another thing that seemed to appear out of nowhere last weekend was Anub’arak. Both Team Dignitas and Team Liquid played him last weekend with success. A new meta may be brewing, or a good counter-meta, as Anub’arak saw play in 6 out of 22 matches in EU with an 83% win rate. For Jérôme "JayPL" Trinh, Johanna has become a more popular pick. Cemented by her success at the Western Clash, we saw him play Johanna twice last weekend and Garrosh only once. Ivan “SportBilly” Koturic has had a lot of variety lately with his Tanks. At the Western Clash, we saw quite a bit of Garrosh, and even one Varian game, but back into League play we saw two Anub’arak games and one of Diablo. The Tank meta right now still seems to be a bit up in the air, depending on the team, and likely we’ll see some more variations this weekend.

It’s going to be a busy weekend so we hope you will come to join us on the DIGscord to discuss the games together! Both matches will be streamed on the BlizzHeroes Twitch channel.

Team Dignitas Discord Server: https://discord.gg/TeamDignitas

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/blizzheroes