Games Played Record Rank 1 - 50 22 - 28 Gold1 51 - 100 34 - 16 Plat2 101 - 150 28 - 22 Plat1 151 - 200 25 - 25 Plat1 201 - 221 12 - 9 ???

Promotion Match

Towers of Doom

Draft

Match

Final Thoughts

Sometimes it's hard to put into words what it feels like to accomplish a goal. It's good to set incremental goals - attainable, short-term goals to go along with difficult, but not impossible, long-term goals. The idea being that you work toward the short-term goals and they help you reach your long-term goal(s).For the final ranked season of 2017 I set two goals: play a minimum of 150 Hero League games and to reach Diamond5. My thinking was that if I placed in plat 2-3, 150 games felt like the number of matches I might need to grind in order to hit Diamond. If you've read my previous blogs , you know this didn't quite go according to plan. Placing gold1 wasn't part of the equation. Requiring 99 games just to get back into plat2 wasn't something I thought I'd have to do. But that's the circumstance I put myself in. Once I was back at my baseline-rank I played over 100 games between plat2 and plat1.Here's one way to look at the whole season: Chopping it up into four 50 game bits with the final 21 at the end.Before my coaching session with Kala I had a relatively brutal weekend session going 4-9 and back into plat2:There seems to be a prevailing notion that weekend HL is worse than weekday HL. For the season I was 59-49 on the weekends (54.6% w/r) versus 62-51 (54.9% w/r) on the weekdays. Statistically speaking, that's identical, but that's just one anecdote in a sea of many;. This particular weekend was not very good. You might notice the Gazlowe-games are sandwiched right in the middle of this stretch. I went into my coaching session badly needing a pick-me-up. Time was running out on achieving my main goal for the season. After the coaching session I watched a couple more replays to see if I could identify the same things Kala was seeing. Come Monday night I was ready to apply the lessons I had learned and subsequently had a good night going 4-1.I was pleased with my Malth play on the ToTSQ game in which both Greymane and Alarak took turns trying to lane against me. They did not fare well. Tuesday night went well too; 3-1. The Dragon Shire game included getting matched with someone on my friends list; doesn't happen often but when it does it's pretty cool - feels like old school duo'ing. The 9-minute loss on BoE our Diablo disconnected before the game started and never returned. In reality, the game was over at 4-minutes. It sucks, but these things happen. I finished the night with a win on Volskaya in which our comp was Junk/Alex/Guldan/D.Va/Malf - The Malfurion pick was a mistake; he was looking to draft a tank but panic-clicked as time waned (or so we were told). We still won with passive lane pressure and good rotations. Once we hit 20, Gul'dan/Junkrat AoE damage was too much for them to handle. It was a rewarding win considering the disadvantage we put ourselves in with the draft (No tank!).Wednesday nightstarted with a 28-minute loss on Cursed Hollow. Two separate but equally awful boss-calls were our undoing. I tried to ping the team off the boss. Arthas and Varian weren't having it and so we bossed and threw. The thing is, we needed the boss to end. Our siege damage was non-existent but in both cases the enemy team was up and healthy so that the timing of the calls was poor. The next game was Volskaya and the enemy team went solo-Uther heals. Gul'dan into solo Uther is a match made in heaven - for Gul'dan. EZ game. Then came BoE. The draft had a lot of constructive communication and I got to last pick Lunara into Varian/Artanis/Cassia/Jaina (all decent match-ups for her). One of the few times where everyone communicated their picks and made adjustments based on our own comp and the enemies as well. EZ game.Hello Darkness my old friend...I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at all nervous. The main difference I felt in myself versus other times I'd been in this position was confidence. I was playing confidently. I was playing the best HotS of my life and I could feel it. My rotations were on-point. I was nailing my combos and skill shots. I had honed in my draft pool to the heroes I felt like I played the best. I was ready for this. I was pumped up.Someone please hold me.Enemy bans Garrosh. That's original. We ban... Lucio? Sure, why not. They FP Chromie. We take Greymane/Uther. I like that. They take Illidan/Cassia. Okay, that's weird to me, but maybe not crazy. Second bans: Rehgar/Arthas. Shit - I really wanted Arthas here. Good guys pick Kerrigan/Li-Ming. Kerri wouldn't be my first choice but it'll work. Bad guys take Stukov/ETC. At this point I'm thinking about Johanna but leaning towards Muradin. Team says they're fine with either. I decide on Muradin. LETS FCKN GOOOOO!!!Including this game, I've tanked exactly 8 times this season (plus another 16 games in the bruiser role) and on Muradin thrice. Here's the build:I wanted to take Dwarf Toss @16 but mis-clicked on Imposing Presence... not the end of the world (good talent into Illidan) but annoying still. It took me a while (~8 minutes) to feel like I was doing my job as a tank. Because they had an Illidan it was difficult to account for all of them all the time. Their goal seemed to be dive with Illidan and follow up with ETC and Chromie. It definitely was working early game when we were having a hard time staying together and they were getting picks.Bad guys got out to a bit of an early lead in terms of alters but we were mostly neck and neck in XP. An altar phase after both teams had ultimates didn't go our way and their XP leads turns into a full level. As we were rotating bot for a shrine phase they hit 13 and we're barely into 12. Luckily, their Stukov/Cassia/Chromie over-extend and good guys get a couple picks and the next altar. We turned that into a nice pick-off of their Cassia with all parties present; however, ETC lined up a three man mosh taking out Kerri & Ming. Luckily he didn't snatch Grey because we turned around and got 2 more picks netting a 3 for 2 in our favor. At this moment (12 and half minutes in) the second triple-altar phase spawns; we secure two.It was 24-16 (core health) in their favor and both teams hit lvl16 at approximately the same time. After a little hugging and kissing over sappers in the bot lane a double-altar phase spawns. We pick-off Stukov in the rotation to mid and posture around their altar with grey grabbing ours. With them trying to poke as Stukov is rezzing ETC charges in. We get a good amount of damage on him and he tries to mosh but Kerrigan answers perfectly with a combo/ult snaring Chromie at the same time; they both go down. Illidan hunts to stop the Ming channel but that just leads to him and Stukov dying. I almost get out with a sliver of health and a good Uther cleanse but take a Cassia spear to the back. It's a 4 for 1 and we boss - At 15:45 we take our first lead of the game 12-16. Taking our sappers and pushing into bot they force a fight before we hit 20 (we're about 3/4 away). We get 3 kills, bot tower, and level 20 out of the engage while losing nothing. Single alter-phase spawns. Uther notes: "they're tilted". Along with a 5-shot alter and their sappers hitting core it's 4-16. With everyone alive and healthy we catch Illidan out of position in mid. We defend bot keep and attempt to push more sappers in. Double-altar spawn. This is it! With everyone alive, Illidan dives Grey channeling. I'm smack dab in the middle of both teams and nail Cassia/Stukov w/Storm Bolt. Uther and Kerrigan combo off the stun perfectly securing kills on both.We finish off ETC and Illidan with Ming channeling.Whoa! That was fun. The adrenaline was flowing. I was high as a kite on the aroma of diamond city. I took some screenshots and told some friends. Mission accomplished. Like I said at the top, it's hard to put into words what it feels like to accomplish a goal. But I can say this... it feels hecking good af.Cheersouroboros