Dignitas is the number one seed out of Europe this year. They came in first at the 2016 ESL Heroes of the Storm championship in Katowice, first in the 2016 ESL Heroes of the Storm championship in Leicester, first in DreamHack All-Stars Valencia 2016, and also finished second in the Nexus Games this year.

They have a solid lineup made up of these players:

Bakery

Bakery is the team captain and in-game leader. What most do not know is that he originally started out as a league of legends support and made it to the challenger level. Now he is the support player and strategist for the team. Bakery has been with the team since October 2015. He is most known for his Uther and Kharazim. For a link to his stream click here.

Snitch

Snitch is one of the two carry players for the team. He is also a flex that swaps into other roles, but generally, plays some sort of DPS for the team. He plays a lot of Falstad, Tychus, Li-Ming, basically any of the DPS heroes. Snitch has been with the team since October 2015 as well. Here is his stream for those of you that are interested.

JayPL

JayPL is one of the flex players for the team. He plays warriors, assassins, and even some select specialists. He basically plays whatever the team needs him to. You can bet you will see him on warriors a lot at Blizzcon because of the current meta. Here is a link to his stream in case you want to watch him.

Mene

Mene is the other carry for the team. He plays a lot of ranged assassins. He played Gul’Dan, Valla, Tychus, and Li-Ming for most of the Nexus Games. For a link to his stream click here.

Atheroangel

He is the main tank for the team, but also plays the bruiser warriors as well. He played a lot of Muradin and Johanna, but also slipped in some Leoric and Chen from time to time. He plays a solid tank and is looking to be the playmaker for the team, and after their performance against Misfits, they are probably going to need it. Check out his stream if you want to watch his prep for Blizzcon.

Strengths

Drafting- The team drafts are generally pretty solid. They know what picks they want and they do a good job of forcing the enemy team into bad picking situations. The only slight is sometimes they tunnel too hard on a comp and don’t worry about counter picking.

Individual Talent- Obviously they are a talented team. They are going to Blizzcon for a reason. Each player is solid in their role and depending on the meta each one can carry from their role. Bakery has been one of the better European supports since heroes eSports began, so he will need to step up and lead the team.

Shot Calling- I think Bakery is a pretty solid shot caller. He has been around awhile and has plenty of experience. He has wins at plenty of big events and has had some pretty amazing comebacks. I think shot calling is what separates them from the other teams in Europe.

Weaknesses

Small Hero Pools- The players do not have the biggest hero pools in the world . They have a few standard picks that everyone knows they play. This could turn into a big problem for them in international competition.

Individual Decision Making- Sometimes the players make bad individual choices. I don’t know if this is a lack of discipline or sometimes they just try to hard to be playmakers, but it gets them into trouble and can cost the team when it happens at critical times.

Drafting for Map Synergy- I know I said drafting is a strength for them. It is in most cases, but sometimes instead of drafting what is good on a certain map they tunnel onto a specific composition and don’t look at what is best in the bigger picture. This is an easy problem to fix so hopefully they do before Blizzcon.

Overall I think Dignitas is a solid, but not great team. It worries me that they lost so heavily to Misfits in the Nexus games even though I know those games weren’t extremely important. It isn’t that they lost, it is how they lost. They looked pretty bad, so they have a lot to work on before Blizzcon.