What is the GCWC?

North America - Closer to Being Competitive

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China - A Region in Decline

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Europe - A Changing of the Guard

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South Korea - Still the Champs

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General Information

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Hello there! I'm CriticKitten. You may know me from my previous segments, 7 Days Later, in which I keep track of how heroes are performing after recent balance patches. Here is a link to my most recent edition of that series. I've also been responsible for writing a segment entitled "Fixing the Meta", in which I discuss possible adjustments to the game to create a more appealing meta. Here is a link to my most recent edition of that series. Today, however, will be the first in a new segment that provides numerical coverage of the HGC. Since HGC 2018 is still a ways out, I thought it might be a good idea to do a test run for this segment on the Gold Club World Championship, which has just finished. I am open to suggestions as far as how to improve this segment for the future!Be warned that there are spoilers, so if you have not watched the event and wish to do so without being spoiled about the results,! Also, as this post contains a lot of analysis and statistics from the tourney, it's extremely long. Just giving fair warning!The Gold Club World Championship was a tournament recently hosted in Beijing, China after the conclusion of HGC 2017. Roster changes for the 2018 season had already completed and announced before the start of this tournament, making this our first glimpse at several of the top new teams from each region. The participating teams were:Roll 20 EsportsCE, Super Perfect Team, Beyond the GameFnatic, Team DignitasKSV Black, BallistixThe teams faced off in a round-robin series with Doubles matches (sometimes referred to as "Best-of-2"), followed by a double-elimination tournament bracket with Best-of-5 matches. Here were the results:KSV BlackTeam DignitasBallistixFnaticCESuper Perfect TeamRoll 20 EsportsBeyond the GameI will review the performance of each region in turn, using the data from this tournament to aid in my review. I will also provide generalized coverage of the entire tournament. Please note that for any tables in this blog post, you can see the full-sized table by clicking on the table in question. Keep in mind that this analysis does not cover every single little detail, as that would be an exhaustive list that would take literal days to compile. I focus this analysis primarily on details that I felt were interesting or relevant to the tournament overall. You are welcome to request any information that I do not provide in this analysis in the comments below, or on Reddit. I'm happy to share what I have!Let's not mince words: Roll 20's overall performance numbers look terrible on paper. The team went 2-5-0 in series play and 4-10 in games. They had no success against Europe or South Korea, though they were able to defeat 2 out of the 3 Chinese teams in this tournament. And their luck didn't change in the tournament, where they lost in the first round of the loser's bracket, ending their tourney run early in 7th place. Their overall numbers are as follows:However, it's worth noting that these figures are deceptive. In many of those losses, Roll 20 was firmly in the lead at the start of the game. Their present weakness seems to be their decision-making in the late stages of the game. They tend to fall apart late, leading to a record that is much worse than it seems. If nothing else, Roll 20 at least demonstrated their strength against the Chinese region, which looked very weak despite their home-field advantage. Don't fall asleep on this team just yet....with time, they could yet become a decent contender, the first that NA has had in a long time.Roll 20 wasn't given the map pick very often (33.33% of the time) and were eliminated quickly, so they didn't have a lot of matches in which to get a strong feel for their map priorities. However, every time they got to pick a map, they lost the match (0% win rate when choosing map), so perhaps that was for the best.As far as heroes go, their top 5 priority picks were:1) Dehaka (55.56% pick rate, 40.00% win rate)2) Greymane (50% pick rate, 33.33% win rate)3) Rehgar (44.44% pick rate, 25.00% win rate)4) E.T.C. (38.89% pick rate, 14.29% win rate)5) Lucio (33.33% pick rate, 33.33% win rate)Goku made up the majority of the Dehaka play (44.44% pick rate, or 7/9 selections) and was perhaps the best performer of the tournament for Roll 20. daneski had one of the largest hero pools on the team with 10 heroes, and Kure was second with 9 hero picks, with both players definitely filling out that "Flex" role.There wasn't too many terribly exciting elements in the draft phase for Roll 20, unfortunately. While daneski got a bit more emphasis towards the end of the draft (33.33% of his heroes were picked in the last spot of the draft), most of the other hero pools were selected pretty evenly.Overall, the fact that NA was even this competitive despite playing without Glaurung or Prismaticism is pretty impressive. If this team continues to improve, they might be a lot stronger than previously anticipated! However, for the time being at least, NA is not yet at the point where it can compete internationally. This team could potentially grow into a contender, but there's some work to be done in the late-game shotcalling.The common defense for China's increasingly poor international performance in recent tournament play has always fallen back on the continuing issues they have with securing visas to the tournament sites. With three teams in this tournament and no visa restrictions, this was supposed to be China's chance to prove itself. They sought to show that their weak Blizzcon presence was merely a fluke, and that they were ready to perform at the same level as every other region. Yet when the dust settled, all three Chinese teams were delegated to the loser's bracket, and all three were eliminated by the second round.CE ended with the strongest overall performance in 5th place with a 3-3-2 series record and went 10-12 in games.Super Perfect Team claiming 6th at 2-5-2 series and went 8-14 in games.Beyond the Game getting swept out of the tourney at 8th place with a dismal 0-8-0 series record and went only 2-17 in games.CE got map pick a bit more frequently (45.45% of the time) so we got a good glimpse at their preferred maps: Towers of Doom (4 picks) and Dragon Shire (3 picks). Unfortunately, their actual performance on Towers was somewhat more lacking (25% win rate) and other teams had no problem giving CE more opportunities to play....and lose....on Dragon Shire (3 enemy picks vs CE, 50% overall win rate).This feeling was apparently shared by SPT, who also picked Towers and Dragon Shire the most often (40.91% overall map pick rate, 3 picks for each map) but also seemed to struggle on these maps (33.33% WR on Towers, 40% WR on Dragon Shire).BTG showed a clear preference for Sky Temple, picking it 5 times....and never winning a single game on it (57.89% overall map pick rate, 0% WR on Sky Temple).In terms of hero preferences, the Chinese region's top 5 priority picks were:1) Lucio (42.86% pick rate, 33.33% win rate)2) Arthas (34.92% pick rate, 45.45% win rate)3) Kharazim (33.33% pick rate, 52.38% win rate)4) Rehgar (33.33% pick rate, 23.81% win rate)5) Dehaka (30.16% pick rate, 26.32% win rate)CE's Kty had one of the largest hero pools in the tournament at 12 total heroes, and despite being listed as the team's "assassin" role player, he found himself on healers and supports fairly often.SPT's own healer, zZH, seemed primarily most comfortable on the Rehgar, which was unfortunate given the patch shift in the tournament later on that weakened his overall standing.BTG had the most picks of several of the top five heroes (especially the healers), which contributed significantly to their lower win rates. Kharazim received one of the lowest priorities from mj, and thus had the least impact on his win rate.CE had a rather mixed collection of draft priorities. Kty and xuyu were most often in either the first (31.82% for both) or fourth spot in the draft (27.27% and 36.36% of the time, respectively). Wind was often the final pick (36.36%), allowing other teams to perform a limited draft choke on the team's "tank" role. This typically worked in their favor, however, as the team had a 62.5% win rate when Wind's hero was selected last, and a 100% win rate when it was selected fourth.SPT most frequently picked misaka's tank role early (22.73% of the time in the first spot and 36.36% of the time in the second spot), and qianxiao's ADC was typically last (27.27% of the time in the fourth spot and 36.36% of the time in the fifth spot).BTG's draft priority leaned towards mj getting early focus (21.05% of the time in the first spot and 42.11% of the time in the second spot) due to his tendency to play Lucio, whereas st got later priority (31.58% of the time in the fifth spot) and A tended towards the latter half as well (36.84% of the time in the fourth spot).Overall, the Chinese region was perhaps the biggest loser of this tournament. In a home-field advantage situation with no visas to worry about and with the most teams of any region, they still couldn't prove themselves competitive enough to keep up with Europe or South Korea. Two of their teams lost in a doubles match with an NA team that many expected to be in 8th place, and while they clearly stepped up in the tournament bracket, it was too late to really impress anybody and the meta was already shifting from the patch changes enforced onto them. The region's strength seems to have been in decline for some time now since the departure of eStar, and this tournament's disappointing results only further drives that point home.Perhaps the most anticipated of the teams, Dignitas and Fnatic went into this tournament with questions looming. Dignitas had just suffered a bitter defeat in the first round of the Blizzcon finals, in the culmination of a frightening descent from their second-seed spot at the Midseason Brawl. Now with Bakery gone and some roster swaps between Dignitas and Fnatic, the million-dollar question was this: who is the stronger European team now? And we have our answer, at least for now: Dignitas put on a strong showing at the tournament, ending in 2nd place and crushing Fnatic 3-0 in their bracket head-to-head to end the series at 7-3-2, going 21-12 in games.Fnatic fell to 4th place at a 4-3-3 series record, going 13-12 in games.Dignitas got the map pick 57.58% of the time, and they used it to emphasize Dragon Shire (6 picks) and Infernal Shrines (5 picks), with a couple of Tomb of the Spider Queen picks (3) for good measure. They held a 50% win rate on Dragon Shire, a 42.86% win rate on Infernal Shrines, and a 100% win rate on Tomb of the Spider Queen. Interestingly enough, their win rate was much higher when they *didn't* pick the map (71.43% WR when getting first pick instead of map pick).Fnatic got the map pick about 44% of the time, and their map preferences were Cursed Hollow (5 picks) and Infernal Shrines (4 picks). They held Cursed Hollow strong with an 80% win rate and performed with an even 50% on Infernal Shrines. In perhaps an amusing twist of fate, their win rate was significantly higher when they *did* pick the map (63.64% WR when getting map pick instead of first pick), in a somewhat amusing opposite stance from Dignitas.In terms of hero preferences, the European region's top 5 priority picks were:1) Greymane (43.10% pick rate, 56% win rate)2) Lucio (31.03% pick rate, 55.56% win rate)3) Arthas (27.59% pick rate, 75% win rate)4) Dehaka (25.86% pick rate, 60% win rate)5) Kharazim (25.86% pick rate, 60% win rate)All of their top heroes had significantly higher win rates, showing that Europe had a firm command of its preferred heroes. Surprisingly, Dehaka and Kharazim actually tied in both pick and win rates for the last two spots. The next spots down were filled by Anub'arak, Rehgar, and Uther, who all had a 24.14% pick rate, and their win rates were 71.43%, 42.86%, and 64.29% respectively, again showcasing Europe's strong handing of its preferential heroes.The standout performance in Europe came from POILK, a transfer into the region who proved himself a strong carry for Dignitas. He had impressive performances on a variety of "carry" heroes, such as Greymane, Li-Ming, Gul'dan, and Tracer, just to name a few.On the side of Fnatic, the most interesting data point came from Mene, who seemed to be in a contest with everyone else to see who could end the tournament on the most heroes played. He logged 13 different heroes over the course of this tournament, including many of his favorite mages.As far as draft priority, Zaelia tended to get the most priority on Team Dignitas in the drafting phase of the game, with his hero being selected in the very first spot of the draft 42.42% of the time, and in the second slot about 9.09% of the time. This is likely due to the high popularity of Lucio in the healer role, as Zaelia spent a fair amount of the tournament playing him (36.36% pick rate).On the Fnatic side of things, Quackniix's hero tended to be selected in the first two slots most often (40% and 28% respectively), whereas Mene's hero was often the least emphasized as it fell mostly to the last two slots (24% and 40% respectively. Quackniix's early focus is not too surprising since he spent a lot of the tournament on Greymane (48% pick rate, or 12/14 selections), a high draft priority pick, whereas Mene bounced around on a lot of heroes (mostly mages) that often aren't as heavily emphasized.Overall, the European region seems to be as strong as ever, only having any real trouble against the Koreans. Dignitas, however, has re-emerged as a very serious threat to the rest of the region despite the loss of Bakery. We'll have to see how this story continues to shape up in the coming season.If you've been keeping track so far, this leaves 1st and 3rd place unclaimed. These spots, naturally, are the ones occupied by the two Korean teams in the tournament: KSV Black (formerly MVP Black) and Ballistix. Both teams looked quite strong and extremely aggressive, but there could only be one champion of the GCWC. Ballistix fell to Dignitas and was forced to settle for third place with a 5-3-2 series record, going 15-12 in games.KSV, on the other hand, absolutely dismantled Dignitas in a 3-0 sweep in the grand finals to reaffirm their status as the world champs. They went on a tear through the tournament and dominated virtually every series they played, ending 8-0-2 in series play and 21-3 in maps.Ballistix had the map pick about 59.26% of the time, and showed heavy favoritism towards Dragon Shire (6 picks) and Sky Temple (5 picks). Dragon Shire proved a solid choice for them, as they held a 75% win rate there, but Sky Temple ended up as a tossup with a 50% win rate. Their win rates with first picks vs map picks were about equal.KSV Black got the map pick about 54.17% of the time, and won about 92.31% of their games when getting the map pick (vs 81.82% when getting first pick). They showed the highest preference for Infernal Shrines (5 picks) and won 100% of their games on that map. This is not too surprising, of course, since they only lost three maps in the entire tournament....so instead, I'll make mention of the maps they *did* manage to lose. They dropped one game on Battlefield of Eternity, one on Cursed Hollow, and one on Dragon Shire.In terms of hero preferences, the Korean region's top 5 priority picks were:1) Greymane (45.10% pick rate, 69.57% win rate)2) Lucio (41.18% pick rate, 71.43% win rate)3) Dehaka (35.29% pick rate, 77.78% win rate)4) Muradin (33.33% pick rate, 64.71% win rate)5) Rehgar (31.37% pick rate, 75% win rate)If Europe's high win rates showcased their mastery of their preferred heroes, then Korea's win rates clearly showcase their sheer dominance of the field of play when using their comfort picks.Rather than showcasing another person with a wide roster of heroes, I thought it might be useful to look at what might be one of the smallest, but most consistent, hero pools in the tournament. Hooligan played only five different warriors in this tournament, and every single one ended at 50% or above. Let this be a lesson to those who seek to climb the ladder in Hero League: a small pool with consistently good play can often be just as effective as a wider, more varied pool.On the side of KSV, it's pretty much impossible not to mention Rich as the standout player. He didn't play a particularly large pool of heroes (9 total), but he achieved mastery on virtually all of them, despite some of them being extremely odd selections that you'd think would have no place in the meta. At times, it seemed like the draft was more about picking a draft to complement whatever Rich felt like playing, rather than a specially designed counter-draft to their opponents. In particular, the stat that stands out the most is Rich's Dehaka play. He played Dehaka 7 out of the 8 times that KSV picked him....and he won every single match on that hero. If you watch any one thing from the tournament, dig up footage of Rich's Dehaka play. It will be well worth your time.Ballistix had one of the most lopsided draft priorities of any team in the tournament. Hooligan's preference of tank was usually the second pick in any given draft (51.85% of the time), SDE's hero was very frequently picked up last (51.85% of the time), and Magi typically fell to the fourth spot in the draft (37.04% of the time).By comparison, KSV's drafts were more spread out. Rich would often be one of the first prioritized (25.00% of the time in the first spot and 29.17% of the time in the second spot), and KyoCha was usually last (33.33% of the time), but the rest of the draft was mostly spread out. It seems they felt no particular urgency for their heroes or players.Overall, there is no question that KSV is still on top. However, with Dignitas taking down Ballistix in a close 3-2 series, there is reason for the Koreans to be concerned that not all of their teams are as invincible as KSV seems to be right now. If the European scene continues to improve and its new rosters gel well together, there's no reason not to expect a Europe vs Korea finale in every international tournament,If you've made it through all of that, congrats! That's a lot of information to pour over, and I'm sure you're tired reading through it all. I know I was! But hold on, because we're not quite done yet. I'd like to finish with some generalized information about the tournament as well, so you can see the numbers stacked up against each other.Dragon Shire was the most selected map at 21 picks, and Warhead Junction had the least at only 2 picks. Below is a list of the pick/win rates of each map overall, as well as by region.And here is a graph of each region's win rates across those maps.Accounting for both picks and bans, the top 10 hero picks across the entire tournament were as follows:1) E.T.C. (91.58% popularity rate, 51.28% win rate)2) Greymane (86.32% popularity rate, 50.67% win rate)3) Genji (85.26% popularity rate, 57.89% win rate)4) Lucio (84.21% popularity rate, 50.00% win rate)5) Tassadar (80% popularity rate, 60.00% win rate)6) Dehaka (74.74% popularity rate, 51.61% win rate)7) Arthas (70.53% popularity rate, 58.93% win rate)8) Rehgar (68.42% popularity rate, 42.37% win rate)9) Kharazim (61.05% popularity rate, 53.85% win rate)10) Abathur (61.05% popularity rate, 27.78% win rate)Several of these heroes are excellent "dive" heroes for aggressive compositions, great for attacking the squishy back line of a double support team. Others are "shielders", that is, they are drafted because they provide powerful shielding, which can act as a supplemental health bar for vulnerable squishy targets on your team. As such, we are seeing many pro teams attempt to counter the "double support" meta by focusing on increasingly more aggressive dive compositions.Azmodan, Chen, Cho'Gall, Gazlowe, Kel'thuzad, Kerrigan, Li Li, Murky, Nova, Probius, Raynor, Rexxar, Sylvanas, The Butcher, The Lost Vikings, Thrall, Tyrande, Valeera, Xul, ZagaraMost of these are specialists, further emphasizing how little need there is for the specialist role in the current game meta. The rest are not particularly surprising exclusions, either. Many of them are exceedingly vulnerable to dive compositions, others are rather heavily outdated and in need of revamp, and others represent a generally very niche selection to begin with.Junkrat (20% popularity rate, 31.25% win rate)Alexstrazsa (4.21% popularity rate, 50.00% win rate)Neither of these heroes saw much action, and neither provided particularly stunning plays that helped to justify their strength in professional play. Again, this is largely a consequence of the dive meta, which is not friendly to either of these heroes. That said, it is unfortunate to see some of Blizzard's newest heroes falling behind in a meta that doesn't give them much room to play around in.To evaluate the compositions in this tournament, I utilized a different set of roles than the 4-role system that HotS currently provides. I drew from a list created by ChaosOS, which is located here , to evaluate the compositions of a team based on what roles were being fulfilled. I then matched those compositions against a series of 24 possible criteria.Please keep in mind that because I am using a different set of "roles" than the ones in game, there will be some discrepancies between the HGC's numbers and my own. For example, Sonya is classified as a "Bruiser" under the above role system, not a "Warrior", and thus would not contribute to a "Double Warrior" comp (as she is primarily drafted for damage, not to act as a tank). Also, since not all of these categories are mutually exclusive, any one team composition may be placed into multiple categories. For example, a composition with 2 warriors, 2 supports, and a single damage-dealer would fall under the "Double Warrior", "Double Support", and "Solo DPS" categories. Finally, my composition calculator is still a work in progress. If you would like to suggest adjustments or improvements to it, please feel free to do so in the comments section below, or on Reddit!With all this in mind, here are the results I've achieved using this composition calculation system. Hopefully you find the information enlightening!Let's start with the group stages. Here are the results of the tournament's games, filtered to only include games played during the group stages, accounting for 112 team compositions across 56 games:And here's the results in graph form:So I'm sure you're wondering....how did things change after the patch? Well, here is that same table, filtered to only include games played during the tournament bracket (post-patch), accounting for 78 team compositions across 39 games:And here's the results in graph form:As you can see, the number of single support compositions is higher now than it was during the group stages (41.07% in group stages vs 57.69% in the tournament bracket). However, the number of double warrior compositions also rose (59.82% in group stages vs 67.95% in the tournament bracket), as did the number of Solo Shielder compositions (38.39% in group stages vs 56.41% in the tournament bracket). This suggests that many teams tried to supplement for the lost healing with shields and bulkier front line heroes, which doesn't necessarily mitigate the alleged "problem" of team fights lasting too long to be "exciting". However, there was a slight uptick in the number of burst compositions, indicating the possible return of mage-friendly compositions. Also, there was some limited experimentation with a variety of triple damage compositions, so it seems that the desired effect of the support nerfs might yet be achieved, albeit slowly. Whether it will be deemed "enough" or not....that's up to Blizzard to decide.Finally, here's the overall figures for the entire tournament, spanning a total of 190 team compositions and 95 games:And here's that information in graph form:The tournament saw a heavy emphasis on dive heroes to pressure enemy back lines, as well as shielders to mitigate pressure on their own back lines. The patch changes did indeed whittle down the number of double support comps, but teams mostly shifted into a heavier emphasis on shields and warriors to reduce the effects of the lost healing. Still, there were some very slight increases in damage dealing compositions, so there's reason to be hopeful that we may see more variety again soon. Expect to see shielding addressed at some point in the future if it continues to be used as a "buffer" against the lost healing.Whew! This was a lot of work, so hopefully you enjoyed it! I look forward to bringing you similar coverage in the months to come when the HGC arrives in January 2018! In the meantime, as this is a "test run" of this new segment, I would very much appreciate your thoughts and suggestions about how I might improve things for you. Did I go too far with the data dumps, or did you find yourself wanting more? Are there other important stats that you'd like me to provide? Or are there some formatting changes that you'd like to see? I would very much like to hear from you about how I did, because I want to be able to provide you with the very best HGC coverage that I possibly can!