Team Dignitas: The Road To Katowice

First of all, a huge congratulations to our Heroes of the Storm team for qualifying for the HGC Western Clash in Katowice! 5 amazing weeks of high level Heroes games have placed our team 3rd overall in the EU region. Now the team is getting ready to face off against the top teams from North America, Latin America, and Australia/New Zealand starting March 3rd 3AM PST/12:00PM CET.

Let’s have a look at Team Dignitas’ journey to reclaim their top 3 EU spot and prove their new roster has made them an even better team than ever before!

WEEK 1: Team Dignitas 0 - 3 Misfits

This week featured only one series, an epic grudge match between two top EU teams, Team Dignitas and Misfits. With this being the very first week of HGC in Europe, outcomes were very uncertain as metas had yet to evolve outside of scrims. Team Dignitas had a difficult series against Misfits, losing 0-3, but this was also a good way for the team to test the waters in what they had been practicing. These were the first real games with their newest member, Kenn "Zaelia" Rasmussen, and it was expected that a bit more time to practice and hone their team synergy would be needed. Zaelia made a good showing in being able to thrive on a variety of Heroes, such as Kerrigan, Thrall, and Varian.

In general, this week saw the EU meta begin to unfold, with teams pulling out shield providing Heroes such as Tassadar, Medivh, and Zarya, to create “unkillable” compositions. Ragnaros also saw a lot of play in the first week, while not always on the winning side, Ragnaros would show his superiority in draft in later weeks. 

WEEK 2: Team Dignitas 3 - 0 Synergy / Team Dignitas 3 - 0 Tricked eSport

In the second week of HGC EU, Team Dignitas had two series; one against an old teammate, AlextheProG, and his new team Tricked eSport, and one against newer team in the scene, Synergy. Both series ended in a 3-0 for Team Dignitas, proving that they belonged in the Top 3 of EU as there had been some doubts after the first week with their new member Zaelia. In these games Team Dignitas began to find their footing again, focusing on controlling the draft to get the Heroes they needed to fit their later game wombo-combo style. E.T.C., Malfurion, Zeratul, and Jaina became important parts of their compositions, and they even made use of Ragnaros in one game to be the burst damage follow up to Zeratul and E.T.C. In addition, Zaelia played a lot of Arthas, helping to control teamfights with his slows. His role in the team starts to become established as the solo laner, and in later weeks Zaelia would take on most of the solo laning heroes. Thomas "Mene" Cailleux showed his preference towards Jaina over Li-Ming, as Jaina’s high burst damage and Ring of Frost root led to many great teamfights, and, as the weeks go on, Jaina’s importance to the Team Dignitas composition really proved itself to be a strong asset.

WEEK 3: Team Dignitas 3 - 1 Team Expert

The third week of HGC had a very important matchup for Team Dignitas against the rising favourites, Team Expert. This match helped to decide the 3rd place slot for the Western Clash in Katowice. The first game of this series went to Team Expert, a team who are known for off-meta drafts that often catch their opponents off guard. Adrd, known as the mastermind of their drafts, had used his creativity to help Team Expert win many games against other teams in the previous two weeks. Team Dignitas changed up their drafting style after winning Game 2 by deciding to ban Adrd’s specialty, Medivh, which forced Team Expert to draft a bit more standard. With more control over the draft, Team Dignitas was able to keep their winning streak and win the series 3-1.

For the Team Dignitas draft as a whole in Week 3, being allowed to pick Tassadar in 3 out of the 4 games helped them keep control in the games. James "Bakery" Baker continued to get his preferred healer in Malfurion for most of the games, and Jérôme "JayPL" Trinh started to lean more towards Tyrael over other Warriors, as Tyrael could provide an extra boost with his shields, produce a safe space with Sanctification in a teamfight, and had the mobility to get deep into the enemy back line. Zaelia made a big impression with his first Tracer game of HGC this week as well. Mene was pushed out of his comfort zone a bit by being forced to play a non-mage hero with the Valla picks in two of their games. In a recent interview with Team Dignitas, Mene noted that he would “prefer a mage meta for sure,” but the meta emphasis on shield and auto-attack heroes was strong in Week 3. “It forces me to improve all of my ranged heroes,” he said, “that’s important to me because I want to be the best on all ranged heroes, not just mages.”

With this series win against Team Expert, Team Dignitas were once step closer to completely securing their spot to play at the Western Clash

 WEEK 4: Team Dignitas 3 - 1 Playing Ducks / Team Dignitas 2 - 3 Fnatic

Week 4 was a full of challenging games for Team Dignitas, as they played two series that week. The first was against Playing Ducks, a team who has many familiar faces in the EU pro Heroes scene. Team Dignitas won the first game, busting out Zaelia’s newly famed Tracer play from the previous week, but Playing Ducks tied up the series in the second game, thanks to amazing Chromie play by Cris. Game 3 on Braxis Holdout was the first time Team Dignitas brought out Zul’jin, played by Mene. As stated in an interview with Team Dignitas, Mene explained that “in the current meta, Valla is the best ranged auto attacker,” and since Playing Ducks were able to draft Valla first, “we [had] to find something to replace her with, to not outdraft ourselves. Zul’jin does a lot of damage and his ultimate [Taz'dingo] is super strong if you know when to use it. His downside, however, is that he has no mobility.” Team Dignitas were able to make Zul’jin work very well for them, securing them the game. Their final game showed Joshua "Snitch" Bennett's Greymane skills, even though Greymane has been a character that has fallen out of the meta, he still finds value on Battlefield of Eternity. With that final win, Team Dignitas took the series 3-1.

The second series of this week was against one of the other top teams in EU, Fnatic. Good friends but also good rivals, this series went for the full 5 games, showcasing how close these two teams are in skill. As well, they seemed to have their own unique spin on the current meta, possibly due to scrimming each other quite a bit. These games brought out Sgt. Hammer’s fury, as both teams utilized her in their drafts and she surprisingly was played 4 out of the 5 games. In the first game Dignitas were able to hold their own, with Snitch on Dehaka soaking the top lane, but Fnatic were able to push back and defeat Team Dignitas’ Tracer composition. The team fell in Game 2, but were able to take Games 3 and 4 from Fnatic, with Game 3 being particularly interesting as Team Dignitas decided to bring out Uther. A very surprising pick when looking at the current healer meta of Malfurion, Rehgar, Brightwing, and shield Heroes. Unfortunately, after a close tied series of epic games, Fnatic were able to take Game 5 with their use of Chromie against Team Dignitas’ Sgt. Hammer.

In his new vlog series (first episode here on YouTube), Bakery spoke in great detail about these two series and offered a lot of insight into the drafting decisions and game play. When commenting on the Big 3 of Europe (Team Dignitas, Misfits, and Fnatic) Bakery said, “whoever has the better grasp on the meta, whoever has the better day, can win,” emphasizing that all three teams are very close but have their own specific playstyles and strategies.

WEEK 5: Team Dignitas 3 - 0 beGenius 

The last series of Phase 1 for Team Dignitas turned out to be a pretty clean series against beGenius. The draft was a bit different for Team Dignitas, as they pulled out Nazeebo in 2 out of the 3 games. Snitch played Nazeebo and was able to catch quite a few people in Zombie Walls, pairing nicely with Jaina’s burst damage. With a lot of targeted Malfurion bans from beGenius, Bakery played Rehgar, a hero he is very familiar with and very aggressive on, for a support. The real highlight of this series was Mene’s Jaina gameplay in the last 2 games. His ability to capture 2+ people in nearly every Ring of Frost was amazing. There was great follow up from the rest of the team, especially in Game 2 with JayPL playing E.T.C.

This series really showed the evolution of Team Dignitas through the 5 weeks of the group stage. Their ability to be flexible in draft with Zaelia and Snitch has allowed them a lot more control in getting what is strongest for their playstyle. It’s also very clear that in these 5 weeks their teamfighting and communication has really improved, with Heroic Ability synergy being very on point.

KATOWICE

To prepare for the Western Clash in Katowice, Poland, Team Dignitas have already left for their boot camp in Berlin, Germany. They will be working very hard to make sure their team mechanics will be perfected and that Zaelia will be fully assimilated into the team. They are known for working very hard during their boot camps, and being a team that really believes they have the skills to win the Western Clash, there is no doubt they will be a powerful force to any opponents they face. Also recently announced, former BlizzCon 2015 champion Derek "DunkTrain" Arabian has been brought on board to act as the coach of Team Dignitas during their journey in Katowice. He is already in Germany with the team during their bootcamp to help them train.

The first round of the brackets for Katowice have been announced, with Team Dignitas’ first match being against Team 8 from North America. They were the true underdogs of NA, having qualified with famed Twitch streamer Chu8 and then making their way through the NA group stages without him, but they have the extremely seasoned Glaurung leading the team. Their success in NA has been surprising to many, so it will be an interesting series. Especially to see how NA and EU metas will collide and who will adapt faster to come out on top.

Games start on Friday, March 3 @ 3:00AM PST / 12:00PM CET. The very first match of the day is Misfits (EU) vs. Nomia (ANZ), followed by Team 8 (NA) vs. Team Dignitas (EU).

Tune in on the Heroes eSports Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/blizzheroes