BlizzCon 2018 HGC Finals Preview

BlizzCon 2018 is fast approaching and as the biggest Heroes of the Storm event of the year, teams are hungry to claim the title of BlizzCon Champion. Last year, Korean team Gen.G took the trophy home. But this year, Team Dignitas is hoping to overthrow the dominant Korean region. The Heroes Global Championship at BlizzCon will consist of two parts this year: a Group Stage, which takes place October 25th - 28th, and then the main event, which will take place at BlizzCon proper on November 2nd and 3rd.

During the Group Stage, the 12 qualified teams will be split into two groups and play in a round-robin format consisting of 2-game series to earn points. Winning both of the games in a series grants a team 3 points, while winning only 1 of the games gives 1 point. Once all the games of the round-robin have been played, the top 4 teams (based on points) of each group will be seeded into the BlizzCon Bracket. The bracket will be single-elimination with best-of-three series on the first day and best-of-five for the second day and for the Grand Finals match.

Looking back at Team Dignitas throughout this year, the team has grown tremendously. After BlizzCon last year and the roster changes that took place, the team went straight to China to compete in the 2017 Gold Club World Championship, where they took everyone by surprise by placing 2nd, beating Korean team Ballistix and all of the North American and Chinese representatives. Going into the HGC 2018 season, Team Dignitas felt confident. They ended up dominating EU nearly all year, ending Phase 1 with a 7-0 standing and ending the entire season with an overall 13-1 standing. The team secured 1st place at both this year’s Western Clash Championships and 2nd place at the Mid-Season Brawl World Championships after an extremely close series against Gen.G.

This BlizzCon is the most important event of the year and all the hard work that Team Dignitas has put in throughout this year comes down to this tournament. With the announcement that he would retire at the end of the season, Jérôme "JayPL" Trinh and the rest of Team Dignitas are adamant that this time, they have what it takes to defeat their Korean rivals Gen.G. As Vilhelm "POILK" Flennmark said in a recent interview, “anything but top 2 would be a disappointment.” The pressure is on! Let’s see who Team Dignitas will be facing in the Group Stage.

The groups are broken down as such:

Group A	Group B
Gen.G Esports (KR 1st seed)	Team Dignitas (EU 1st seed)
Beyond the Game (CH 1st seed)	HeroesHearth Esports (NA 1st seed)
Team Liquid (EU 2nd seed)	Tempest (KR 2nd seed)
Tempo Storm (NA 2nd seed)	TheOne (CH 2nd seed)
KR #3 Seed	Leftovers (EU 3rd seed)
Luna Meow (Horizon Clash winner)	Mindfreak (Intercontinental Clash winner)

Both groups look fearsome, as to be expected at the last world championship of the year. Team Dignitas is facing some familiar foes in Group B. The goal is to get 4th or higher, but the better a team does in the group stages, the better their seeding will be going into the BlizzCon Bracket.

Thursday, October 25th
11:45 am PDT: Team Dignitas vs. Leftovers

Leftovers may just be the most difficult opponent for Team Dignitas in this Group. This underdog team of EU is at BlizzCon to prove that they have surpassed that underdog status. Maksym “Mopsio” Szczypa, in particular, seems to be the main force behind the EU teams who have given Team Dignitas a difficult time this year. At the first Western Clash, we saw Zealots unexpectedly take Team Dignitas to the full 7 games, although Team Dignitas clutched out the win in the final game.

Then at the second Western Clash, it was Mopsio again, this time with Leftovers, who met team Dignitas in the Grand Finals. They were close games with some wacky surprises from Leftovers, but Team Dignitas came out on top with a 4-0 win. Leftovers defeated both Fnatic and Method in very decisive games to win the EU HGC Playoffs and earn their spot at BlizzCon. There’s no doubt that they have momentum and that they have the skill, but how well will they handle the pressure of BlizzCon?

Friday, October 26th
11:45 am PDT: Team Dignitas vs. TheOne

TheOne is China’s second seed. They’ve been consistently hovering around 2nd in the Chinese League and have yet to make a breakout performance at any of the major LAN events. They were unable to make it out of the Group Stage at Mid-Season Brawl but did take a game off of Fnatic. Even though they may be one of the teams not expected to advance out of Groups at BlizzCon, Chinese teams do have the potential for upsets.

2:30 pm PDT: Team Dignitas vs. HeroesHearth Esports

HeroesHearth has had an impressive year. But as the first seed from North America, they have struggled to find the same success at international events. They qualified for the first Western Clash of the year through the NA Playoffs, beating Team Octalysis. There they faced Team Dignitas and lost 2-1. At the Mid-Season Brawl group stage, they struggled to get solid wins and lost their set to Team Dignitas. HeroesHearth did take games off of Korean team Ballistix and then 2-0’d Team Liquid before getting knocked out by Method.

At the most recent Western Clash, Team Dignitas and HeroesHearth did not end up facing each other and HeroesHearth finished the tournament with a 5th-6th placement. For Team Dignitas, HeroesHearth might not be up to par with their recent roster change, but the NA meta can be full of surprises.

Saturday, October 27th
1:00 pm PDT: Team Dignitas vs. Tempest

Tempest is the second seed from Korea. At the Mid-Season Brawl, Tempest took two games off of Team Dignitas during the Group Stages. But when the teams met again in the Lower Bracket of the Finals, Team Dignitas took the series 3-1 to advance to face Gen.G. This could be a close series, but Team Dignitas have a chance to get a 2-0 if the metas clash in their favour.

Sunday, October 28th
9:00 am PDT: Team Dignitas vs. Mindfreak

Mindfreak earned their place at BlizzCon through winning the Intercontinental Clash of Phase 2 - a tournament between the top team from Australia/New Zealand and Latin America. To get there, Mindfreak had to defeat their Australian rivals, Crimson Gaming, in the ANZ Finals. The team also qualified for the Mid-Season Brawl earlier in the year, but they were unable to advance past the Group Stages and only took games off of the Chinese team TheOne. Like many teams, they will have bootcamped in North American to get some good practice in before facing Team Dignitas.

Team Dignitas will be giving it their absolute best this year. The team was bootcamping in Korea prior to the Group Stages, hoping to gain some knowledge from some of the best teams in HGC. They are expected to advance out of the Group Stages and have a really good shot at winning BlizzCon this year. There are some hurdles along the way, especially with Gen.G being the biggest known threat for Team Dignitas.

The Group Stages will be broadcasted on the BlizzHeroes Twitch. BlizzCon itself runs only two days, with HGC starting around 12:00 pm PDT on Friday, November 2nd and 10:00 am PDT on Saturday, November 3rd. This will also be streamed on the BlizzHeroes Twitch. Remember to join us in the DIGscord, where those who can’t make it in person will be cheering and discussing the games. Otherwise, we hope to see some of you at the event, and be ready to chant “DIG NI TAS” to show the boys our support!

Watch here when the games go live: https://www.twitch.tv/blizzheroes

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