Interview with Snitch on week #1 of HGC

Last weekend the HGC league kicked off and the top 8 teams in Europe were all in action, Team Dignitas included. We had the chance to ask our Flex player Josh "Snitch" Bennett about the team's first match and how the addition of the new Melee Assassin player Zaelia worked out. 

How did you feel going into the series against Misfits? Was there any extra pressure because it was the very first match of the new HGC season?

Snitch: Going into Misfits, I think we kind of had a mindset of “we have had some time to practice, we have no idea what we’re going to do, let’s see if what we can do works“. We’d spent a lot of time training with Fnatic especially and kind of built up a basic meta with a few various composition ideas and we were just going to hope that, since we had no information on Misfits whatsoever, what we had come up with would end up being better than what they had come up with. In terms of it being the first match of the season, I don’t think this had any real impact on gameplay as we have enough experience now to not be too worried about the mindset shift going into a tournament.

It was great to finally see the new Team Dignitas roster play together. How was the team communication and coordination with the newest member Zaelia having his debut?

Snitch: I think our communication is at an all time high. We’re definitely committing a lot to trying to improve and integrate Zaelia, especially as in teams in the past he’s never had to communicate or perform on as high a level or with and against as good players. Fortunately, he is adapting very quickly to how we perform and work together as a team and is quickly proving himself to be very valuable. I think our coordination is obviously not as good as it could be, but with time I think by far we will grow to be the best iteration of Team Dignitas we have seen in Heroes of the Storm.

The games felt pretty even in terms of player ability, but the draft seemed to be more difficult in the last two games. What were your goals going into drafts against Misfits?

Snitch: Going into Misfits, we’d mostly built up a CC-focused meta revolving around Malfurion, somewhat reminiscent of the styles that we’d seen throughout the end of the last year, with some newer picks brought in like the Varian and potentially the Ragnaros. We would then combine this with a mage normally for Mene which would allow us to lock down anyone and try and one shot them.

Looking at Misfits’ drafts, they picked Ragnaros all three games. It seemed to have a large impact in the games. Did you ever think of banning or picking him?

Snitch: The community seems to be unable to think of just the simple answer really: we thought we could deal with it. From the scrims and practice that we had, Ragnaros had proven to be good but nobody we were training with was trying to push his usage to the maximum like with Misfits. We were even practiced with him and prepared to pick him, but we didn’t believe at the time he deserved the first pick spot over Malfurion from our playstyle. However, from the time that we’d had we really didn’t believe that we would be unable to win if we left it open and we felt that the drafts that we’d end up with would be less comfortable if we panic banned it.

This was only the first week of 5 weeks of games, what do you think about the way the meta is turning out so far?

Snitch: I think the meta is still very fresh and growing with this patch. I don’t think it will settle as it has, and we’re already seeing people struggling where they haven’t discovered answers yet, a good example of this being the fourth game of Fnatic vs Misfits where Fnatic felt pressured to take the Diablo pick as they were too scared of the combo potential Misfits had with the Zeratul, even if it led to their draft being weaker. I think things like this will happen less over the coming weeks as people become more comfortable with drafting and find more answers to these high priority picks like Ragnaros or Tassadar.

There seems to be a theme of flex players having deeper hero pools these days. Is it because there are more competitively viable heroes now?

Snitch: I think it’s because some of the foreign teams started showing how beneficial it could be when you are more flexible within your roles, an example of this being the fairly popular triple melee style Korea and China would run occasionally. With heroes like Artanis getting buffed as well the two combine into people just wanting to be able to play more things to make your team more adaptable and more cohesive in the draft.

Was there something this week that you think stood out to you? Something that you can learn from to use in future matches?

Snitch: I think what stood out is that all the teams feel very unique right now - in the past, I think some of the teams below the top 3 have struggled to create and push their own identity and as such have kind of been forgotten. I think however with everyone’s increased focus and drive due to the format of the 2017 HGC, these teams have been able to really come up with some unique picks and strategies that are allowing them to define themselves well. I think this is really cool for the scene and fans and think it will get even better with time.

Next week you face off against Synergy and Tricked esport. Do you expect tough competition from these two teams?

Snitch: I think we respect all teams and won’t take them lightly, but we don’t expect too much hardship from teams that aren’t Misfits or Fnatic. I think with good preparation and practice we should be able to confidently beat any other team in the league.

How are you going to prepare for these next matchups?

Snitch: Obviously we’ll be sticking to our regular scrim schedule and looking over what didn’t work out previously. It’s clear our first grasp on the meta was not as solid as it could’ve been so I think we’ll definitely be looking at some of the succeeding teams for some inspiration.

Thanks so much for your time. Do you have any shoutouts for your fans and sponsors?

Snitch: A natural huge shout out to my family and close friends who have been there for me every step of the way, to everyone who supports both me and my team, and of course all of sponsors, Alienware, TP-LINK, WD, Twitch, and Killer Networking. I’m trying to be a little more active on the streaming side so you can find my stream at http://twitch.tv/snitchhhhh. Additionally, I know we might have looked rough on the first week, but give us a little more time and we’ll make sure to turn some heads!