Team Dignitas’ HGC Preview: Week 10

It’s the final week of HGC EU League play, and while Team Dignitas has already qualified for the Mid-Season Brawl, they still have one more series to play. This weekend Team Dignitas is facing off against Zealots, the only team that has taken a series off of them. Zealots were also the team to take Team Dignitas to Game 7 in the Grand Finals of the Western Clash this year. There is no doubt this will be an exciting series as Zealots hope to repeat their success from the 1st half of Phase 1.  

The series against Tricked Esport last week was a clean 3-0 for Team Dignitas. In the first two games, Joshua “Snitch” Bennett showed up on Maiev, getting multiple fight-winning pulls with Umbral Bind. As well, Jonathan “Wubby” Gunnarsson impressively escaped death multiple times in the first game on Dehaka. Game 3 has a very interesting draft from Team Dignitas with a sort of “protect the Cassia” cheese. Vilhelm “POILK” Flennmark was on Cassia, Snitch on Tassadar, Wubby on Artanis, Kenn “Zaelia” Rasmussen on Malfurion, and Jérôme “JayPL” Trinh on Garrosh. The Cassia strategy paid off, as even with the wombo-combo potential from Tricked with D.Va’s Self-Destruct and Maiev ultimate, Cassia was always still standing and dishing out insane damage.

Team Dignitas vs. Zealots - Sunday, April 20th at 9:00 am PDT / 6:00 pm CEST

Zealots have had a tough past couple of weeks, dropping a series to Tricked Esport and one to Team Liquid. With EU being so competitive right now, it’s hard to tell exactly how all the teams stack up. They are all stepping it up in their final matches of the season to get the best positions for the playoffs, so it's not surprising there have been some "upsets" in terms of expected outcomes.

Fenix, a hero that was expected to have a huge impact, did not seem to do so well in his first weekend of professional play. Team Dignitas didn’t pick him at all, but Zealots picked him once in their series against Team Liquid and three times against Tricked. With a 41% win rate in EU, not all teams are sold on the new hero. He may still be an option for some teams in this final week before Playoffs and the Mid-Season Brawl.

Both Christoph “Cris” Gowitzke and POILK are the main Assassin players for their teams and both play a mean Hanzo. The Assassin meta at the moment seems to be pretty set, with Hanzo, Tracer, and Genji seeing most of the picks and bans. We will most likely see these top three heroes be the top contested damage dealers, although Fenix might still be a possibility for either team. The mages have yet to make a full comeback, but Cris and POILK are well-known for their Chromie play and it's possible to see either team pick or ban this niche-hero.

This grudge match is set to be the first game of the weekend, so be sure to watch on Friday! We also hope you will come join us in the #DIGscord to cheer for the team and try to unravel their drafting strategies. Last weekend we all died from laughter thanks to Part 2 of Zaelia’s epic Dignijet story. We can hope for another win, which will mean the possibility of another Zaelia interview! But what could possibly top his “bathtubs filled with Buffalo Wild Wings”?!

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

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/blizzheroes

You can check out Zaelia’s wild story here: Part 1 & Part 2.