Heroes Global Championship 2018

[Nerraw]

THE HGC IS LEVELING UP IN 2018

The first year of Heroes Global Championship (HGC) play exceeded expectations, with more stability for pro players and strong growth in viewership—and, for 2018, fans can expect even more of a good thing, as the HGC prepares to offer an enhanced viewing experience and a heightened focus on top-tier Heroes of the Storm® competition. Read on below for details of these marquee improvements.


Enhanced Viewing Experience
All HGC matches will be livestreamed at 1080p and 60 frames per second in 2018. In addition to higher-quality video, broadcasts for HGC North America and HGC Europe will be streamed in languages beyond English on Blizzard-owned channels all year long. The full menu of language streams will be revealed closer to the 2018 season kickoff.


Refreshed League Structure
The new season of the HGC begins January 26, 2018, with the first week of league play, when the 32 teams—spread evenly across HGC China, HGC Korea, HGC Europe, and HGC North America—begin their quests for championship glory.

The eight teams in each region will battle for ten weeks in the run-up to the Mid-Season Brawl, pausing after five weeks for the Eastern Clash (Korea and China plus a team from Taiwan) or the Western Clash (Europe and North America). The same sequence repeats over the second half of the year, except teams will be striving for the championship at the HGC Finals. In a twist for 2018, Clash winners will open up an additional spot for another team from their home region at the Mid-Season Brawl or HGC Finals, depending on which half of the year the Clash in question occurs in. (Using L5’s Eastern Clash win in August as an example, the 2017 HGC Finals would have added a fourth team from HGC Korea along with the three that qualified via their placement in the standings and playoffs.)

Outside of the four main HGC regions, teams in Latin America, Australia/New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan will now have a dedicated tier of competition that awards a trip to the Mid-Season Brawl and HGC Finals. The Eastern Wild Card, which will include teams from Southeast Asia and Taiwan, and the Western Wild Card, with teams from Latin America and Australia/New Zealand, will each award a berth in the subsequent HGC global event. Qualification for the Eastern and Western Wild Card events will be organized by local partners to best serve the teams in those competitive regions.


Team Ownership
For 2018, the HGC will require all 32 teams to identify team ownership that will be responsible for fielding a competitive roster, managing all team operations, and working with the HGC league office, among other functions. With team ownership focused on the administrative aspects of HGC membership, including marketing and league planning, players will be free to put all their attention on the gameplay elements that come with being professional competitors in the HGC.

While sponsorships and branding are still subject to change prior to the start of the new season, the 32 slots for HGC 2018 are set, with familiar names like Mid-Season Brawl winners Fnatic, the first Western Clash winners Team Dignitas, and 2016 Fall Champions Ballistix (formerly known as L5) back in the mix.

Fans can look forward to seeing these teams and more compete at the highest levels of Heroes of the Storm in the new and improved 2018 HGC.

More details on the 2018 season of HGC, including plans for Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Latin America, and Australia/New Zealand, are coming soon./

[Nerraw]

Time to revive this thing. HGC 2018 starts up this coming Friday! You can find the schedule right here: https://esports.heroesofthestorm.com/en/schedule

[apepi]

Some news some people might have missed. Former Roll20 is now Team Twelve. T12 was unwilling to sell their HGC slot to Roll20, which would give Roll20 org full power to do with the team that they wish(kick, money and etc) so they parted ways. They most likely are trying to get more money being a top HGC team in NA.

Phase one the casters are going to be Jhow and Gilly, then in the second phase Dread will take Gilly's place.

In Korea, Ballistix has once again picked up L5. I have not gotten any confirmation if Ballistix has bought l5's slot or just sponsoring them.

And for Korea, VSL(Versus Gaming) will be producing HGC Korea, and not OGN. This seems to mean that the Korean games will have a live audience, and even different casters perhaps?

[Adramelch]

Also a minority owner of Memphis Grizzlies and Swansea City among other things has started an eSports organization (presumably investing a lot of money in it), which picked up Old Gods.

[Nerraw]

This weekend's games are starting right now! This will be the first week where Blaze is available for pro games, so it'll be interesting to see whether he gets picked.

[Deleted]

That Core call was insane and couldn't possibly work. But it did.

[Nerraw]

That was one sick ending!

[Adramelch]

That Core call was insane and couldn't possibly work. But it did.

Method misplayed it though. Divine Storm was definitely not needed on Arthas and it would have saved the game if they had it for the core defense. From memory they used Cocoon, Contagion and Divine Storm to kill the Arthas and the last 2 were after Fnatic had already shown on the core.

[Deleted]

Method misplayed it though. Divine Storm was definitely not needed on Arthas and it would have saved the game if they had it for the core defense. From memory they used Cocoon, Contagion and Divine Storm to kill the Arthas and the last 2 were after Fnatic had already shown on the core.

'Misplayed' is harsh. In hindsight they could have micromanaged stuff differently, but even as a coach you probably wouldn't tell your guys to save abilities against a theoretical, desperate 'hail mary' by the other team. Cocoon was needed to secure the kill anyway I think.

[Adramelch]

'Misplayed' is harsh. In hindsight they could have micromanaged stuff differently, but even as a coach you probably wouldn't tell your guys to save abilities against a theoretical, desperate 'hail mary' by the other team. Cocoon was needed to secure the kill anyway I think.

Yeah Cocoon was what created the opportunity to begin with and one of Contagion/Divine Storm is needed to make sure he doesn't use Army and stall them (if he had that up).

My point was that it wasn't a theoretical hail mary, at the moment Arthas came out of the cocoon Fnatic was already on the core (Malfurion had already backed for example). I don't think "misplayed" is harsh when we're taking about some of the best players in the world. It's not that they threw the game, it was a tense situation but it was definitely a misplay. Even forgetting the whole situation, they stacked Contagion and Divine Storm on a single person. And it was following up on Cocoon, so they had the time to coordinate. They just panicked (understandably so).

[Deleted]

That was yet another surprisingly good - and even - match. I'm watching a bit less than last year and I'd love to see some melee assassins viable, but what I've seen this year from HGC was a great show.

[Adramelch]

Dig are so far ahead of everyone else in EU at the moment, it's insane.

[RH92]

That was yet another surprisingly good - and even - match. I'm watching a bit less than last year and I'd love to see some melee assassins viable, but what I've seen this year from HGC was a great show.

Keep dreaming. I am starting to feel that there is something wrong with the concept itself when Malthael is the only one viable.

[Deleted]

Looking at recaps, Illidan and Kerrigan were played as well. Hanzo sits at around 60% HL involvement and is almost set in stone as first ban/first pick. So he will 100% get nerfs, other rangeds possibly and we're already not extremely far away from melee viability.

[Adramelch]

Keep dreaming. I am starting to feel that there is something wrong with the concept itself when Malthael is the only one viable.

Ragnaros and Zeratul also see quite a bit of play. 9% and 14% involvement respectively (That's HGC KR, EU and NA, not including last night's NA games as Masterleague hasn't updated those yet). They are not meta or anything, but they are viable.

Illidan, Kerrigan, Samuro and Thrall are the other ones that have seen play but only Illidan has appeared in more than 2 games and his win-rate is abysmal.

[RH92]

Ragnaros and Zeratul also see quite a bit of play. 9% and 14% involvement respectively (That's HGC KR, EU and NA, not including last night's NA games as Masterleague hasn't updated those yet). They are not meta or anything, but they are viable.

Illidan, Kerrigan, Samuro and Thrall are the other ones that have seen play but only Illidan has appeared in more than 2 games and his win-rate is abysmal.

I was looking at the stats, they are rather misleading so far. Most games won with melee Assassins, except Malthael and Ragnaros, are from games where a strong team is stomping a weak team.

Let's look at specific melee Assassins:

• Alarak: Not played
• Butcher: Not played
• Illidan: 7 games, 14% winrate - that one win seems like a cheese strat in NA as it included Lost Vikings (Did not watch the game though)
• Kerrigan: 3 games, 100% winrate - played only in NA and China
• Malthael: 32 games, 56% winrate
• Ragnaros: 13 games, 53% winrate
• Samuro: 2 games, 50% winrate - one win was stomp by Ballistix vs Team Feliz in Korea
• Thrall: 3 games, 33% winrate - one win was a stomp by SPT vs Sunny Lion in China
• Valeera: Not played
• Zeratul: 13 games, 23% winrate - he is picked only in NA and Korea, the only win in Korea is KSV Black stomping a lesser team and rest of his wins are from NA

I do not want to take anything from NA and China, but let's face it, they are not the strongest regions.

[Nerraw]

Here’s a quick snapshot of the global meta for each primary role (assassins are ranged) #HGC

https://twitter.com/JHowGaming/statu...58929395142656

[apepi]

snip

How is Tyrael after the rework?

[RH92]

How is Tyrael after the rework?

We basically still don't know, reworked Tyrael is live only on HGC China and there he fares with perfect 50% winrate and 53% popularity.

He should be live in other regions this week, starting with Korea.

[apepi]

We basically still don't know, reworked Tyrael is live only on HGC China and there he fares with perfect 50% winrate and 53% popularity.

He should be live in other regions this week, starting with Korea.

Oh, I thought we already had it, huh.