Before we head into the Cup weekend, we still have 8 more teams to look at that are currently fighting for a spot in the double-elimination knockout bracket. Without further ado, here are the teams that have been rigged into Groups C and D of the Cup and their statistical achievements, matchups and hopefully interesting facts.
Some notes before we get started: Since it doesn’t make much sense to focus on win rates with teams that have won most of their games and made it to the playoffs, this time we will focus on team and individual player stats. All stats are best-of-all-playoff-teams, not best overall. If you played in Season 7 and didn’t make the playoffs and still want some follow-up on the meta snapshot posts, worry not, those will come in the offseason.
Group C
For The Murlocs (8W-2L in Div 3, 2nd place)
The only team to bring down the BrownHorseGang during the regular season, these six protectors of fishy creatures are actually quite adept at more than one-tricking Murky. They’ve shown they are experts at playing the macro game, as they were the playoff team with the most merc camp captures (9.78 per game) and the most forts taken down (57) of all playoff teams during the regular season. Their most picked heroes throughout those games were AsheAcer’s favourite Gul’dan as well as Kryne’s Sonya. Their support player MurlocQueen has accumulated the most average healing per game (75.8k) of all playoff teams as well as the highest healing per minute of game time among Div 3 teams (4026), mostly on Alexstrasza.
Jormungandr (9W-1L in Div 4, 2nd place)
Team Jormungandr took Div 4 by storm in their first season in Heroes Lounge, only losing one matchup against Div 4 winner Death By Monkeys. With an 8 player roster, they have lots of personnel resources, yet they still needed subs throughout their regular season play, making them one of the less consistent teams in the playoffs. Their most consistent player Gougin took part in 22 of their 23 games and also set the damage per minute record for Div 4 playoff teams (3100) with a high priority on Valla. Tank player Camlos (19 of 23 games) set records for most average damage taken per game (83k) as well as per death (59k) among all Cup teams on all of the meta tanks Muradin, Johanna and Diablo. Another player to look out for is support iiswhoiis, who has snatched up Whitemane at every opportunity ever since she became available in the Lounge and has yet to lose a game on her with an impressive individual KDA of 27 on the hero.
DDGG (7W-3L in Div 5, tied 4th place)
Team DDGG comes in at a disadvantage in this group if you simply look at the placing within their respective division. Just like Body Block Crew, they’ve had to play a tiebreaker to make it to the playoffs, which they however won convincingly against the aforementioned squad. Furthermore, as already mentioned in Part 1 of this article, they’ve had the most games to play to get to this point disregarding the tiebreaker matches, coming in at 24 games already played over the course of the regular season, which ties them with Treehouse Gaming and Earthworm Defence Force in that category. Two of their three losses came against fellow playoff-qualified teams, with a 1-2 against Southgate Boiz and a 0-2 vs. Sköna Lirare. They did manage to take down EDF 2-1 in their third matchup against playoff teams. However, in terms of players they are one of the more consistent rosters, with 4 players playing all 24 games and only assassin Frannie missing a couple of games. Despite that, Frannie leads the average kills per game category in Div 5 with 5.29 mostly playing Genji and Maiev. Captain Ljósapaldr is another player to look out for, especially for the playmaking he brings to the team on Garrosh, making the hero the most-banned vs the team by far (13 bans in the regular season).
CoB Saltshakers (7W-3L in Div 4, tied 5th place)
Originally hailing from Div 3, this team was demoted in season 6 but has recovered nicely and was looking to compete for one of the top spots in Div 4 this season. However, they’ve only barely made it into the playoffs as Fish Named Wunda cancelled the tiebreaker against them, giving them a free pass to the postseason. Of course, the German ‘Clowns ohne Beine’ community is well-known throughout the Lounge and has multiple teams playing every season, so that pool of shared experience and knowledge behind these players could be considered as one of their strong suits. They have been the team with the most heroes participating in takedowns (4.49) of all playoff teams, which might serve as an indicator of their synergy. Two of their three losses over the course of the season came against fellow playoff teams Jormungandr (0-2) and Death By Monkeys (0-2), while they managed to take down the Killer Koalas (2-0). Support player Lasiroth, next to having the lowest average death time per game (27s), also sports the highest personal KDA in Div 4 (11.78) and has the most healing per minute in Div 4 (4022), so that’s definitely one player to look out for on this team. Their favourite hero Deckard (9 games) however has a fairly bad winrate (44%). Other supports such as Stukov, Tyrande or Alexstrasza fare a lot better in their hands. Another hero to look out for is balabub’s Blaze with an 8W-1L record.
Division 4 regular season matchup overview
Group D
Group D has had some issues with the participating teams and is therefore already decided, as Death By Monkeys unfortunately wasn’t able to participate in the playoffs after all and their replacement Cupcakes Anonymous also dropped out shortly after being included. That leaves the remaining three teams to move on to the knockout stage.
Sloth Sanctuary (8W-2L in Div 3, 3rd place)
The second team made up of many Lounge staff members, Sloth Sanctuary can look back at a successful season in Div 3, where they were able to take down fellow playoff contenders For The Murlocs (2-1) and Murder Inc. (2-0), but were defeated by division winner BrownHorseGang (0-2), completing the triangle of teams at the top of Div 3. As one of the very consistent rosters in the running, these 5 Sloth caretakers only had to do without their support player TinyOwl for one game in the regular season, and have been reinforced by TyphoonHawk of fellow Div 3 team CoB Last Action Heroes. Flex player Pittor has shown the biggest hero pool of any individual playoff player throughout the regular season (16 different heroes), and offlaner Dentro holds records for highest average XP contribution (16.3k), most XP per minute of game time (836) and most importantly for anyone looking for advice on how to complete the nefarious event quest, the most captured watchtowers per game on average (1.45). In terms of hero picks, their most picked heros all coincide with the stronger heroes in the meta this season in the form of ParadoX’s Johanna, Dentro’s Dehaka, and Mintey’s Jaina, but you always need to consider the Pittor factor when drafting against them, especially his most-played Abathur (4W-1L) can catch opposing drafters off guard. The most pressing question one faces when being matched against this team though is whether Narsha will actually come out of self-imposed temporary Season 7 retirement to face you or not.
Southgate Boiz (8W-2L in Div 5, 1st place)
Southgate Boiz, in their second consecutive visit to the Cup, have already surpassed last season’s result of making it to the group stages. They are a roster of only 5 players that managed to beat most of the Div 5 competition, netting wins against DDGG (2-1) and fellow group member Earthworm Defence Force (2-0), but falling to Sköna Lirare in a close match (1-2). To add to their troubles, they lost their offlaner kjell along the way, who up that point managed to be the most efficient soaker in Div 5 with 772 XP per minute of game time. Tank player FiL, after already having been featured as the Lounge’s most avid spray user, has managed to rack up over 2000 sprays over the course of the season along with a 6-0 record on Diablo. Assassin player Merteswagger has collected the biggest hero pool in Div 5 (14) and is just a few heroes shy of Pittor’s overall record, along with another 6-0 record on Genji. Not quite unbeaten on their most-played heroes are support player MrBotBot on Deckard Cain (6W-1L) and fonics on his Gul’dan (7W-1L). Finishing their roster for the playoffs as a substitute player is Venlo of Div 4’s Blow Up Team.
Earthworm Defence Force (8W-2L in Div 5, tied 2nd place)
EDF came into the season as an almost full FAT team, starting out with just 2 players being assigned 3 free agents, and is the only team that made it to the playoffs that managed to have the same 5 players play every single regular season match. On top of that, they played the most games of any playoff team, tied with Treehouse Gaming and DDGG. Assassin player Amirune furthermore leads all playoff teams in damage per minute (3370) most notably on her unbeaten Maiev and Li-Ming (6 games each). The combination of BlackStained’s Varian and Numani’s Stukov play managed to make the latter the player with the most average silence time per game (27s). Other forces to be reckoned with are offlaner Jaldren’s Dehaka and Malthael picks with a combined 9W-1L record in the regular season. TarCrispo rounds out the roster as a flex player, and has shown to be adept at Medivh several times throughout the season, giving the team another drafting option that’s not very common in lower division play. In terms of their matchups, they had one of the tougher seasons in Div 5, facing 4 fellow playoff contenders (wins vs Sköna Lirare and Body Block Crew, losses vs Southgate Boiz and DDGG) and another tiebreaker team in PLagueMakers (2-1).
Death by Monkeys (9W-1L in Div 4, 1st place)
Despite unfortunately not being available to play in the playoffs, Death By Monkeys can still look back on a highly successful season. What was particularily impressive for me is that this is a team that started their Lounge experience in Div 5 in season 6, took part in last season’s cup and got promoted to Div 4, and managed to even top their result facing tougher competition this season. Their only loss this season did not even come against a playoff team, but in their week 1 matchup against now disbanded team Feed Before Objective. As a team, they managed the highest average mercenary uptime of any playoff team (6:55 mins). Support player HikenNoFotis is the player with the most merc camps secured per game (4.76), assassin player Azraul finishes off the collection of players with the biggest hero pools by Division as the Div 4 winner (13 heroes) and offlaner Golenitr achieved the highest XP per minute of game time in Div 4 (796). We’ll see where they end up next season after the structural changes to come and if they are able to continue their success even after dropping out of the playoffs for this season.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this article. Best of luck to all the playoff teams for the upcoming Cup playoff weekend, I hope all of you tune in to watch and support your favourite players! As always, if you have any feedback, questions or concerns, you can reach me on Discord as Llarion#0127.
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