Division S EU half term report

Catching up with the European Division S Qualifiers

EU Qualifier #3 Bracket: Here

We are already half way through the qualifiers for division S, Heroes Lounge’s high-level competition where the top teams in that region will play each other in a round-robin format for crowd funded prizes. With this being league with the highest level of play there has been a lot of interest from former pro players. Players from Dignitas, Fntic, Team Liquid and Leftovers (amongst others) have formed teams to try to gain a spot in Division S.

Teams can gain a place in Division S by one of two ways.

The typical way in which after the qualifiers are done you are among the four highest scoring teams that haven’t won a tournament. As you might expect the further a team gets in a tournament the more points they get.

The other way they can qualify is to simply win one of the four qualifiers. This is an exciting difference to other forms of qualifiers where the winner just gets a lot of points. It means any team can qualify no matter how low their points are, or if the team only manages to form for a later qualifier. It also means that there will be more variety as we won’t see the same team winning each qualifier and thus will have different finalists every week.

With 2 qualifiers finished we now have 2 teams that are qualified; Washed up and Coming Through both teams that are full of extremely skilled players who have competitive experience. Let’s take a look at their players and how they managed to qualify.

Qualified teams

Washed Up

It’s fair to say that Washed Up are a top team with 5 of the best European pro-players from the HGC making up the team.

The team has 2 of Dignitas’s multiple tournament winning team that was such a force in the Western scene. Mene is a world-class assassin feared for his excellent mage play and JayPL is a S-tier tank back from retirement to play with this team. 2 of Team Liquids team that showed such promise at Blizzcon and took Gen.G to game 5 also feature. Ethernal grew into his role to become a solid off-laner and Hasuobs is the very definition of a flex player and provides an experienced perspective. Last and certainly not least is Fntics support SmX. A talented healer he has the distinction of both winning a global event and beating MVP Black (later Gen.G).

As might have been expected with such a storied line up and crucially 2 of their players still grinding Hero League this team performed very well. They won the first qualifier only dropping a single map and so can relax and prepare for when Division S proper starts. They must already be considered be the front runner to top Division S.

Coming Through

Coming Through are another team stacked with top competitive talent. 3 of their team have played in the HGC (Cris, Robadobah and Cronaz) and Guru regularly played in the Open Division even winning the last ever Open Division Playoffs. Munky is the only one without much competitive experience (though he has played in the Open Division and All hallows cup) but he makes up for that in his frightening off-meta heroes. Munky has drawn respect bans of his Samuro and Probius as teams have discovered if you don’t ban them, you’re in for a world of hurt!

Coming Through had a disappointing 1^st qualifier losing in the quarter-finals against LFT Division S 1-2. Replacing WolfJoe with Guru seemed to do the trick though as the team only dropped a game in the finals of the 2^nd qualifier. Munky’s Probius ended up getting them some wins and then bans throwing their opponents strategies off a little. We even got to see Probius win a game in the finals and draw a ban as they beat the former Leftovers, now Nothing Left, 2-1. 

State of Play

With half of the games gone then so then have half the chances to gain points. Note a qualifier win will give you a place in Division S no matter how low your points are. This table shows the highest 8 point scorers.

Full table located here

Teams to look out for

Nothing Left are probably the strongest team to play in qualifier 3. This is the team formerly known as Leftovers, a team with global competitive experience. They couldn’t play in qualifier 1, yet made up for lost time getting to the final and taking Coming Through to a game 3. They haven’t played much/at all recently, so they can only get stronger with more play. I predict them to win qualifier 3 if they take the qualifier seriously and don’t underestimate Team Russia.

Team Russia is the same team who impressed us winning the Nexus Contest. They’ve got to the Division S qualifiers semi-finals twice in a row and both qualifiers have looked strong at times, their aggression getting them kills and leads in games. They can when they are playing well beat anyone, yet their aggression can also cost them games. Team Russia took a game off Nothing Left and should have won the first game against Washed Up. A definite contender for qualifier 3. PS watch out for shamzlo’s Rexxar if they get to play on Braxis Holdout.

What does the photographer say are the highest point scorers, managing to get to the finals of qualifier 1 and take a game of Washed Up no less. Whilst they went out in the semi-finals in qualifier 2 it was to the eventual winner. With a team including 2 HGC members (Makke and Schwimpi) they are going to be a definite contender in qualifier 3.

Watch the exciting 3^rd qualifier here (put in link) and see how these teams perform!