Inside Division 2 : Round 1

Hey Everyone!

Here is the first in a series of weekly recaps on the exciting and anticipated games of each round of Division 2. This starting week has thrown up some very good games as teams attempt to get those early wins up on the leaderboard.

Notable Matches: 

TFA vs Gravity is Just a Social Convention: This match was a replay of the starting match of Season 9 in Division 2 with TFA fresh from a legendary cup run against a gravity team in their second season after narrowly missing out on the playoffs last time out

Game 1: We start of on the first map in the realm of towers of doom with fairly standard drafts coming out from both teams. The early game was played quite well on the side of TFA, rotating well and even managing to win a skirmish over Gravity's siege camp, managing to steal it and apply some early pressure. However as the match progressed into the tower fighting phase, TFA had no answer for Gravity's robust team fighting comp of Anub, Tyrande, Ming and Sylvanas whom had the ability to lock-down targets and remove them to the hall of storms. Coupled with an impressive Arthas performance who dealt with the the Dehaka top line extremely well and was present in many of the tower exchanges providing a good defence to the back line and further improving their CC potential, it was Gravity who emerged victorious with a tower Score of 36.

Game 2: The second map on Infernal Shrines started in the same vein with TFA preforming well in the early rotations, bullying and harrying Gravity with the combination of ETC and Kael securing 2 early kills, however with an early Ana kill before the first shrine was active allowed Gravity's Leoric to swiftly complete the shrine sending it mid while the rest of the team switched to bottom and with the help of Sylvanas' Black Arrows, managed to deal hefty damage to the bottom fort. After that, TFA never truly got back into the game, losing the rest of the shrines in team-fighting with a seemingly rehearsed Leo Entomb and Orphea Eternal Feast Combination that always dealt hefty damage to whomever was trapped allowing Gravity to close out the series 2-0

Northern Exposure vs Nexus Junkies: This second match saw a new team in Northern Exposure go up against Nexus Junkies, who qualified for last seasons Legendary Cup before their exit in the group stage

Game 1: The first map of this match takes us to Infernal Shrines with some very good map picks coming from either team; Gul'dan and Hanzo for Nexus Junkies and Sonya and Alex on the side of Northern Exposure. Nexus took a strong start to this map showing off their rotational skills, however Northern Exposure showed their  mettle on this map objective securing the first shrine with a show of force and continue to grow into the map with Sonya and Johanna being the real backbone of the shrine fights holding off Nexus Junkies strong front line. Northern Exposure kept the siege camps of the map painted firmly in their colour. With one final executed team fight over the punisher enabling them to take the core

Game 2: This contest took to the Cursed Hollow next with surprisingly neither team wishing to obtain or ban the Abathur or Dehaka on this map, with Northern Exposure picking up the strong global presence of Falstad which would prove most useful. The early game was scrappy with 2 tribute going over to northern exposure and 1 to Nexus Junkies before a decisive engagement with both teams hitting Lv 13 just before the next tribute fight, with bosses being taken prior to the fight, it was important that Nexus put a mark on this fight and secure the tribute. However with a clever Gust and a follow up of burst damage from Kael to severely weaken Nexus' Team they had no choice to concede the 3rd tribute enabling Northern Exposures curse on the battlefield, allowing them a keep to be obtained before a final fight over a tribute at level 18 resulted in 3 deaths on the side of Nexus Junkies, which Northern Exposure promptly took their boss and ended the game and the match

Escape Artist vs Stardust Crusaders - Our final featured match is a brawl between two new teams this season with rosters with some familiar names on, let's see how they got on!

Game 1: To begin this match we travel to Towers of Doom with some equally strong Towers drafts coming out of both teams. Escape Artists started the game much more strongly, bully the Stardust Crusaders off their siege camp 3 times before level 10's were up and eked out a tower damage lead which dealing some damage to the bottom keep of SC. However post 10, Stardust showed their team fighting qualities, grinding out some impressive fights on towers and picks on heroes before objectives to cancel out the lead Escape Artists had made for themselves resulting in Escapes bottom keep falling. After this Stardust Crusaders worked their position well on the map and with some staunch bot defending, were able to screen towers to take them to get the map win.

Game 2: Next up in this Match was a trip to Volskaya Foundry where Stardust Crusaders showed intent with their draft picking heavy aggression promising this game some kills from any source. Stardust started strongest and manoeuvred their rotations well while still showing the kill pressure to Escape Artists, picking up 2 kills before first objective was up for grabs. The heavy assault force of Muradin, Tyrande, Greymane, Li-Ming and Chen proved to be extremely hard to handle for Escape Artists as they were ejected from the objective forcibly a number of times and harried around the map, decisive fighting opened up a 20-17 level lead for Stardust Crusaders. However, a catch on a bot lane push enabled Escape Artists to pick up 2 kills which brought back the xp and allowed them back onto the map. However, the last objective proved fatal for Escape Artists with Anub falling to heavy damage and the rest of the team being locked up with the Muradin and Tyrande combo, which brought massive damage and swiftly won the team fight and the match shortly after a core rush.

Closing Remarks:

This first week showed some great teamwork and macro control on the maps and if this recap is everything to go by, then this will be a great season of Division 2 action to watch. I hope you all enjoyed this recap and I will be back for more in week 2!