Interview: Meta Outlook for Divisions 6 & 7

With Season 12 kicking off just as the new Nexus Anomaly is hitting live servers, we can look forward to a shift in strategies and spicy, new compositions. What better way to prepare for the new season than taking a peek into the Wild West of Heroes Lounge: Divisions 6 and 7!

We have gathered three captains from long-standing teams to share their ideas with the broader Heroes Lounge community as well as revealing some of their secret strategies and hero picks for the upcoming season.

Welcome everyone! While you are surely well known within your division, could you please provide a brief introduction on you and your team for everyone else?

LGM: We are the Rantners and currently in our 4th season in Heroes Lounge (previously Div7, now Div6). This season we will launch our all new team Twitch stream – RantnerTv – on which we will show our own matches and also cast other teams in the HeroesLounge. I’m LGM the Captain of this bunch of ranting old men because I’m the loudest and oldest Rantner.

Deucalion: I am Deucalion and I play Hots since its Beta, but joined Heroes Lounge last season. I joined PSGR on the Tank position last season and would describe the team as a happy bunch of crazy people that celebrate their passion for the game in the Heroes Lounge format. We closed Div 6 on the 5th rank last season.

Pötiküvi: Hi, I am Pötiküvi, previous Flex and current Tank Player/Captain for Fishmekan. We are a group of close real life friends and HotS enthusiasts, all hailing from Istanbul/Turkey.

Looking back at the last season, which heroes did you perceive to be the most influential in Divisions 6 and 7?

LGM: I think Johanna, Garrosh and ETC had a strong season on the tank position whereas Sonya, Malthael and Leoric were strong on the solo lane. As damage dealers the usual suspects of Jaina, Greymane and Kael'thas were played and banned in many games.

Deucalion: In my experience and surely because of my Position as a Main Tank I see the "enablers" as the most influencing. We´re seaking displacement to capitalise on enemy positioning like Garrosh, CC Cains like ETC... everything that ruins your positioning and gameplan in theory. You enable your team, you help through exploiting enemy mistakes. In addition, I would name Deathwing, who can provide (in a way) the opposite. Got hit by a good enemy engage? Move your massive Hitbox between the engage and the rest of the team to buy precious seconds. Be a big walking target for the enemy to trick them into focusing you even when it's not the right thing to do.

Pötiküvi: Since the ban pool in HotS draft is super narrow (3 per each team) and the hero viability is quite large, it always came down to map specific bans, preventing cheese strategies and what could be disrupting our game plan for the match.There were no clear first phase pick or ban heroes as far as I remember, but Johanna was a standout. Having the narrowest pool of heroes of any role, Tanks which have a slight edge over the others in a given patch seem to be rightfully contested in drafts.

Given the recent Nexus Anomaly, which changes do you expect to this trend in the upcoming season?

LGM: Maybe Heroes like Sylvanas and also Arthas with Sindragosa get more popular. But actually I think that Deathwing might come through the banphase more often in this season and Xul might be banned more.

Deucalion: I guess it's hard to answer at that point and I think we will see quite a change in priorities now. Before, we dove a fort which was distracted by minions or an objective to get the kill quite safely. Now, you need to think more - for example focus the fort down before you do so or leave the retreating hero be. The days of the reckless Anub'arak dives with your swarm of beetles are sadly over. But I think it offers new ways to approach new scenarios in the game. My prediction is, that it is now much more important to secure your flank when you try to push or get a flank attack on a pushing enemy.

Pötiküvi: Given my response above, unless we have super broken heroes in the pool, regardless of the map (which I feel might be the case..), bans in Div 6/7 will be mainly based on maps and preventing comfort picks for players.

Outside of hero picks, how do you expect the meta in Div 6/7 to evolve due to the Nexus Anomaly?

LGM: I don’t think that this will change too much, actually. Solo laning will still be a lot of XP-denial and not so much pushing down towers. In div 6/7 I think heroes that are easier to play are more effective and no changes to the towers will change that.

Deucalion: Let's say I hope to see a change in strategy and meta for the better. As said before, you need to think more and I like everything that helps the community think more about their actions in game. Maybe the reckless chasing will stop and I think some of the "melee assassins” will be picked less in favour of some "safer" combos.

Pötiküvi: It is super hard to tell, with all these major changes that affect the playing field instead of specific heroes. HotS felt like such a snowbally game to me for quite sometime now. With very little comeback chance from early leads in level and map objectives, and the constant emphasis this brings to consecutively executing plays successfully to keep the ball rolling to your end, the game felt so frustrating for me in some matchups. I always liked gameplay which allowed comebacks and different timings where specific heroes shine. HotS previously was so limited in that regard, possibly partly due to having one global resource for the team(XP) instead of two personally divided resources, (Gold+Xp) unlike other major titles. Maybe this change is a step towards a game that enables some of that said gameplay by buildings being a little bit harder to take down and easier to defend, especially in 1v1 situations. Plus, with the new abilities on the nexus defenses, I hope it will skew the timing of the matches and result in longer games, longer and harder sieges and more comebacks. This might result in teams favoring a drafting style which both balances the early game objective control and also securing some late game insurances to close out a map e.g. early game combo Alarak, lvl 20 March Leoric etc.)

Looking at the new Tassadar, what is your first impression and do you expect him to play a big role in the lower divisions?

LGM: I think he is a mediocre mage now. He can deal considerable damage on q build. His value might come by combination of heroes – like Wrath of the Angiris into Black Hole into of course Grav-O-Bomb!

Deucalion: The first hero I played was in fact Tassadar and I loved the evolution of his kit all the way - and this new radical reimagination of an hero is no exception. He is a ton of fun to play and fits the role of a "mage in space". Because of the way his abilities work and how strong he can be (regarding utility and damage) I expect him to be one of the higher contested picks or bans this season. I compare him a lot to KT who is, as you know, a real threat in "lower" divisions and is nearly completely disregarded in higher ones. I guess it will be the same with this new Tassadar.

Pötiküvi: We are still experimenting with the new Tassadar, however he feels like he has multiple viable builds and will be a good first/second phase pick if your team has multiple players playing it, he seems to have good teamfight impact with good 1v1 solo lane viability.

Which meta do you expect to evolve on Braxis Holdout in Div 6/7 regarding heroes and marco play? Will the map see play at all?

LGM: It will see playing time, I think. I don’t expect too many bans against it. It is teamfight-heavy on the bot lane mostly. The better teams might go for some heroes that can switch the lanes fast like Genji, Lulcio, Tyrael, Dehaka or Junkrat. Infinite stacking heroes might also do well due to the non-stop fight. 

Deucalion: Braxis is one of the more unique maps in terms of layout and the objective. I hope to see more Braxis, as you can play with some more unusual compositions - the melee assassin category shines in the fights for the control points in my experience. We all know MORE Zerg are better Zerg!

Pötiküvi: I think Braxis will favor drafts that both have good 1v1 solo laners and wave clearing/teamfighting deathball'ish quad lanes. Also, sustain might be a factor to be looking out for since Braxis makes for a lot of stalemates with teams trying to sneak a hero from the 4- man to take control of both objectives at the same time. Having to base because of a healer going OOM because of heavy poke(or just dumb positioning heh) can lead to a lost objective We might see some play, but in the first weeks I feel like the teams will go with their comfort map picks in the drafts and Braxis will have medium popularity in Div 6.

Any closing remarks from you?

LGM: You want to know some of our secrets? Just one: You can combine almost any ult – or even basic ability with Grav-O-Bomb and win just by doing that all game long! So expect a lot of explosion – Rantners like to get loud!

Deucalion: Well, we will approach the next season with much fun, madness and some new heroes we have trained to use in our matches. The goal is to qualify for the playoffs again and see where the journey takes us:)

Pötiküvi: Historically, Fishmekan has been such a streaky team, we have looked absurdly above our league in our good runs and unrecognizably below it in our bad streaks. Even though we have got some nice placements in the previous seasons and qualified twice before to our divisional playoffs, I know for a fact, that this squad deserves much better results, based on how mechanically skilled our roster is, the diverse hero pool we entertain as a team and the strong squad play we have been displaying in our best. It was not uncommon that we would beat the undefeated first seed in a 2-0, after dropping 3 games in a row to bottom seed teams in our league. For me, that streaky nature of the team was due to all of the members having hectic real life schedules to balance life around, people not being able to make it to matches in league and in playoff cups and not being able to play HotS at the volume we would like to. With the pandemic going on and more head room for us to play more, I am quite confident that this will be our best season yet. We are looking forward to start playing again. We wish good luck and nice games to all. Stay safe.  Also, a final thing: I would like to notify the Lounge community "Berkcem Medivh Oynayamaz.".