Season 4 Championship: Clash of the Titans

A lot of questions had to be answered this weekend: What looks better: tie or bow tie? Can you win Battlefield of Eternity without Gazlowe? Is it possible to displace an Aegis with Tassadars Force Wall? Should a twitch bot be allowed to win a Virtual Blizzcon ticket? And why are Potatoes007 always winning the Playoffs?

Memes aside, for those who spent this weekend in hibernation, here is a little recap about what happened in the Heroes Lounge Season 4 Championship.

It's been a long Ride

After we had 3 Seasons ending with Playoffs for all the divisions of Heroes Lounge, it was the first time we had separate tournaments for the higher and the lower divisions, respectively. Division 3 to 5 battled it out last week in the Heroes Lounge Season 4 Cup and MILFits were the ones who crowned themselves the best team in this tournament. For the highest skill divisions, the best Heroes of the Storm amateur teams of Heroes Lounge qualified for the Heroes Lounge Season 4 Championship. 

From 25th of September 2017, the best 17 teams (due to #RobbGate) qualified for the tournament which should decide which of them will step in the footprints of the No Trick Ponies, FAT#5, and :thinking:, the Champions of Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3, respectively. If you need a reminder what happened in the past, then checkout these awesome infographics by Gwels for Season 2 and Season 3.

In the first stage of the Heroes Lounge Championship, the teams had to face each other in three groups of four teams and one group of five. During a couple of Best-of-2 series, the teams could win points and qualify themselves for the big double elimination tournament of the Heroes Lounge Championship on the weekend of the 14th/15th of October. We were very happy that even Khaldor - one of the most popular and famous people of Heroes of the Storm - casted a few of the matches from the groupstage on his Twitch.tv channel after having a break from streaming for months. If you want to take a look into these casts, you can find them here.

It took a lot of matches - and some rigging due to drop outs - to decide which 12 teams were going into the Playoffs. And there were some clear favorites among them: Grub Sub Pride, Gorge good Ult, Dionysus, and -Insert Name- - the winner of their respective groups. Especially, Grub Sub Pride as a team which has not lost a match in the last nine weeks of Heroes Lounge Season 4 in division 1 and which consists of very good players who are all subscribers of Grubby on Twitch. Names like YellowFlash, Deathknight, and Undead are pretty known within the Heroes Lounge community and Undead already knows how to be a Heroes Lounge Champion as he was part of Season 2 Champions team FAT #5.

In advance to the big tournament last weekend, it was Morpheus from Gorge good Ult who sat down (virtually) with the captains of all 12 teams and ask them for their opinions on the other teams. If you have not yet, you definitely should check it out here before you go into binge-watching the streams from the last two days.

The Playoffs begin

In the first Round of games from the Loser-Bracket, we have not seen much of surprises. Division 1 teams Ponies With No Tricks, Pleb Police, and Always WU won against their Division 2 counterparts in convincing fashion with 2-0. In the last Loser-Bracket match of Round 1, however, two Division 1 teams faced each other which promised to be an entertaining show: Coopera Gaming (#2 in Division 1) went up against Namez 2 hard (formerly Guile eSports Youth; #12 in Division 1).

Coopera Gaming was the clear favorite from what we have seen in the last couple of weeks but Namez 2 hard surprisingly took the first map (Cursed Hollow) off of them. Second map - Infernal Shrines and Coopera Gaming managed to tie the series. It needed a third map to decide which team will continue their path in the Losers Bracket. During the third map, on Braxis Holdout,  we saw then the first incident of the tournament. We were only a couple of minutes in the game, both team were pretty even in reaching their level 4 talent tiers. Pause. 

CGKragoral was the first one who was typing in chat; they had a missclicked talent. Only that would not be a problem, one could think. But the picked talent was Crowd Surfer on ETC-player CGrTeezy. A talent which was bugged and therefore banned from Heroes Lounge games for several weeks. The casters could not do anything but contact the moderators of Heroes Lounge and wait for their decision. Unfortunately, when Robb entered the scene the moderators of Heroes Lounge came to the decision that Coopera Gaming lost the game by default and, hence, the complete series.

The rules for using banned talents, heroes, and exploits are quite clear and the moderators had to stay with consistency. We were really sorry that the series has gone in this direction and all people of Heroes Lounge would have liked to see the whole third map. 

In the next round of the Loser Bracket, Namez 2 hard then fell against Pleb Police in a very even 1-2. Also Heroes Lounge Season 1 winner Ponies With No Tricks had to take the 1-2 loss against last seasons second place Always Wu, who continued their way through the Losers Bracket.

Things got exciting when we watched the first Round of the Winners bracket with the top favorites from the Group stage. Gorge good Ult, in Heroes Lounge since Season 2, fourth place in Season 3 Playoffs, had to face the arguably strongest team of Heroes Lounge Season 4 - Grub Sub Pride. After Gorge good Ult managed to win Dragon Shire but lost the core race on Infernal Shrines, they picked an agressive Uther, Genji, Greymane composition on their mapchoice Sky Temple which paid of. They made Grub Sub Pride lose their first match in Season 4 of Heroes Lounge and pushed them to the Loser site of the Playoff bracket.

In the other match, Dionysus had to face -Insert Name- which they managed to take down in a 2-1 while showing already strong Guldan, Auriel, and Zagara picks on Dragon Shire. Thus, Dionysus as well as Gorge good Ult advanced to the Winner's Bracket final of the Heroes Lounge Season 4 championship. The first day was concluded by the Round 3 matches of the Loser's Bracket. Always Wu as well as Grub Sub Pride advanced with convincin 2-0's and threw Pleb Police and -Insert Name- out of the tournament.

The Last Four

Day 2 of the Heroes Lounge Season 4 Championship started with the Winner's Bracket Final between Gorge good Ult and Dionysus, two teams which are very familiar and scrimmed a lot against each other. For semi-professional Heroes of the Storm players, 1:00 pm CEST can be pretty early in the morning, and, thus, Gorge good Ult seemed still not really awake when they fell against Dionysius in a 0-2.

Now everyone was looking forward to the outcome of the Round 4 match of the Loser's Bracket which will decide who has to play against Gorge good Ult in the next round. Will it be Grub Sub Pride, the arguably best team of the regular league play in Heroes Lounge Season 4 with some of the mechanically best players in this league? Or will it be Always Wu, the team which managed to take down Gorge good Ult in Round 4 of the Season 3 Playoffs a couple of months ago?

It was one of the best series of the tournament which should follow. And everyone who has not seen it should watch it now in the VOD. Always Wu as the underdog achieved what nobody thought would be possible. They managed to beat Grub Sub Pride in an incredibly close series 2-1 and threw them out of the tournament.

So, it came down to a re-match of Season 3 Playoffs Round 4 game: Always Wu versus Gorge good Ult. The winner is going to advance to the Grandfinal and face Dionysus in a Best-of-5 series. Nothing could fit a prestigious match more than casters in gala uniform. One of - if not the - hardest working casters in Season 4 of Heroes Lounge Bayaz took over the Twitch-channel and was accompanied by a very prominent caster at least in NA Heroes of the Storm. We were very proud and thankful that the one and only Cavalier Guest joined our main caster for the last two matches of the evening and adding his always in-depth analysis to the cast.

In the following we saw a much different Gorge good Ult than earlier the same day. After they have decided their map choice Infernal Shrines in a pretty long match in their favor, Always Wu took them to Battlefield of Eternity where they defeated Grub Sub Pride in the match before. By stealing away the Tyrande during Draft, Gorge good Ult convincingly cleared out their way for the Grandfinals.

Grandfinals: Dionysus vs. Gorge good Ult

Once again, Gorge good Ult had to face Dionysus. This time coming from the Loser Bracket. Thus, Dionysus starts the Best-of-5 series with a 1-0 lead. After Gorge good Ult and Dionysus traded maps in an exciting fashion, the series was tied as Bayaz' tie - 2:2. It all came then down to one map - Dragon Shire.

It was the first time Dionysus decided to take ETC away from Morpheus who has shown a very good performance on that hero the whole tournament. Gorge good Ult decided to let Morpheus play Johanna and picked Rehgar in addition. Dionysus answered with Guldan, Auriel which lead to Greymane and Nazeebo picks on the site of Gorge good Ult. A Zarya and Zargara pick was what rounded up the comp of Dionysus and forced Gorge good Ult into a Chen pick for the toplane. With a frightening Zarya, Auriel, Guldan botlane and a Zagara toplaner, Dionysus once more decided to play the makro game in their favor. 

The matchup on toplane between Zagara and Chen was quite even, but on botlane Dionysus used their pressure early on to get the wall, the towers, and the fort before the first Dragon Knight could be summoned. The enormous push pressure plus unlucky deaths on the site of Gorge good Ult gave Dionysus the experience lead and one Dragon Knight after another.  

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Infernal Shrines taken by Gorge good Ult

Tomb of the Spiderqueen taken by Dionysus

Cursed Hollow taken by Gorge good Ult

Dragon Shire taken by Dionysus

Dionysus wins the Heroes Lounge Season 4 Championship

       

Gorge good Ult stood strong over the course of the game, but when Dionysus got the bot keep, level 20 and once again the Dragon Knight, the situation was almost hopeless. An Ancestral Healing of  Galnegunnar was half a second too late to safe Morpheus right before the final push of Dionysus. The Dragon Knight only had to hit the core and Dionysus crowned themselves the winner of the Heroes Lounge Season 4 championship.

In a pretty long interview after the match, both teams showed respect at gave shoutouts to the opponent. If they are going to participate in Season 5 of Heroes Lounge is still open. BananaDreams from Dionysus already said that he will not compete in the next season and, therefore, will leave Dionysus. The rest of the team have not made a decision yet - they need some rest first after the many days of hard work to figure out if and how they continue.

Also on the site of Gorge good Ult there was some hesitation to confidently state that they would compete in the next season. With two or three people of them most likely competing in the from Blizzard Entertainment organized multi-national Nexus Games, the chances are high that some of the players could get offers from better Heroes of the Storm Open Division teams. Of course, Morpheus said, one can not easily reject such an offer. We at Heroes Lounge would be proud to see the players continuing their path in an even more competitive environment, although it would not be a easy Goodbye. However, this is what Heroes Lounge is for: The first step from casual Heroes of the Storm into the competitive scene. And we have no doubt that there are more players out there who would like to try it out.

Final Ranking of the Heroes Lounge Season 4 Championship

In the end, all of the 12 teams participating this weekend in the Heroes Lounge Season 4 Championship showed dedication and love to the game. All of them deserved their place in the ranking, as you can see it below. If you want to see the bracket again, head over to the Season 4 Championship page. 

Season 5 is almost there

We want to thank all of you for the good show you put on and how you kept us as the Heroes Lounge community entertained. Heroes Lounge would not be here without all the teams who like to play more competitively, the time every player, caster, viewer and fan is putting into this. There are definitely arguments which support the statement of CavalierGuest that this is the best Heroes of the Storm amateur league and community he has seen so far.

However, the show must go on and, therefore, season 5 is close. For all of you, who have not joined the fun of Heroes Lounge yet, the Sign-ups for Season 5 are still open for one more week - until the 22nd of October 2017. So, register on the HeroesLounge.gg, go to your profile and make sure you hit that "Season 5 Participation" check-box. You can sign-up as a Free Agent or as team of 2 to 5 people. After Sign-ups have closed Free Agents will be put into teams with players of their skill level. Make sure that you joined our Discord server and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. If you are still hesitating to sign-up, read our FAQ and the Guides for new people we have written for you. This is Heroes of the Storm as it is meant to be played! And ... We have ENDLESS SLOTH MEMES.