The reason this composition stood out to me from the countless of teams I am on is the chain of crowd control that could be created. We had the potential to create countless picks and had the ability to lock down heroes for long periods of time.
Even though this is a Hero League team I am going to run it through the usual tests to see how strong the composition really is.
Innate Hero Synergy
These heroes are full of innate synergies with each other. Examples are:
- All five heroes have CC in their base kits. Malfurion has Entangling Roots, E.T.C. has Powerslide and Face Melt, Artanis has Phase Prism, Xul has Bone Prison, and Jaina can slow enemies with every ability.
- Jaina and Malfurion were a match made in heaven. Malfurion can feed Jaina the mana and cooldown reduction she needs with his innervate. He also is one of the best set up heroes for her abilities with Entangling Roots.
- Xul can take care of two lanes of experience leaving the other four members to do what they do best and roam.
- Their heroics can create amazing wombo combos. Skeletal Mages can set up easy Mosh Pits that lead into multiple target Rings of Frost that lock down targets for Malfurion to hit with Twilight Dream. If that wasn't enough, Artanis can drop Suppression Pulse on top of the enemy heroes while all of this is happening to make it so that they can't even fight back with basic attacks.
All of these factors create a well oiled machine that synergizes within itself perfectly. How does the team comp fit the map though?
Picking According to the Map
The important factors in a team on Tomb of the Spider Queen are wave clear and ganking potential. This battleground is a close quarters brawl that has been described as "A knife fight in the dark." This team composition was almost tailored made for this map. It still amazes me that a bunch of randoms could pick this team.
Wave clear is important on this map because gems are the main objective. Being able to clear the waves of spiders quickly gives you priority to rotate around the map and look for turn ins. This team has great wave clear with:
- Xul- He has Spectral Scythe and Cursed Strikes which used in combination give instant wave clear.
- Jaina- Same story as Xul. Can clear waves instantly with Blizzard and Cone of Cold or a little slower but with less mana usage with just Blizzard.
- E.T.C.- With Echo Pedal at level 7 he can clear waves pretty efficiently for a Warrior.
- Malfurion- If you take Moonburn at level 1 he becomes one of the best supports at clearing waves.
- Artanis- He doesn't have the best wave clear with usual builds, but you can talent him to make it a lot better.
Not surprisingly this composition has amazing wave clear. They can constantly push minion waves in freeing them up to rotate and look for ganks.
How does this composition do in our second category, ganking potential?
Ganking potential is important on this map because of how close quarters it is. Being able to create picks can lead to experience leads and the denial of gem turn ins for the enemy team. This comp has great ganking potential because:
- As mentioned above, all heroes have crowd control of some sort. This can lead to long duration crowd control chains that the enemy heroes can't get out of.
- The ease of landing the initiating CC. Xul can literally press E on a target to root them and create the pick. This makes all of the difficult to land crowd control much less difficult to hit.
- E.T.C. has long range initiation potential with Powerslide and with Stage Dive if he chooses to take it. This can create easy smoke ganks on unsuspecting targets.
All of these reasons make this an excellent composition on Tomb of the Spider Queen.
So now we know what makes the composition tick. How do you play this comp effectively?
Playing the Composition
In the early game this comp is best played as a 4-1 style team. Xul can soak two lanes of experience while the other four heroes look for ganks and picks.
Around level 10 this team transitions into a ganking, wombo combo unit. The team needs to stick close together and look for opportunities to surprise the enemy and nuke them before they can escape the CC chain.
When the game gets closer to level 20 hopefully you have an experience lead. The damage will fall of slightly, so the best course of action is to do what you were doing before. Run around together and look for people that are dumb enough to push on their own. Winning before late game is generally advised because there is not much sustained DPS with this team composition.
Speaking of winning, here is how you do that.
Win Conditions
There are really only two win conditions with this team:
- Get an early lead through ganking and picks. Then snowball it to an early victory.
- Win late game 5v5's by crowd controlling priority targets and bursting them before they can get away. Target priority is key, if everyone isn't hitting the important targets then they can very easily get away.
Both win conditions come through picks and crowd control chains, so landing abilities is critical.
Here is a VOD of the game in case you want to check out the composition in action:
Yes I know it was a stomp, and yes I know the enemy team didn't have a support, but I still think this comp will work well on this map even in more standard games.
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