Last year, C9 defeated Team Dignitas 3-0 to win Blizzcon. Fast forward a year, and C9 is no more. Which NA team will be the first to qualify for Blizzcon and attempt to follow in their footsteps?
Fall Regional Information
Where: ESL Studios, Burbank
When: August 5-7 (Friday to Sunday) starting at 10 am PDT
Team Naventic and Gale Force eSports were automatically qualified due to being at Summer Globals
Only the winner qualifies for Blizzcon as this is the first of 2 North American Fall Regionals
Casters:
- Dreadnaught
- SolidjakeGG
- Gillyweed
- Jhow
- Dunktrain (Panel Expert)
- Kaelaris (Panel Host)
Group A
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- Team Naventic
- Denial eSports (formerly Crescendo)
- Murloc Geniuses
- Astral Authority
When the team was first formed, the players had really good synergy with another and put on strong, sometimes even electrifying performances. Unfortunately, those days are long gone and the team has gone through many roster changes since then, with the most recent swap being Tomster replacing Mcintyre.
Considering the latter was playing tank for them, and Tomster doesn't play warrior, this leaves Zuna back in the role of main warrior. He's actually not bad at that role - but the reason he wasn't the main warrior player for the team after Erho left was because he doesn't feel he can carry in that role. Despite historically being one of the best teams in NA, Team Naventic enters this regional with many question marks - they haven't played a competitive match with Tomster in the fold. It will be up to players like Fan to make sure they remain one of the favorites to win the event.
Where did the players of Cloud9 go after the team disbanded? Well, k1pro and KingCaffeine came here, along with Glaurung (formerly of Brain Power) and Prismaticsm and aPm (formerly of Team Name Change). Massively hyped on the team's formation, they met expectations by playing well in the first qualifier, and figure to be a team likely to advance to the playoffs.
Long a top 3-5 team in NA, they disbanded early in the year due to their lack of improvement. After the Summer Globals, the team was reformed by old team players CauthonLuck and Fury (he was replaced by bkid on Gale Force eSports due to missing team scrims). Though they are not favorites to make it out of this group, they definitely have the potential to surprise.
This team has struggled after Killuzion decided to play with a different team and Equinox left the competitive scene. Picking up Kladeous and Batterry in their place, Astral Authority performed poorly the first two qualifiers and then qualified in controversial fashion in the last qualifier, being accused of exploiting the Tyrael Smite bug with Even in Death after Tyrael's high damage explosion deaths played a starring role in their Game 1 victory against Chu8's team.
ESL initially disqualified them, but Astral Authority provided evidence that they did not abuse the Smite bug, and were reinstated 30 minutes before another match took place to decide which team would advance in their stead.
Group B
- Gale Force eSports
- GulDansGame (qualified as High Score)
- Vox Nihili
- Team Name Change
The rising stars of the North American Scene during the Summer Season behind Khroen's brilliant Li Ming play, they qualified to the Summer Globals by beating Team Naventic in the 2nd NA regional only to fall to Please Buff Arthas of Taiwan in the first group stage. They have not played competitively since then, although they return their entire roster minus warrior player Fury, who they replaced with bkid due to Fury missing some team scrims. The favorites to get out of this group, they nevertheless will face stiff competition that they must get by in order to advance to the playoffs.
After Brain Power broke up, this is where the majority of the players went, along with McIntyre and Jason. This is a strong roster with a good chance of qualifying, but this is a tough group.
Not much was expected of them going into the qualifiers, but even in defeat, they showed in Qualifier 1 that they were a force to be reckoned with, dominanting Astral Authority 2-0 and winning the first map against the much hyped Crescendo (now Denial eSports). Despite not having the biggest names on their roster, the above two teams had better be on top of their game - if not, this team will take them out - no questions asked.
Although they are still a top 8 team in North America, the losses of Prismaticism and aPm definitely hurt. Goku and TigerJK came here after Tempo Storm disbanded (Tempo Storm has now picked up the Korean team Tempest), but despite these additions, they don't figure to be a contender in this otherwise stacked group.
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