These heroes stood out in particular and performed fantastically during the last NA regional qualifier.
The PAX West Hero statistics are out.
Auriel
Move over, Rehgar and Uther - there's a new support in the Nexus. She definitely bestowed hope to the teams that picked her with a 69% winrate, far higher than any other support with a similar involvement rate. She also saw a fairly large number of bans in this tournament.
Auriel is definitely going to affect the support meta in a big way. The problem is, if she keeps up this level of success, she's going to affect the support meta more through bans than through picks.
One thing that was very interesting to note is that teams often drafted Lunara with Auriel to provide her with an insane amount of energy to heal with. This combo was drafted 8 times, although it did not enjoy a particularly high winrate, only garnering 50%. However, this composition suffered a lot of losses where it was clearly working for the majority of the game, but somehow the team managed a major throw to lose the game.
Probably the most successful Auriel strategy however, was double support. Auriel was played in a double support composition 7 times, and won 6 of them. Move over, double tank meta-- the double support meta is coming, featuring Auriel.
If this meta indeed becomes reality, this will probably doom the current double tank meta on the global stage, as double tank does not theoretically do well vs. double support. It lacks the damage to break through the healing power of two support heroes.
Medivh
When he was first announced, people thought he was going to be a competitive nightmare. Then he was released, people saw his awful win rate, and no one played him - even in competitive. The truth was we just weren't ready for him.
Medivh is a high skill cap hero and anyone who plays him needs to know what they are doing. Not only does the Medivh player have to know what to do, but so so does the rest of the team. Teams need to know how to play with a Medivh and use his portals and vision to maximum effect. That takes time.
It didn't hurt when pro players discovered that Medivh's lack of damage problem can be solved by his Level 7 Quest Talent called The Master's Touch. Yes, Medivh has to be careful not to die before the quest is complete, but then Medivh is probably one of the hardest heroes to kill in the game when played well. As a result, we are starting to see some Medivh play in pretty much every major region, with mixed success - sometimes he looks amazing, and other times he looks awful. It certainly was that way in the NA regional.
Still though, his overall winrate of 60% on 40% involvement rate was really good. By the time Blizzcon rolls around, he'll likely be considered a top tier competitive hero and will probably see a lot of bans and/or first picks.
Greymane
Stop me if you've heard this story before: "?Oh my god, they are nerfing Greymane's main build! RIP Greymane!"
Turns out that Greymane shares Kael'thas's view on these balance changes: it was merely a setback.
If PAX West is any indication, we have finally come full circle:
- Greymane's main build used to be Cocktail build. Then Cocktail build was nerfed into the ground.
- Then, his Worgen auto attack build was buffed which led to the corresponding dive compositions based around his burst damage. Cocktail build all but disappeared.
- Blizzard, horrified at the monster they created, then made another series of changes to Greymane, desperately trying to buff the weak cocktail.
- When that did nothing, they nerfed the melee assassin build heavily.
- Well, PAX West is over and Greymane has a 60% winrate on a 90% involvement rate. Most Greymanes were picking Cocktail talents.
See? Full circle.
Sylvanas
She had a 70% win rate this regional, despite having only 27% involvement rate. Nobody ever banned Sylvanas. Considering how good she is on Battlefield of Eternity, Tomb of the Spider Queen, Infernal Shrines, and even Sky Temple, the decision to leave her uncontested is madness.
Most of the time she is picked, her effect on the battleground is keenly felt, yet pros continue to neglect her despite her obvious impact on the game. This is likely to change at Blizzcon, as the latest PTR balance update nerfed Zagara. This means that Sylvanas could even overtake Zagara as the best specialist in the game. She'll likely see a lot of bans at Blizzcon - well either that or teams will continue to allow her to wreck them.
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