WCA is the first major tournament outside of the ESL Major League. The North America qualifiers start tomorrow with a chance for the WCA 2015 main event. The eventual winners will get a chance to play at the ESL studios for the LAN finals and a chance to play at Pax Prime in Seattle.
All of these teams except Zaveron are currently in the ESL Major League, so treat this as a mid-season snapshot of the ESL group stage as well. These power rankings are unofficial and curated by my self; they do not reflect the viewers the views of the entire GosuGamers Heroes of the Storm crew.
There’s a clear Tier 1 quality between Cloud9 Maelstrom/Tempo Storm, and Maelstrom comfortably takes the number 1 position on our Power Rankings. They have been the most consistent team in the HOTS scene after Team Liquid. Their achievements are remarkable. They won Titan Arena and ESL Major League season 1 (both times defeating our #2 ranked team in the grand finals). Part of their success is from their overall balance. They have a core of heroes that they’ll run in every game but have versatility in the 4th and 5th spots.
Maelstrom tends to run a lineup with one warrior, two assassins and a support/specialist combination. They love Sylvannas (who doesn’t) and Brightwing, and when available have shown good Lost Vikings split push. There is simply no reason to expect anything less than outright victory for Maelstrom. Certainly, in round 1 they should easily dispatch Stellar Lotus, but they did get the tougher bracket as C9 Vortex and 2ARC Gaming are both a stronger matchup then Zaveron and Complexity (the team's Tempo Storm will likely face in round 2).
2. Tempo Storm
It’s a remarkably familiar story for Tempo Storm; they have large success against any team not named Cloud 9 Maelstrom. In both ESL Major League Season 1 and Titan Arena, Tempo lost relatively tight games against Maelstrom. Indeed, they have proven they’re the only team in North America able to seriously challenge Maelstrom.
There’s no reason to expect anything less than a finals spot for Tempo Storm, but a potential round 2 matchup against Complexity gaming could be a hurdle. The last two times Tempo and Complexity met (both in ESL Major League), Tempo Storm won but in a close 2-1 margin. Couple that with the previous loses to both C9 teams, and there are some question marks.
One thing I do like about Tempo Storm is they always seem to know what they want to do. They consistently ban Illidan (roughly 54% clip) and beyond their core set of heroes, have experimented with a large hero pool (having played at least 21 different heroes over the last month, which is a very high number).
3. 2ARC Gaming
Our first deviation from the Gosu rankings. To be honest, you can switch 2ARC with Cloud 9 Vortex easily. Both have been slightly above 50% in terms of their sets won. But the real difference is two fold: 2ARC has beaten Vortex both times in their head-to-head matchups, and 2ARC has recently played a larger hero pool (which is always a positive in the committee (of one’s) ranking calculation). Throw in the fact they took one game off Maelstrom, and took Tempo Storm to five games, I can clearly see a team on the cusp of challenging for a spot in the Tier 1 club.
4. Cloud 9 Vortex. The ugly duckling. The little brother. Whatever you want to say, Vortex is a good team. They’re not on par with their brother but seeing how essentially every team at this level has a 50% win rate (hey, it’s a small competitive World so far) it’s really fine. I picked 2ARC as they’ve done better head-to-head but it’s going to be a fantastic series regardless.
5. Complexity is an interesting team. They’ve had middling results but have shown enough that they can so almost be considered as a Tier 2 team (though in reality are still proving themselves with the other Tier 3 teams). They have shown they can beat all of the teams below them in this Power Ranking and have been competitive against Tempo at least. Lack of consistent history doesn’t install much confidence. Expect them to beat Zeveron gaming and having a fighting chance against Tempo Storm (but likely lose).
6. Formerly Shot and the Bullets: Reloaded, Cognitive gaming marks the clear beginning of our Tier 3 teams. As Shots and the Bullets they never had a performance that stood out, they’re too new with the Cognitive brand to be gleam anything. But you’re reading for the facts, well in their last two matches they’ve run nine different heroes, so there’s that.
7. Zeveron
Zeveron was the merger between EG and Murlocs Inc. What happens when two middle-tier teams merge together? You get another middle-tier team of course! Joking aside, this team has potential, but needs more time to jell I imagine. They got lucky drawing Complexity in round 1 (probably should have been matched-up against Tempo Storm or Maelstrom) so there is a chance of an upset.
8. Ever since being acquired by Jesse Cox this author feels like he’s seen the Lotus name a lot more. Suddenly they’re competing in ESL and now WCA. I can’t say it’s entirely deserving, their history as both ESV Wildfire and Lotus has been disappointing, but there’s one glimmer, against Maelstrom, they put up a very solid game 2 (almost forcing a game 3) so perhaps they are coming together.
In case it wasn't too obvious, I expect Tempo Storm and Cloud 9 Maelstrom to easily meet in the finals, with another victory for North American champs. Perhaps Complexity gets upset by Zeveron, but otherwise the only other contest matchup I see is 2ARC and Vortex. See our full tournament coverage here.
Full website is here. The tournament starts May 11th US Pacific time.
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