Free hero rotation week of Tuesday, July 28th
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Available at all levels: Malfurion, Valla, Tyreal, Zagara, Chen
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Available at level 12: Tyrande
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Available at level 15: Illidan
This Month's Meta
Let's get serious. Lets look at serious stuff, in serious games, played by serious people. Nexus Weekly is introduced a look at the tournament stats over the past month to divine the current state of the meta. Meta by numbers, meta at a glance. Let's get serious, but not too serious.
Highest Winrate
The highest winrate this month belongs to the Lost Vikings. We'll see if we can cut the trophy into thirds. With a 66% winrate across 27 games, it seems the Vikings might hold this spot because they are picked only in situations which benefit them the most. Of course, you'd imagine that is how most picks go, but with specialists more than any other class, the map dictates wins, and the Vikings win the most.
Most Picked
Only weeks ago, or maybe it was months, I lamented the sad debut of Johanna into Heroes of the Storm. Her winrates were low, and so was my morale. She was okay, but not exactly fun to play. Johanna may not be the ideal warrior for every composition, but she is never a bad pick, like, ever. Her kit is versatile and strong, she can build for damage, and though she lacks powerful single target spells, her area control and lane presencse puts her at the top of this list, picked 73% of the time.
Most Contested
Ninety-Nine Percent. I'm no math genius, but that is only one less than a hundred. Jaina is by far the most contested hero. It appears people either love blondes, or hate blondes, or are jealous of blondes, or want to be blondes. Jaina is chosen or banned in ninety-nine percent of all tournament games in the last month. That is simply remarkable. At this point, it isn't much of a stretch to say that the current tournament meta revolves around the movie Frozen.
Most First Picked
To further illustrate that Elsa is overpowered, Jaina is also the most first picked character at 39%. You laugh, thinking thirty-nine is nowhere near ninety-nine. Well, consider the second most picked is Zeratul at 18%, and you can see just how wide the frozen chasm appears to be. The tournament meta for the last month has been, "Get Jaina, or Ban Jaina."
Most Banned
To the surprise of no one, people don't like getting shanked from the shadows. Zeratul is our most banned pick for the month of July running at a 62% banrate. Jaina comes in second at 28%. With very few heroes being a good 'hard-counter' to Zeratul (and those characters being unpopular currently, poor Tassadar), the best way to deal with a good Zeratul is simply not play against him. His current AA build has found popularity, and he still packs the most useful Heroic ability in the game.
A Look at Leoric
When a new character comes out, people have a difficult time learning how to play him. What is worse, is that people often have a difficult time learning how to play against them. This may be one of the causes that has pushed Leoric near the top of the winrate boards over at HotsLogs.com.
Across all leagues Leoric is the 4th ranked overall hero and the top tank (just ahead of Johanna in both regards) with a winrate of 54.5% with 65,210 games played. In Bronze leagues he comes in second overall, just behind the Voodoo King Nazeebo, with a winrate of 49.3%. What is perhaps most surprising is that he continues to shine in Master Leagues. After Butcher debuted, it was quite clear that he was good against bad players, but bad against good players. Leoric does not seem to fall into that category however, perhaps owing to the fact he is a tank, rather than an assassin. In Master Leagues Leoric still rises as the fifth overall hero and top tank with a winrate of 61.5%.
It is clear, as clear as it can be after two weeks, that Leoric is a strong hero across all leagues, and currently the highest winrate among all warriors. It will be interesting to see if one of the two innevitable things happen: his game gets more 'figured out' or Blizzard redesigns his undead trait. Keep an eye on the spooky scary ghost in the weeks to come.
On our mini-map: Bob Question Mark
In response to the musings of Heroes of the Storm Caster, Khaldor, as to why teams name themselves such strange things, "why not just name a team Bob?", comes this team from Europe. Team Bob Question Mark have won their last eleven matches according to our GosuGamers.Net world rankings, and are currently ranked #25 in the world, and #11 in Europe. What is more interesting than the team names origin story, is the list of monsterous European teams they've beaten.
In the last week, between the Enter the Storm qualifiers and the Zotac cup, Team Bob Question mark has beaten Team ROCCAT (Rank #33) twice, Team Kinguin (Rank #27) twice, as well as defeating Team Kappa123 (Rank #28), and Team ALTERNATE Fancy (Rank #11).
Despite the name, and decidedly not-top-tier logo, we would not be surprised if in the coming weeks the question at every tournament becomes; What about Bob?
Storm stream of the week
This week on Storm Stream of the Week, we are joined by veteran moba player, Krashy. Do you get mad at videogames? Sometimes Krashy gets mad at videogames, but it's all in good fun. If you want to see an ex-jungler transition to the damage life, watch as he assassinates nerds at Hero League Rank #1 on twitch.tv/Krashy.
What is your favorite hero/class?
My favorite class currently is ranged assassin. I come from a jungler background in Mobas so I was always so used to playing tanks, bruisers and assassins but in HotS I really have free reign over any hero I want to play. Being on the back line dishing out sustain or burst damage is just alot of fun. It's one of the best ways to feel powerful in Heroes of the Storm.
What do you feel is overpowered and/or underpowered in the game?
The double mages are probably the most overpowered to me. You see alot in competitive and Hero League how often Jaina or Kael'Thas are picked and banned. With that said I dont want to see them nerfed too badly. As far as whats underpowered I guess I would say warrior as a whole. There are alot of warriors who take a back seat to Johanna, and Muradin these days.
In one or two sentences describe your stream.
My stream is about all things humanistic. I'm just a guy who loves to stream and play games but I also have a killer attitude and have been known to be rather BM. I will rage and we will have a good time.
If you'd like to be featured on Storm Stream of the Week, e-mail [email protected] with a little bit about your stream, what your favorite hero or class is, what you think is underpowered, and a picture representing your stream.
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