After the Las Vegas event that hosted the Americas Championship, this weekend Prague was home to the Europe Championship. Out of the eight teams that qualified for this event, the last hurdle before Blizzcon, two teams managed to win their tickets for the World Championship in Anaheim, California. The European scene is often considered much more competitive than that of NA, with the majority of the teams being able to go head to head with each other. In this article we take a look at what this meant to the event. As always, all statistics mentioned have been compiled and shared by @Dthehunter2510.
Battlefield stats
Last weekend’s event saw a very healthy spread of map popularity. All 9 available maps were played at least once, Blackheart’s Bay and Haunted Mines being the least popular with 1 appearance each.
The most popular map was Tomb of the Spider Queen, seeing play in 25% of the 36 played games. On a slight distance however, were Battlefield of Eternity, Cursed Hollow, Dragon Shire and Infernal Shrines that all enjoyed a similar popularity of ~15%. Biggest difference between the NA event and the EU event seemed to be Sky Temple, which was picked only 1/3 as often as in Las Vegas.
Out of all games played, 58% were won by the team with First Pick. This results in the numbers clearly, because all the most popular maps (stated above) were dominated by FP teams for the most part. Only Battlefield of Eternity saw a closer record, with SP winning 1 more game than FP.
A theme we have often discussed in this series is the option for ‘lesser’ teams to gain an advantage over their opponents by picking the less popular maps like Haunted Mines, Blackheart’s Bay and Garden of Terror. With the wider spread of map popularity showcased this weekend, we can conclude that the map preferences of the 8 teams overlap greatly.
When lesser played maps were actually picked, they were more often won by the team that picked that map, or at least favored less by the team that did not have FP. Blackheart’s Bay and Garden of Terror were both only played once, but won by the teams that picked them. And Sky Temple and Haunted Mines were each played twice, being won and lost once by the SP teams.
Hero stats
In the last Enter the Stats, we reported on the 100% involvement rate of Jaina. This time around, Jaina was prioritized the lowest in a while and with good reason. While still being involved way above average with a stat of 86.11%, her win rate was abysmal at only 35.71%. Kael’thas was the most popular mage this weekend, taking over the position of 100% involvement. His win rate ended up on a clean 50% however.
Similarly to the Americas Championship, Raynor was again the most successful Assassin when looking at Heroes played at least 10 times (66.67% win rate over 15 games). However, the melee assassins Kerrigan, Illidan and The Butcher were possibly more frightening this weekend. Illidan won his single played game, The Butcher won both his played games (thanks to amazing innovative synergy with Falstad) and Kerrigan won 7 out of her 8 played games (a 87.50% win rate).
After Thrall enjoyed some niche popularity in previous events, he had no moments in the spotlight this weekend along with Nova and Tychus.
Looking at our available support heroes, in the last major event without available Lt. Morales to teams, there are a few things to notice. Firstly, Uther was again the most popular healer but this time not involved in 100% of all drafts (alright, he did show up in 97.22% of them…). He won a respectable 61.90% of all matches he played in.
Secondly, Kharazim was actually played in more games than Uther because he was only banned in 1 draft versus the 14 bans for Uther. Besides Dignitas' Bakery, arguably the Godfather of Kharazim picks in EU, other teams have started prioritizing the monk over more traditional healers as well. With an involvement rate of 88.89%, and a winrate of 52%, Kharazim has been pushing out other support heroes from drafts.
One support hero in particular deserves that treatment: Rehgar. Rehgar was played 11 times, had an involvement rate of 33%, but dropped to the lowest low this weekend with a truly embarrassing win rate of 9.09%. For any competitive support player reading this article, the suggestion would probably be to just forget about Rehgar for the time being.
One final Hero also surprised this weekend, in a very convicing manner this time. Brightwing, our lovable Faerie Dragon, played 3 games and won all of them. Natus Vincere’s Splendour played Brightwing all 3 times, each time being used to support melee assassins Kerrigan and Illidan. While BW is not a character with burst heal potential, her ability to shield heroes that dive in for a fight and her ability to disable potential counters with her Polymorph made her an MVP in those matches.
Li Li was again left alone for the entire event.
Because the event was played just days before the Lt. Morales patch went live, we did not get the pleasure of observing long ignored warriors like E.T.C. and Stitches. The traditional trio of Johanna, Leoric and Muradin reigned supreme this weekend, at least in terms of popularity. Leoric was again prioritized a bit higher than Johanna this event, with an involvement rate of 94.44% and a win rate of 43.48%. Johanna was involved in 91.67% of all drafts, winning 42.31% of all her games, while Muradin was not as responsible for wins as he was in Las Vegas with a 44% win rate and involvement rate of 83.33%.
Arthas was the most successful Warrior this time around, enjoying a 66.67% win rate that made him the most successful hero played in at least 10 games alongside Raynor. Anub’arak saw a small rise in popularity this weekend which was approved by his 62.50% win rate, and Tyael finally concluded the list of warriors with at least a 50% win rate.
Diablo, E.T.C. and Stitches were not played a single time, but at least the latter two are predicted to make a sweeping come back in the next major tournament after the last patch.
While Zagara has been the queen of specialists in Heroes of the Storm for a long time, she was only played 1 time in Prague. Nazeebo was by far the most popular Specialist this time, with a 36.11% involvement rate, but only won 30% of his matches. Both Abathur and Sylvanas did way better, winning all of their 4 and 2 games respectively. Abathur was also the most banned Specialist this time around, being banned 16 times.
Finally, a quick moment of silence is in order for The Lost Vikings. Being played 4 times, neither G2, TL nor Pirates in Pyjamas could provide them a win. Maybe it is time for the Vikings to take Rehgar, and become lost once again.
Gazlowe and Murky were involved in 0% of all drafts, and Azmodan was only slightly more ‘popular’ with his 2 bans.
In the end, 32 out of the available 41 Heroes were played at least once. This ratio of 78.05% is very respectable, and is expected to rise to above 80% in the recent patch. The 9 Heroes that were not played or banned even once were: Diablo, E.T.C., Gazlowe, Li Li, Nova, Stitches, Thrall and Tychus.
Finally, we can take a look at the Heroes with the highest winrates. When looking at all Heroes that played at least 5 games, the following numbers show up:
- Kerrigan – 87.50%
- Arthas – 66.67%
- Raynor – 66.67%
- Anub’arak – 62.50%
- Uther – 61.90%
- Valla – 58.33%
- Zeratul – 52.94%
- Kharazim – 52.00%
- Kael’thas – 50.00%
- Tyrael – 50.00%
- Tassadar – 50.00%
In closing
All of these stats were compiled by @Dthehunter2510, and made public by him on Reddit. Many more interesting things can be deduced by taking a look at the complete set of numbers. You can find his sheet on overall stats here, his sheet on Team stats here. Sadly no replays from the matches were available, and so no Talent Choices were analysed.
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