Overview
Before we go in depth and analyze what MVP Black did wrong in each draft and what Fnatic did right, let's take stock of the series as a whole.
Clearly, this was an upset of massive proportions: before this match, nearly everyone would have expected MVP Black to win, even the most die hard fans of Fnatic. However, if you look at the gameplay, the better team clearly won - it wasn't that Fnatic got lucky and stole multiple maps, but rather that they just straight up outplayed MVP Black, who played uncharacteristically poorly while Fnatic had the performance of a lifetime.
So what strategies enabled Fnatic to take down Korean powerhouse MVP Black?
- Prevent Rich from getting heroes that he can straight up carry the game with
- Pick maps that MVP Black is less comfortable on
- Use Globals and/or great heroic synergies to overwhelm the otherwise better teamfighting of MVP Black
Let's discuss these in detail.
Which Heroes does Rich dominate with?
Rich is generally considered the best Heroes of the Storm player in the world. As you might guess, when a player has that title and you give him heroes he is fantastic with, you are likely going to get wrecked.
Rich is a flex player, but a flex player is not necessarily equally good at all roles
Rich is a flex player, but a flex player is not necessarily equally good at all roles. Rich's warrior/bruiser play is undeniably solid, but it doesn't hold a candle to his melee assassin play, which is straight up otherworldly. In particular, he is well known for his incredible Thrall, Illidan, Kerrigan, Alarak and Medivh play. However, Thrall is totally out of the competitive meta at the moment and Kerrigan is really, really situational outside of Infernal Shrines.
MVP Black doesn't like picking Medivh outside of Towers of Doom, so this left Alarak and Illidan as the primary threats on most maps.
Pick Maps that MVP Black is less comfortable on
MVP Black is most comfortable on these maps:
- Battlefield of Eternity
- Towers of Doom
- Infernal Shrines
- Cursed Hollow
- Sky Temple
Most competitive teams are uncomfortable playing on Blackheart's Bay, Garden of Terror and Warhead Junction. This leaves Tomb of the Spider Queen, Braxis Holdout and Dragon Shire as maps to take MVP Black to that possibly give your team the advantage. Tomb of the Spider Queen and Braxis Holdout were played in this match, and Fnatic won both maps.
We'll talk about the third major point in individual drafts, although clearly MVP Black seriously undervalued globals other than Falstad, for no apparent reason.
Game 1, Tomb of the Spider Queen
Fnatic quickly bans Alarak with their first ban, a great idea as this is the best hero MVP Black could put Rich on given the map.
MVP Black's first mistake is to put Sake on Valla instead of Gul'dan. Gul'dan has excellent wave clear on this map, better than Valla's and is still capable of putting out tons of damage. This becomes even more apparent when we consider that MVP Black clearly meant to pick Auriel in the next rotation. Gul'dan and Auriel have this natural synergy where Gul'dan taps his own life to keep dealing out the damage, and Auriel gains hope from that damage and heals Gul'dan. Fnatic still chooses to ban Gul'dan in the 2nd ban phase just in case Kyocha could play him.
MVP Black wasn't finished making draft mistakes,
Fnatic showed throughout BlizzCon that they love wave clear and map control on Tomb of the Spider Queen, prioritizing Xul and Leoric after the 2nd ban phase. MVP Black, however, did not do their research and banned Li Ming - even though Fnatic would have been more likely to pick Lunara had they actually been looking for a ranged assassin. Of course this led to Fnatic picking up Xul and Leoric, and having significant wave clear and map control.
MVP Black's last two picks are also really questionable. The Chen pick is sort of understandable, as he's a good pick for this map - but we have also seen that Rich is not exactly god tier on the hero, getting picked off multiple times in MVP Black's win on Towers of Doom vs. Team Dignitas. Illidan or Kerrigan might have been better options as Rich does excel on these two heroes, even though they might not be the best picks given the map.
The pick of Falstad for Kyocha, on the other hand, is just totally inexcusable.
The pick of Falstad for Kyocha, on the other hand, is just totally inexcusable. Fnatic had already picked Xul, and for reasons noted above were almost guaranteed to pick Leoric with the last pick. MVP Black had little wave clear so far, and the global on Tomb of the Spider Queen isn't as valuable as on other maps. Sylvanas was clearly the better pick here, being able to supplement the objective in pushing and having the wave clear to deal with the Leoric/Xul composition the enemy team had.
MVP Black had a composition that was designed to win team fights, so they were going to have to be aggressive in order to win this game against a wave clear/map control composition. Unfortunately, MVP Black was way too passive and played Fnatic's game rather than their own. Despite all of that, they might have won the game if they had recognized Fnatic was taking a risky boss one second sooner. As it was, Rich's Chen was too late to get on the point, and Falstad's Gust was too late to stop Fnatic from capping it. MVP Black won the ensuing team fight, but understandably opted to go for the enemy's core rather than defend the boss when they had no other win condition. Problem was, they wiped on the enemy core and Fnatic won.
Game 2, Sky Temple
Once again, Fnatic puts their first ban to good use by removing Rich's Illidan.
Fnatic has shown their love of globals on this map. This results in a first pick Brightwing.
MVP Black's pick of Muradin over ETC is kind of sketchy here, considering that ETC's Stage Dive would help with Fnatic's global compositions. ETC and Falstad unsurprisingly go over to Fnatic.
It looks like MVP Black had decided they were going to go with a Zeratul-Abathur composition before the draft even started. However, this was a bad idea for multiple reasons. First off, while Rich is undoubtedly one of the best Zeratuls in the world, if you had to give Rich a Melee Assassin, Zeratul is probably the one you choose (we'll ignore The Butcher as he almost never sees competitive play).
Another questionable draft
Secondly, MVP Black needed to get Brightwing, not have Fnatic pick it. Brightwing's polymorph and Peekaboo talent at level 4 are good responses to Zeratul, while Brightwing is incredibly good at assisting Zeratul ganks. The resulting Kharazim pick was awful - just pick Rehgar, he's better. Fnatic, meanwhile, picks Dehaka and gets 3 globals. Having 3 globals on the enemy team reduces Abathur's natural strengths, so all in all this is yet another questionable draft from MVP Black.
MVP Black plays from behind for pretty much the entire game. Yes, they had some nice core defenses, but eventually Li Ming gets picked off and then they lose the 4 v 5 fight for the boss and the game.
Game 3, Towers of Doom
This is MVP Black's best map outside of Battlefield of Eternity. Fnatic is forced to choose between dealing with Rich's Illidan or Rich's Medivh, a lose-lose proposition. Fnatic might get the global advantage again, but it is not as effective due to Medivh portals.
Fnatic actually gets the upper hand for the first half of the game. Eventually though, Rich's leyline seals on Medivh take over and MVP Black winds up besting Fnatic for their only win of the match.
Game 4, Braxis Holdout
Fnatic loves to pull out the wombo combos on this map. Earlier at BlizzCon, we saw a solo support Tyrande with ETC/Jaina/Rexxar for a stun lock/blow up composition against Zero Panda in the decider match. It had a lot of initial success, but ultimately was beaten by Zero Panda's more well rounded composition.
Again, Fnatic bans away Rich's Alarak with the first ban.
Amazingly, it looks like MVP Black has learned from some of their prior drafting mistakes. They actually take Gul'dan for Sake instead of Valla. Yes! Better yet, MVP Black actually did enough research to know the Rexxar was coming and banned him away. Great work! Fnatic, meanwhile, picks up ETC and Jaina again, but this time brings out Medivh, which we'll see later is a brilliant pick. Then Fnatic makes the first head scratching draft decision of the tournament by banning Morales when they knew merryday was playing Auriel.
The big problem for MVP Black
The Chen/Tyrande Picks for Fnatic are expected, and the Auriel/Falstad picks are great for MVP Black. The big problem for MVP Black is this: what is Rich going to play? Rich actually has several choices here - he could pick Dehaka, who he is good at playing but has rarely played in competitive, he could pick Zeratul and use void prison to deny the wombo combo, or he could pick Illidan as Fnatic doesn't exactly have a composition designed to deal with that hero.
All three choices are much better than Leoric, who really doesn't do anything for MVP Black's composition. Dehaka is probably the best choice here, as particularly with Adaptation and Burrow, he can deal with anything Fnatic's composition throws at him, and his crazy sustain in lane through his trait and being able to Z back to lane after hearthing means that he beats Chen in the solo lane hands down.
MVP Black is just dominated from start to finish in this game. The Ley Line Seal into ETC Power Slide/Ring of Frost/Starfall and Lunar Flare/Hunter's Mark is just absolutely devastating stuff, and Fnatic executed it flawlessly. MVP Black goes without a kill, while Fnatic gets 15. GG!
Follow us on Twitter @GosuGamersHotS and on Facebook for more competitive Heroes of the Storm news and coverage from around the world.
