"Some teams are overating Illidan and building their comp around him, which I think is wrong"
The 1st qualifier for Enter the Storm Cup #1 has ended and El NeXo has emerged as the unscathed winners, not losing a single game throughout the entire bracket. Fresh off of his win vs SK Gaming in the finals, I talk to team captain Juan "VortiX" Moreno Durán about his teams strategy and it's dominating performance:
Hey Man! Congratulations on the win.
Yo, thank you.
Your team went undefeated throughout the entire qualifiers. Did you expect such a dominating performance?
I thought that we might drop a few games in the best of threes, but lately we are playing really good and I felt that we had high chances of winning it.
Hammer and Malfurion are just so good right now compared to other champs of their same role
Were there any teams you thought would be strong opposition?
I thought SK and TTB would be hard since they are doing really good lately. I also thought Barrel Boys might be hard since I heard they're doing pretty good in America, but I don't really know what's the level in America compared to Europe.
How would you best describe the El Nexo play style? SGT. Hammer and Malfurion seem very powerful when your team plays them.
I think we're very flexible to be honest. We can play any comp that's currently in the meta and we feel confident both playing aggressive and defensive. I don't think I can define our play style as we play almost everything. Hammer and Malfurion are just so good right now compared to other champs of their same role, at least in most situations.
Would you say your flexibility is your biggest strength?
Yeah definitely, I think we have a huge champ pool and a wide variety of play styles. Also we have the pick & bans phase ultra-clear, so we're always playing a comfortable setup.
And how does that pick and ban strategy deal with the Illidan? A lot of players think he is dominant right now.
I think he's quite good, but some teams are overrating him a bit and building all their comp around him, which I think is not right.
I think Chen is worse than the average tank but depending on the composition your team has he can be really useful
So he is strong, but maybe not build your entire team around him strong?
Yeah, like ... he is strong, but he is not undisputed best champ in the game right now. There are some situations where he's gonna get in and crush everyone if there are no ultimate/burst available for the other team, but you've gotta have a plan B if it's not possible to do that
That makes a lot of sense. So a lot of the NA viewers were surprised at how much Chen was seen in the qualifiers. Why do you think EU favors him so?
Well I think people in Europe started to give it a chance after seeing Lucifron using it often. A month ago or so it was not used at all in Europe too. I think Chen is worse than the average tank but depending on the composition your team has he can be really useful thanks to his ultimate, which allows you stop all channeling and can help picking a kill really fast in team fights.
Now that you have won these qualifiers, what is your plan for the rest of the day
Haha, probably going to sleep soon, gotta wake up early for university tomorrow!
Good, get some rest! Thank you for taking the time to talk with me, any last shout outs?
My pleasure. Shoutout to GosuGamers for organizing the cup and to everyone supporting El NeXo; we expect to win more stuff in the upcoming weeks!
Follow us @gosugamersHotS for more eSports news.
More on GosuGamers Heroes of the Storm:
