Bob Ross Fan Club and Cloud9 are the two top teams in NA and it's no surprise that they are the first teams to qualify.
The first regional qualifiers for NA had little to no upsets. The winning teams and the respective second place finishers that came close to defeating them made up a surprisingly accurate glimpse at the current NA power levels:
Bob Ross Fan Club and Cloud9 at the top of the heap.
COGnitive and Team Blaze as the most likely candidates to beat them.
And the rest of the teams still trying to gain some consistency in light of new roster changes and a new meta.
The day was filled with an amazing set of matches, showing off a diverse range of heroes from Lunara, Azmodan, Gazlowe (!) and a whole lot of Stitches. It's fair to say that Stitches has become a serious threat in the current meta and he is quickly becoming a hero with one of the highest tournament win rates this balance update. In the finals match between Cloud9 and Cognitive, all three games had a Stitches on the winning team.
And speaking of meta, Cloud9 must feel extremely comfortable playing against NA teams after the hard lessons learned in China. Dunktrain has a plethora of supports to choose from and looks unstoppable on Lt.Morales. It seemed as if iDream played Sonya nearly every game this tournament, accompanied by some other warrior and k1pro's Falstad. There aren't enough bans in the world to limit Cloud9's every growing hero pool and their victories are a result.
On the other end, we have Bob Ross Fan Club. The Heroes Rising champions went undefeated and played with a confidence of a team that never doubted their chances at qualification. Their team's favor more melee assassins than most any other team, and Zuna's trademarked recklessness in the name of getting kills is served well as the primary Thrall or Zeratul on the team. Teams need to learn that letting Mcintyre play Falstad is simply not an option- he's just too good of a gryphon rider and mighty gust will leave you out of position at every turn. It's not likely to see any other NA team besides Cloud9 take a game off of Bob Ross Fan Club in their current form.
The next qualifier will take place on Sunday, February 7, 9:00am PST, where two more teams will qualify. You can watch these games on the following streams in the past broad casts:
http://twitch.tv/shanegoochergaming
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