welcome-banner
All News
article-headline
Heroes8 years agoGosu "GosuGamers" Gamers

HOTD 103: principles of the Epic Eight


GosuGamers Heroes of the Dorm Coverage Hub

Sunday held the closest matches seen so far in the tournament. Don't worry if you missed them, here's what went down to determine the Heroic Four that will play in Seattle.

Sunday saw the clash of the Epic Eight, narrowing down the tournament's participants to the Heroic Four that will be taking the Nexus to Century Link Event Center in Seattle, Washington. The games were closer than any others we have seen so far, and you can be confident that every team moving on has truly earned it. The impact that a single player can have in a game was demonstrated in every single match. Team's like University of Tennessee, University of Texas Arlington, and Arizona State University were able to maximize the skillset of the professional players on their roster, giving them advantages in every matchup.

Group A Finals
University of Tennessee- We Violin (2) vs. University of Washington- Hot Dogs (8)

 

Game 1: Dragon Shire
It was immediately apparent that Tennessee had done their homework, as they gave respect bans to both Zagara and Greymane. They dominated the early game, having superior lane rotations and securing a few early kills. Proceeding into the mid and late game, team fights went handily in the favor of Tennessee, on one occassion using a Mosh Pit to lock down four players from UW. They almost ended the game during their follow-on push, but surprisingly UW was able to get a kill, despite being on the wrong side of a 5-on-2. Tennessee's experience advantage combined with the structure damage that UW had withstood led to an inevitable victory for Tennessee.

Game 2: Infernal Shrines
Tennessee took a bizarre approach to the draft, taking double and tank and double support, resting the responsibility for all damage on Valla. In the early game this paid off for them, with Muradin catching Morales out of place and locking her down. As the game progressed, however, UW recognized corrected their positioning errors, and Tennessee's complete lack of damage prevented them from getting any kills. The combination of Morales' Stim Drone with Raynor's autoattack damage gave UW the victory in every late game teamfight, taking the series to a third game. 

Game 3: Battlefield of Eternity
Bouncing back from their loss in the previous game, Tennessee drafted an offense oriented composition. Going into the game UW's Lunara gave them the composition advantage for burning down immortals. However, UW consistently took a defensive orientation on the objective, a mistake in their strategy. Tennessee's Roflcopter achieved MVP status in all three games, but was at his best on Falstad, using Mighty Gusts to prevent UW's attempts to disengage. The gusts were combined with the best Poison Novas seen in the tournament so far, creating too much damage for UW to deal with, and ending the game.

Group B Finals
University of Texas-Arlington- Dark Blaze (1) vs. Boston College- Pool Plato ST(2)

Game 1: Dragon Shire
The series started with fairly standard drafts, and the early game was back and forth. BC was able to sneak a kill that netted them the first Dragon Knight, giving them a lead that they never lost. UTA's inability to come back was due in part to some complete whiffs on ultimates, including Kladeous of Team Blaze, whose Entomb actually backfired on one occassion, giving BC two free kills. BCs massive damage output combined with consistently clutch healing from SemiCute, gave BC the decisive lead of the course of each team fight.

Game 2: Sky Temple
Boston College started the game strong, able to use to use Zeratul to secure a few ganks by combining Hunter's Mark with Polymorph. But as soon as UTA reached level 10, they did the best thing we've seen in the entire tournament. Taking Bloodlust on Rehgar and Archon on Tassadar, BC was unable to leverage their Devouring Maw or Void Prison to control the offensive firepower being generated. UTA took it to game 3.

Game 3: Infernal Shrines
UTA took the surprise Cho'Gall pick, with BC drafting Karazim as the natural counter. The game proceeded with low death counts on both teams, but Cho'Gall's siege capability generated an experience advantage for UTA over time. Spectacularly, UTA took the second game with a 10-hero teamfight on the core. BC managed to drop all 5 members of UTA, but not before the Dark Blaze catapults reduced the last few percentages of health.

Group C Finals
University of Connecticut- Tricky Turtles (1) vs. University of California-Berkeley- Golden Mishas (2)

Game 1: Dragon Shire
UConn started game one taking a double warrior composition, indicative of the safe control oriented strategies they like to use. Early in the game, CAL attempted to pressure UConn, creating early game aggression to counter their late-game orientation. However, UConn utilized Falstad's superior mobility to create 2-on-1s against Zagara in the solo lane. Falstad had even greater impact in the late game, taking an unusual Wind Tunnel talent at level 20 and using it to pin CAL against obstacles, securing critical kills and taking game one.

Game 2: Infernal Shrines
The first round of drafting in game two started off with an exact mirror of the previous game, but this changed quickly when UConn finished off their roster with Lt. Morales and Zeratul. CAL was able to consistently score picks on both Falstad and Zeratul, catching them out of place, or after noticing that the UConn team was split. DanLeefor3 from UConn has been a menace on Zeratul, but these unfortunate deaths prevented him from effectively stacking Gathering Power. Fortunately for UConn, long games are their specialty, and they waited for CAL to begin a push with an immortal before using Medivac to dive the core and end the series.

Group D Finals
Arizona State- Real Dream Team (1) vs. East Carolina- QBuild Brightwing (7)

Game 1: Dragon Shire
ASU took double support, with Tassadar and Brightwing in support of MichaelUdall on Illidan. Udall was able to solo lane against Zagara, and still kill her 1-on-1. ASU was able to bully ECU with their superior technical skill for most of the game, but on a few occassions ECU was able to punish their apparent overconfidence. ASU overextended in this game more than any other team in the Elite Eight, and if they make those sort of careless errors in the Heroic Four, they may be punished hard for it.

Game 2: Battlefield of Eternity
ECU drafted well, banning ASU's feared Falstad and Zeratul. They managed to keep some of their own comfort picks, like Tyrande, who has been obviously preferred in the last few rounds by ECU's Oddish. ECU had the better composition for taking the immortal, but ASU's better execution of rotations allowed them to easily take the first two. In what could have been an incredible upset, ECU managed to get multiple Mega Kills in the mid to late game, but they were unable to leverage ASU's deaths to destroy their structures. Eventually, ECU got tunnel vision on taking the objective, and lost a keep to a Shaman camp. ASU rapidly followed this up by picking off a few of their members and ending the game.

GosuGamers at the Heroic Four

THe Heoric Four starts on Saturday, April 9 5pm PDT / 8pm EDT. GosuGamers will be their live with photos, interviews and coverage of the story as it unfolds. Viewing information will be updated prompty at the Heroes of the Dorm official website.

 

All Esports

Entertainment

GosuBattles

Account