The Main event starts on September 17. By the way, get hyped for competitive Alarak play: he's legal!
Four teams received invites to the tournament, due to their performance at PAX West.
Where's Murloc Geniuses?
Well, they are taking well-deserved time off after their hard fought tournament wins at both NA regionals.
Official Map Pool
Blackheart's Bay, Garden of Terror, and Battlefield of Eternity are not going to be map choices at the event. Braxis Holdout IS a legal map choice, which makes this the first chance to see the new map in competitive play.
Tournament Format
8 Teams; Double Elimination Bracket
Opening Matches:
(1) Denial eSports vs. (8) Imported Support
(2) Team Naventic vs. (7) Nice!
(3) Astral Authority vs. (6) Red Team
(4) Gale Force eSports vs. (5) Dumpster Tier Superstars
Qualified Teams
Well, the iDream for Prismaticism swap worked out brilliantly, as Denial's performance improved markedly between Burbank and PAX West. It wasn't enough to dethrone Murloc Geniuses, as they put on a clinic in Game 5 of their Finals match on Blackheart's Bay to repeat as NA champions. However, Denial will also be representing NA as the 2nd seed at Blizzcon, and with Murloc Geniuses not here they figure to be one of the favorites to take the entire event.
Scouting Report: aPm shows a huge preference for playing Brightwing, playing her in 8 out of 14 maps Denial played @ PAX West. k1pro, who has been criticized in the past for having a small hero pool, has added Medivh to his arsenal. Denial went 3-1 in those games. KingCaffeine has also returned to his roots in Muradin and Leoric, a major improvement over the overemphasis on ETC that we saw from them at Burbank.
They may be without Fan, but Naventic hasn't missed a beat with Jason, his replacement. They didn't qualify for Blizzcon since they lost 2-3 to Murloc Geniuses in the semi-finals, a match that featured Naventic trying and failing with the Medivac cheese on Sky Temple, but they still put up a very strong performance against the eventual regional champions. Expect them to be the main challengers for the Bloodlust crown to Denial eSports.
Scouting Report: Naventic is all-in on the double Support/Auriel meta, with Jason actually playing the Auriel and showcasing strong play on the hero (Kenma is the Support player on Naventic). Naventic also shows strong preferences for Greymane and Lunara, which should come as no surprise. Tomster initially made a name for himself in the scene with his great Greymane play, and Lunara has such strong synergy with Auriel.
After a poor performance at Burbank, Astral Authority got welcome news when Equinox returned to the competitive scene and rejoined the team. They showed significantly stronger play at PAX West, challenging Naventic during the group stages and defeating Gale Force eSports 2-0 to make the semi-finals. They still have a long way to go toward beating the elite teams, though, as Denial eSports easily crushed them 3-0 to advance to the Finals.
Scouting Report: Equinox used to be known as a 100% melee assassin/bruiser player, but at PAX West he became much more of a flex. We saw him on Medivh, tanks like Johanna, and even Sgt Hammer. Batterry, meanwhile, was playing Chen anytime Astral decided to go for a double Warrior composition, favoring him because of Chen's extremely good laning phase for a Warrior and his potential to isolate heroes for the kill with his Wandering Keg heroic. It had mixed success. FrozenX, meanwhile, showed a strong preference for playing Lunara, picking her on 6 out of the 10 maps Astral played at PAX West.
Well, they got Fan and many proclaimed them the saviors of NA Heroes. And then PAX West happened. Gale Force eSports trolled the NA heroes scene with "roster changes" afterward:
They certainly didn't deserve to go to Blizzcon with that performance, but they'll improve as they practice and develop team synergy. It'll be interesting to see if they have become significantly stronger as a team, and able to significantly threaten Denial or Naventic. They certainly have the talent and potential to do so.
Scouting Report: Much like k1pro was previously, Khroen is being heavily criticized for his small hero pool. He has made a name for himself as one of the best Li Ming players in the world, but he has struggled to have the same impact on other heroes. We saw some fantastic Tracer play from him during the 1st Fall NA regional at Burbank, but the Tracer nerfs which took effect afterward really hurt Khroen coming into PAX West. Certainly, Khroen played a decent Zagara at the event, but he sometimes struggled on Falstad and had a performance to forget on Jaina. Zagara and Falstad are both being nerfed with the Machines of War patch, so the big question is: What hero(es) will Khroen become great at playing that will prevent teams from banning Li Ming and laughing all the way to the bank?
TNC is no more. Goku replaced Kladeous on the roster, and Dumpster Tier Superstars has looked much stronger during the Bloodlust qualifiers as a result. They had a horrible performance at PAX West, failing to win a single map, but they have a chance to redeem themselves here at Bloodlust.
Scouting Report: PAX West saw Faye playing TLV, and during the qualifiers of Bloodlust it became apparent that the poor performance at PAX West has in no way dissuaded Faye from picking them in tournament play. Oddly enough, TLV has become a somewhat staple pick for DTS on Dragon Shire, which is not the standard map(s) they are considered strong on. There certainly is an advantage on having so many bodies, though. It makes it a lot easier to pick up a DK or deny one, just like a global on the map.
Pretty much a full amateur team, they nonetheless managed to finish in 1st place in their bracket of the Bloodlust qualifiers.
Scouting Report: Auriel, Kerrigan and Lunara are extremely common picks for this team. They are certainly capable of playing more standard picks, but these are the heroes they usually go into drafts trying to pick.
This team's been around forever in the NA scene as 2Arc, but the players decided to leave the organization and this is the new name they picked.
Scouting Report: Nice! had a ton of success against Vox Nihili with Auriel as their main Support, both in games and in the draft. When they chose not to pick her or banned her, they were out drafted and then got crushed in game by Dumpster Tier Superstars.
They challenged Vox Nihili throughout the PAX West qualifiers before finally upsetting them in the 3rd and final qualifier in order to qualify for PAX West. At PAX West, they were clearly outmatched on every map except one: Battlefield of Eternity, where they brought out the Tyrande/ETC comp. With Astral Authority locking in off meta picks in Sgt Hammer and Lt Morales, this opened up Astral Authority to Imported Support's comp's main strength and IS took full advantage.
Scouting Report: Much like aPm, Hoss has a thing for Brightwing: he picked her in every game except one at PAX West. And you know what? Imported Support didn't win a single game with Brightwing... but they won the only game that he didn't pick her (a Tyrande pick comp on Battlefield of Eternity)! It looks like Imported Support is trying to fix this problem, as they didn't pick her during any of their streamed games during the Bloodlust qualifiers, but it remains to be seen how successful they'll be with the change.
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