ITN - 189

#189 - Into the Nexus: “HGC Finals Begin!”

• Garrett • Kyle

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Intro: Welcome to Into the Nexus! The Heroes of the Storm podcast!

Diamond 4

I noticed Uther got every middle ban but nobody wanted to pick him early or really play him.
So First pick Uther. Middle pick uther. Last pick uther. Uther it hard.
List goes (if first 3 picks :

Garrosh
Uther
Artanis
Guillotine Zul’jin

Stukov is rough! (outside of Braxis)

I’ll be on the Living Blizzard panel at BlizzCon Saturday, November 4th at 10 am on the Epic stage (aka the community stage in the Level 2 North Hall.

It’s being hosted by TradeChat and the full panel consists of:

Sean Plott “aka Day[9]”
Bluddshed
Trump
AnneMunition
Garrett Weinzierl

Amove/Frogpants Night-before-BlizzCon Meetup!

Meetup is from 9pm-midnight in the Palos Verdes room in the 4th floor of the Hilton, next door to World of Podcasts.

There will be a cash bar in there with a much shorter line than you'd find in the lobby.

ITN on Monday next week!

SEND YO EMAILS!

News

Reminder, you can go to ITNcast.reddit.com to submit stories or upvote submissions for the next episode.

HGC Preview

Roll20 Group of Death

They have to beat either Dignitas or Tempest (sorry RED Canids).

I like their chances against Tempest. They’re far from the scariest of the Korean teams.

Garrett’s Picks	Kyle’s Picks
Group A: MVP Black / Tempo Storm Made this call based on Chall Enge having to sub in a player. Not looking good for my prediction.	Today, October 26th (all groups start at 11 am) Fireworks group. Very competitive group. MVP Black has grown the hype a ton for themselves since Eastern Clash. Deady Kittens is the wild rocky card. They did alot of Korean scrims.
Group B: Fnatic / Anyone else’s call It’s Fnatic and three equally skilled teams.	Friday October 27th Fnatic is lookin’ fancy. Team Freedom always is a combo machine that could take it. Nothing to lose. Substitute players though.
Group C: Dignitas / Roll20 Let’s be honest, this is a strong Group. Being hopeful here.	Saturday October 28th New blood Roll20 Dignitas always solid
Group D: Ballistix / Team Expert Going with Expert over SPT because of their damn VISA issues again.	Sunday October 29th Ballistix SPT chinese region climbers Soul Torturers are unknown Whole group is a different play style partially because of region

It started today!

MVP Black vs. Deadly Kittens

Deadlykittens first picks Auriel?
MVP Black leads with Tracer Tassadar - Trashadar
Both teams lead with Double Support / Double Tank Comps
MVP Black: Morales, Tassadar, Sonya, Tracer and Muradin
Deadly Kittens: Auriel, Lucio, Dehaka, Greymane, Johanna
MVP Black crushes 10:50 on Sky Temple - DK couldnt preasure
Draft 2 was neater, but MVP still crushed

Picks So Far:

Brightwing First ban / Garrosh
Mid bans often contain Uther
Double Support Every Game so far, both sides

Exception of Tempo vs. CE - Stukov Medivh (lost to Reghar Lucio)
Stukov Tassadar
Auriel Lucio
Auriel Brightwing
Brightwing Uther
Lucio Brightwing
Ana Uther
Tassadar Morales

Double Warrior Most games (Tank / Bruiser)

Exceptions

MVP Black ran Butcher Tyrael for a 13 min victory
Tempo storm runs Malthael as a bruiser with ETC. (even neglecting ranged damage vs. Deadlykittens to go Kerrigan Maltheal ETC

Sonya ETC
Sonya Muradin
Dehaka Johanna
Johanna Sonya
Garrosh Muradin

Deadly Kittens loves combo’ing Lucio and Reghar
Lots of Muradin
Lots of Malthael and Dehaka but its not looking the best
Counter Garrosh with Kel’Thuzad burst

Links

HGC Plans for 2018

All HGC matches will be livestreamed at 1080p and 60 frames per second in 2018
First week of league play for the 2018 Season kicks off January 26th

32 teams across China, Korea, Europe, and North America
8 teams per regions compete for 10 weeks leading up to the MSB
5 weeks into that run will be the:

Eastern Clash: Korea and China
Western Clash: Europe and NA

Repeat this for the second half of the year expect ending in the Finals instead of the MSB

A unique twist

Clash winners will open up an additional spot for another team from their home region at the Mid-Season Brawl or HGC Finals

They used L5’s Eastern Clash win in August as an example. Were this rule in place for 2017, the 2 HGC Finals would have added a fourth team from HGC Korea along with the three that qualified.

Wild Cards

Australia/New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan will now have a dedicated tier of competition that awards a trip to the Mid-Season Brawl and HGC Finals
Eastern Wild Card: Southeast Asia and Taiwan
Western Wild Card: Latin America and Australia/New Zealand

More languages!

Multi-language streams for HGC North America and HGC Europe

Specific language offerings to-be-announced closer to the 2018 season

Links

https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/788r26/the_hgc_is_leveling_up_in_2018/

Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN

Thanks to our Patreon producers Declan H, CheezyBob, and Mythdol.

Patron Thanks

NeurosX
Josh Schultz
Jake Adams
DerVorsitzender
Kevin Carpenter

Strategy

Loot Boxes Equals Hero Exploration

What have you been playing?

If you’ve just been leveling like I have... want to pal around and talk heroes we don’t usually play but we’re having a blast with?

Success:

Artanis - Won 2 games with him, whoops hes on the main roster. Great Garrosh replacement. More fluid than stitches. Though I did have to solo tank a HL game.
Greymane - An old main, rolling around like a jackass.
Ragnaros - XP wins Quickmatch. Lava wave wins quickmatch. So many games won on the back of Hand of Ragnaros.
Stitches - Taught me sweet hooks are sweet, but everyone sees them coming. Re-engages are way easier to hit and way more effective.
Lucio - In the house.
Hammer - Like Raynor.

Failure:

Dehaka - Poor guy has a terrible win rate. Seems to live and die based on Map Rotation (like Gazlowe). Essense farm too distracting, especially from behind.
Junkrat - I cant shoot random damage anymore! I feel so uneffective. Numbers are fine, but I need deletes!
Malthael - Its tough letting your target know you are targetting them before the engage.
Tracer - From ahead, oh yea. From behind, I have no idea what im doing.

Lots of talk about improving around Reddit this week for those interested in resources.

Emails

Drunkenafropanda

Hi guys, first off love the show and because of your advice I have smashed hero league (diamond 3)

I currently have an issue of trying to explain how to counter varian to my friends who claim as it is not as simple as it seems due to his parry with twinfury build. I try to explain the 8 second CD but its not enough.

They tilt quite often when he is in a game due to if the enemy team snowballs with his twinfury. This is also in quickplay so we are not choosing a counter at champ select. And when he is in the game with Morales........

Please give me some of your great wisdom!

Outro

Patreon Shout Out

ITN is supported by our badass Patrons. You can become a ITN Patron by going to Patreon.com/itn.

Thanks to our Patreon producers Declan H, CheezyBob, and Mythdol. ITN coffee mugs and glasses are over at bit.ly/amovestore.

Catch the live show Thursday nights at 8pm Eastern on Twitch.tv/Amovetv. Mobile live stream provided by Alpha Geek Radio. Go to mobile.alphageekradio.com.

Follow the show on Twitter @ITNcast, Facebook.com/Amovetv, And ITNpodcast.reddit.com.

Thanks to Brian Griffith, the musician responsible for our intro music. He can be found at briangriffithmusic.com or @briangriffith on twitter..

Personal Stuff

Garrett

Follow Garrett @GarrettArt

NOMOONart.com for Garrett’s stream designs.

The Angry Chicken: A Hearthstone Podcast

The Angry Nerd

Kyle

Kylefergusson.com