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NA Qualifiers top 8 - Know the teams
Hey guys, NA Quals Top 8 kick off at 8p.m. EST, 5p.m. PST.
For those who don't know, HGC is moving to league formats in NA and EU to up the content level significantly. To allow players to focus on playing, every team will get a 100K Salary for the year to share among it's players, so this qual has real money on the line. This is the first of 3 qualifiers. Each will qualify 2 teams for HGC 2017's Winter and Spring Seasons. Astral Authority and Denial eSports auto-qualified for being NA representatives at Blizzcon. Right now we are in the top 8 for the first qual, and we'll see 6 games tonight, with the winners of each bracket getting a slot in HGC 2017:
Top Bracket:
1) Gale Force eSports
9) Chu8 my Hotdoge4) Gust or Bust
5) Vox NihiliBottom Bracket:
2) Naventic
7) Grandmaster Jackets3) Dumpster Tier Superstars
6) No Tomorrow
Gale Force eSports, stopped me if you heard this before, had another roster swap. bKid left the team to join Naventic, and GFE brought in Equinox to play tanks. Yesterday however we saw Khroen play Muradin to let Equinox play Tracer, so this roster really seems to be 4 flexes and akaface at this point. GFE pulled out some interesting comps yesterday and managed a 6 minute win on Braxis Holdout, coring off the first zerg wave. Given that the top bracket is a bit lighter, GFE is a substantial favorite to qualify tonight.
Chu8 my Hotdoge is a team started by Chu8. The biggest name on this team, however, is Glaurung. After international play, Glaurung left Denial eSports in a surprising turn of events. Glau is known for fantastic play on Chen, Zeratul, Illidan, and Dehaka. And not much else. His hero pool is notoriously limited in terms of top level heroes, and he is often target banned in draft. Joining these two are former TNC players Justing (tank) and Buds (support). Both players are certainly in the upper echelon of players in Hots, but are not top 4 team material given TNC's long history of failing to make it out of groups at LAN events. Yoda from Team Blaze rounds out the roster.
Gust or Bust had significant shake-ups following the last NA regional. Despite finishing in the top 4, Gust or Bust lost Equinox to Gale Force eSports and Talking Trees to No Tomorrow (then Barrel Boys). GoB added nightmare, a long time amateur heroes player who likely hasn't been on any team you've heard of, and Jin played on Level-up at the Nexus Games (a team featuring several current members of No Tomorrow).
Vox Nihili has long been a name in the amatuer scene that made top 4 at the first NA Fall Regional. Vox has since added HaoNguyen from the remains of TNC. Vox failed to make the last NA main event, so I'm surprised they were as high as a 5 seed. Them being a 5 seed reveals NA for the dumpster fire it has become. Vox most recently went 0-3 in the Nexus Games against Denial eSports, and had to forfeit against GFE. Vox may be playing with a sub (I didn't see them play but that's what the Tweeter you kids used told me).
Naventic cut Jason and added bKid from GFE. They are known famously for memes such as Tilt Brothers and Zuna Feed OpieOP. That aside, they are consistently one of the two best teams at team fighting in NA. Go back and watch their game against GFE at Bloodlust on Tomb of the Spider Queen to see some of the most devastating team fights I've ever seen. They are easily the favorite in the lower bracket, and arguably should have gotten the 1-seed over Gale Force. Not only are they my favorite to qualify, but they are my favorite to be one of the Top 2 NA teams, wrestling a top spot from Denial eSports.
Grandmaster Jackets is Killuziion's team. Killuziion previously played for then Astral Authority, now Gust or Bust. In my opinion, he is one of the most underrated players in NA. Insomnia is a long time streamer who previously played for 2ARC Gaming and has bounced around various amateur teams since. ZugRug is the only other player with LAN experience, playing with Team Nom at the NA Spring 2016 Regional, but finished 7th/8th. That said, this team has been impressive given their lack of star power. Will be interesting to see if they can give Naventic a good game.
Dumpster Tier Superstars was built from the core of Brain Power after Glaurung was poached by Crescendo(now Denial) and Cattlepillar poached by Murloc Geniuses (now Astral Authority). The three core members of Faye, iakona, and Srey have all been there since Brain Power. Prismaticism (formally TNC and then Denial) was picked up after Denial replace him with iDream. The newest member of the team, Goku, was previously on Tempo Storm and briefly on Team Name Change. This roster is pretty strong, but DTS has yet to translate their experienced roster into success at premier events, finishing 7th-8th at both Fall Regionals. However, this team finished 3rd at the Bloodlust Tournament, behind Gale Force and Naventic.
No Tomorrow, aka Barrel Boys minus Macintyre (who was involved in bringing the team back before getting picked up by Denial) has a strong roster of veterans in the NA scene: TalkingTrees (Gust or Bust), TigerJK (Team Name Change/Tempo Storm), erho (Naventic, Tempo Storm) and Jason (Panda Global, Dumpster Tier Superstars, Naventic) all have LAN experience. Cassanova (Level Up, Peter Dinklage) is a rising star in the scene who fills the roster nicely.
Prediction time (you not only can disagree with this, I encourage it, and won't be offended. It's all for teh lulz anyways):
I think GFE and Naventic advance and qualify, and I feel they'll do so comfortable. I wouldn't be surprised if both went 5-0. As far as upsets, I think chu8 could steal a game off often inconsistent Gale Force to make it interesting, but they haven't been playing as a team long enough to do much else. I think DTS will advance to the final against Naventic, but wouldn't be surprised to see No Tomorrow pull the upset. Either way, Naventic will out play them.
Matt MacNeil
Awesome write up :D