Murloc Geniuses Win 'Heroes of the Storm' NA Fall Regionals

Going into the Heroes of the Storm Fall Regionals, most discussion revolved around two teams.

Defending North American champions Gale Force eSports, despite a disappointing performance at DreamHack All-Stars, were favorites to repeat. The recent addition of Josh "bkid" Choi looked to only make them stronger.

On the other side of the brackets were Team Naventic, who had a strong showing at DreamHack, and they had upgraded their roster with former Tempo Storm member Thomas "Tomster" Maguire.

Before the weekend, one would have a had a hard time making an argument for any other team to make it to BlizzCon and win the $25,000 first prize. Unfortunately, for both organizations, a pair of recently reformed teams would have a lot to say about that.

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The landscape of the tournament changed drastically in the group stage when GFE ran into Vox Nihili. Vox had shown flashes of brilliance in their previous match against Gul'Dans Game, nearly coming back from a 30-to-7 deficit on Towers of Doom, but no one expected what came next.

Vox's draft strategy, which included a dive-heavy composition relying on a slightly out-of-favor Tracer pick, caught GFE off guard. Gale Force were never able to get their feet under them, making several questionable draft choices.

Vox took advantage and decisively won the match 2-0, leaving the defending champs to fight their way through the loser's bracket.

In the final round of the loser's bracket, GFE found themselves in a rematch with Team Name Change to earn a spot in the playoffs. While they were able to defeat TNC 2-0, they never looked confident.

GFE team captain MichaelUdall told me after the match when asked about his shot calling: "I've been overeager on bosses a couple of times, which is a big thing where we've been punished."

This questionable decision-making was apparent, even in their victories, and would continue to be a theme for GFE throughout the tournament.

Gale Force's victory set the stage for the match everyone expected with Team Naventic, except it would happen in the semifinals, meaning one of the tournament favorites would find themselves in the unexpected position of needing to go through qualifiers again.

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Team Naventic, on the other hand, looked great in the group stages, showing the solid play we've come to expect from them.

With TN having not dropped a single game leading up to the playoffs, combined with Gale Force's shaky play, Naventic had to be feeling confident going into the semis.

In an epic five-game match, GFE showed glimpses of why they were the tournament favorites. MichaelUdall took the lessons learned from their loss to Vox and adopted a dive-heavy comp, featuring Tracer and Greymane, that benefitted tremendously from Khroen's near-perfect Tracer play.

But it wasn't all positive for GFE, in their losses they were once again exposed in the draft, reacting poorly to an unexpected Lt. Morales pick, forcing them into an odd double-tank, double-support comp. They also were repeatably punished for their over-aggressiveness and weak rotations, often arriving late to the party and not getting out of failed engagements quickly enough.

Despite this, GFE was able to regroup and knock Naventic out of the playoffs and into the position of having to go through qualifiers once more.

The other side of the bracket saw Group B's winner Vox Nihili up against many people's dark-horse pick, Murloc Geniuses. And despite losing handily to Naventic, they dispatched the loser's bracket without much trouble.

Vox looked a shell of the team that took out Gale Force, never quite finding a strategy that worked for them. Murloc found ways to punish the same unique drafting strategy that was so effective for Vox against Gale Force. The result was the most lopsided match of the tournament, sending Murloc Geniuses to the finals and giving them a guaranteed spot at PAX.

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With the finals set, the favorites quickly became the underdogs, with analyst and former pro DunkTrain going as far as to pick Murloc Geniuses as the likely winner.

Murloc team captain, Manny "Fury" Medina, told me they spent a good amount of time thinking about how to unsettle Gale Force in the draft: "We wanted to see who their strongest heroes were... We wanted to make sure they didn't get their comfort heroes."

To Gale Force's credit, they did not have the meltdowns in the draft they experienced earlier in the tournament. Instead, it proved to be Murloc's ability to pick good counter comps and execute well with them that gave them the upper hand. Even out-of-meta picks like LiLi ended up paying off in a big way.

When Gale Force were on their game, they were great. They kept their heads during the drafts, nailed their rotations and continued to unsettle Murloc's back line with solid diving and clutch support play.

However, the one flaw that GFE was unable to remedy before the finals was their over-aggressiveness, which proved to be their undoing. Several questionable boss calls from GFE allowed Murloc to exploit this further and turn the tide of several games.

They were repeatedly able to punish GFE's failed engagements, often turning them into lopsided trades. In the end, consistency, calm under pressure and solid drafting led Murloc Geniuses to the Fall Regional championship.

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Gale Force will have a lot to think about going into PAX, especially given that they will likely be up against Team Naventic once again. They know their flaws, but fixing them has proved difficult. Their road to BlizzCon has never looked more unsure.

For Murloc Geniuses, it will be all about preparing for the unpredictable meta that cross-region championships bring. Fury still sees some improvements they can make: "We need to develop more compositions... Our drafts are pretty weak compared to other regions."

Getting this far is a huge accomplishment for Murloc Geniuses, and they will take some deserved time to celebrate before refocusing their efforts on preparing for BlizzCon.

You can hear more about the Fall Regionals on the latest episode of Bleacher Report's eSports podcast Rally Point.

Disclosure: The costs for attending this event were covered by Blizzard. All opinions expressed by the writer are his own.