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Team Dignitas Wins the 2018 HGC Western Clash

Heroes of the Storm held its Western Clash from Intel Extreme Masters Katowice, where the best team in Europe made their case as the best team in the world.

Ozzie Mejia

March 4, 2018 1:10 PM

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Heroes of the Storm has wrapped this year's HGC Western Clash from Intel Extreme Masters Katowice. It was an exciting seven-game series, but Team Dignitas cemented themselves as one of the best teams in the world. They defeated Zealots in a series of inches to win the Western Clash 4-3.

Game 7 came down to Towers of Doom, with Zealots fielding a team of Tyrael, Tracer, Medivh, Leoric, and Stukov. Dignitas countered with Blaze, Malfurion, Diablo, Genji, and Tychus. Zealots had their backs against the wall, but the turning point was a critical team fight that started out 4v5 with Tyrael respawning late and unable to get to the fray. But it didn't matter for Zealots, as they were able to score kills on Diablo and Genji to gain crucial momentum.

But it was the team fight at the end where Zealots was just unable to hang on. Team Dignitas completely cleared out the opposition, allowing them to take the final altar and claim a tournament victory.

The Grand Finals were close throughout, even with Dignitas starting with a 1-0 lead by virtue of entering through the Upper Bracket. The series started off with Zealots winning on Volskaya Foundry. Zealots narrowly eked out another close one in Battlefield of Eternity, giving them a 2-1 lead.

Team Dignitas looked to have things squarely in hand from there, taking the next two and looking to have the tournament wrapped up on Cursed Hollow. But Zealots came out ready to fight, with Adrian "adrd" Wojcik's Medivh and Christoph "Cris" Gowitzke's Greymane leading the way. A triple kill at the end tied the Grand Finals 3-3.

Team Dignitas is currently the top team in Europe at 6-1 and stands among the best teams in the entire world. Their only loss this season came against this same Zealots squad. While they faced a very game HeroesHearth Esports squad in the opening Best of 3 round, they cruised to 3-1 and 3-0 victories against Team Twelve and Tempo Storm to reach the Grand Finals.

The HGC Western Clash was contested under the Maiev patch and it certainly showed throughout the weekend. While the Jailer wasn't picked for every game this weekend, she proved to be a difference maker and was frequently on the winning side. It's among the reasons that the character wound up being Zealots' first ban pick for the final game.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?