Day one of the battle for the European Championship in Heroes of the Storm!

Many are on the Road to BlizzCon, but only a handful few will make it all the way. This weekend, the O2 arena in Prague became the battlegrounds where the European representatives would be decided.

While ROCCAT and Natus Vincere had won their respective groups on Friday, and with that directly qualifying for the semifinals on Saturday, everything was still up in the air for the remaining teams. The big four would have to go head to head in a series of best of three.

Decider

Team Dignitas and Team Liquid were first out. The series was dominated by Liquid constantly finding themselves out of position and unable to efficiently fend of Dignitas’ team fight prowess. Despite losing the second round, Dignitas still had the superior drafts and better mechanics. And the uncharacteristically bleak Liquid was defeated by round three. Dignitas won 2-1 and moved on to the semifinals.

Next up were Virtus.pro and G2. While VP managed to secure round one, G2 soon bounced back into shape and was able to tie the scoreboard after the second round. Once again, poor positioning proved to be the villain as VP repeatedly had to see their key heroes fall due to odd situation reading from the team. Something was definitely bothering VP and the miscommunication resulted in significant misplays. In the third round G2 could easily capitalise on VP’s ill-timed aggression and secure the series, winning 2-1.

Semifinals

The first semifinal of the evening welcomed ROCCAT onto the stage. While Dignitas had the advantage of having played on the Heroes stage only hours earlier, ROCCAT on the other hand were the group B winners and had won their games in a convincing fashion. A difficult matchup to predict.

Going into the series it quickly became clear that Team Dignitas had kept the momentum from their previous victory and played with conviction. ROCCAT were caught off guard by the confident and potent plays by their opponent and despite making a small comeback in the third round, they still found themselves constantly outmaneuvered and ultimately defeated in round 4. Dignitas winning the series 3-1 not only qualified them for the grand finals, but also earned them the coveted ticket to BlizzCon. Well played!

In interviews, G2 players had previously mentioned Natus Vincere as the biggest worry and threat to their BlizzCon ambition. When entering the stage for a second time, G2 would now face their main antagonist. Na’Vi had steamrolled through their games the day before and they were hungry for BlizzCon.

The games would be a bloodbath and G2 could do little else but to watch their defences crumble before them. But despite the outcome being brutal, they still managed to put up some resistance and went down fighting. The lean, mean team machine that is Na’Vi secured the win 3-0 – watch out BlizzCon!

Join us for the grand final!

Are you ready for today’s grand finals?  Don’t miss any of the games - tune in here at 16:00 CEST and follow @ESLHeroes on Twitter for all the latest updates! For more information about the Road to BlizzCon, visit the tournament series’ official website.

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