BRFC Interview – Heroes Rising 2016
What was the mood like after the quick 2-0 from C9 in the semifinals?
Fan: We misplayed game 1 on a lot of things, and were winning game 2 pretty hard even with some misplays, so we knew that the series should have been 1-1 and knew that we could have easily taken the series. The mood was still fine after that because we knew we had the skills to win, just needed to stay tight with our play.
Erho:Going into the game, we expected to do well. After losing, we were confident we had figured out why and fixed it quickly.
Kenma: g1 we messed up draft and didn’t play the early game correctly, g2 we just threw super hard and had a few shotcalls that weren’t listened to. we knew we can beat if we make less mistakes and fixed the draft.
McIntyre: Although it was a tough lost and getting sent to loser bracket that early would be a serious gauntlet, we were confident that if given the chance we would be able to beat c9 with the information we gathered from those 2 games. (you can check my twitter for a confident response after our lost)
Zuna: we knew that these games weren’t to big a deal so we just wanted to figure out there draft style more than winning.
Going into the grand final series, what did your draft strategy look like?
Fan: I am very familiar with every hero and draft that my old teammates like and do well on, and the rest of BRFC knew exactly which heroes arthelon would play, so we were able to manipulate drafts to get exactly the outcomes we wanted for every game more or less.
Erho:We knew they wanted medic. We took away the picks that enabled medic to be safe (Zeratul/Falstad/Muradin)
Kenma: well each game i pretty much told my team 100% of their picks, we wanted to get them off comfort picks as much as possible by stealing and banning target heroes.
McIntyre: Essentially play mages and keep them off comfort. It seems like if they don’t know how their heroes operate together they fall apart. These comes with flexibility of players and skill level.
Zuna: after game one we knew exactly how they were gonna draft and as you can see with the reverse sweep we outdrafted them all three games.
Game one, with Jaina/Kael/Zeratul/Malf, it seemed like the draft didn’t really work out. Thoughts on the draft that game? Was it a big part of the loss?
Fan: The draft for that game was fine, the issue was more geting caught a lot and messing up early-mid game too hard because of that.
Erho:The draft wasn’t the issue that game; we felt we had a better draft but got caught at the wrong times.
Kenma: our draft was fine that game, a few teamfights just went wrong and we didn’t have any practice with that comp so we didn’t run it correctly.
McIntyre: I thought that draft was insanely spicy and should have worked if we had played better. I mainly base that game on performance not draft.
Zuna: definitely the last game we needed to figure out there draft 100%
McIntyre: Your non-melee picks were on full display, including an exceptional Falstad and Tassadar. How much work have you put in on these recently? Do you enjoy playing them? You seemed very comfortable on both and it seemed to be a big factor in several of your wins.
I’ve been telling my teamates since we formed that falstad was the best hero in this game, and after these games they realized why I’ve been saying it. I’d like to think my success on both of them comes from playing so much HL and having success their with both of those heroes. Imagine the HL struggle and then replace all those random teamates with these 4 guys and you get those games, SO MUCH EASIER. As far as fun factor I enjoy both the utility and high risk high reward both heroes have, you can make HUGE plays with both of their ultimates and I’ve always enjoyed making the enemy team look silly, so these fall right into that category for me.
Kenma: Your Lt. Morales was off the charts, and you’re known for liking this hero. What is it about the hero that you enjoy? What stops you from playing her more often?
medic is just really strong when she makes sense with your comp, she needs a lot of protection and has a lot of counters so u can’t just blind pick her though.
Zuna: Zeratul has fallen from his previous heights as first pick/ban, but you guys played him several times. What do you think about his role in the current meta? Zuna: Zeratul is a very niche picked and we went through lots of mind games just putting me on it 2 games in a row that way they had to fp or ban it which played out later.
Fan: Your playstyle has gone through some big changes since you first joined Maelstrom. Do you miss playing melee assassins? How have you grown as a player in this new role?
I enjoy playing almost all the heroes that I have played both in the past and present. From the beginning of maelstrom to now, I have competitively played through melee assassins, tanks, ranged assassins, and specialists. I usually either play a hero that I think I play better then anyone else, or if I think another player can do a good job on the hero, I will just play whichever hero is left over and fits the meta and draft best. For that reason, I ended up playing lots of heroes in almost every role throughout these months
Erho: You played Leoric a few times in this tournament, including as a solo warrior and with Abathur. What’s your opinion of this hero in the current meta?
Leo is stronger than other tanks in most aspects. In this stun/blow up type meta he is actually the best tank suited to this type of damage due to wraith walk, but just provides no CC on his own. This is obviously traded off for his wave clear and high single target damage (for a tank). Solo warrior leoric is completely viable as well; provided he is played versus targets that can’t escape his entomb.
In that final game you had Zuna play Sonya and Mac on Tassadar: was that decision because you absolutely wanted Mac on Tass?
Fan: Macs played tass more then Zuna has, and both of them play a lot of sonya and are capable of it. I think having a highly adaptable roster is a big strength for a team. When I was playing with c9 at america’s regionals, we had a similar kind of role situation where people played not based on a given “role” necessarily, but based on each player’s preference and what they are strongest on.
Erho: I think Zuna is a better Sonya, and mac a better tassadar. It made sense to all of us.
Kenma: Mc has been playing a lot of tass in scrims, and Zuna has the best Sonya in NA so it wasn’t reallly much of a descision.
McIntyre: These guys think Zuna best sonya NA but he def the 2nd best compared to your boy 🙂 but truthfully I have a really good tass and am very seasoned on it and Zuna played alot of Sonya with his previous team so it felt right. I also have 100% winrate with tassadar in competitive games
Zuna: I haven’t played tass at all lately so I wanted a more comfortable pick.
Kenma said in an interview that Fan fits in better than Arthelon did; can you elaborate? What does Fan bring that Arthelon did not?
Fan: I like giving my opinions and a lot of input and will always bring up any points I think are important in securing the win whether that’s in draft or in game. I think one of the biggest problems c9 has is in communications, which is why I had big doubts about whether or not they would be better after bringing in a much quieter player.
Erho: Arthelon was a quieter player. Most of us prefer to play with very vocal players.
Kenma: Arthelon has a troll attitude and just does his own thing. He doesn’t listen to his teammates at all, while Fan is much more serious like the rest of us and has a lot of input during strategy discussion.
McIntyre: Fan wears sunglasses when it’s bright on stage, Arthelon doesn’t.
Zuna: fan gives a lot of input while playing arthelon is more on the silent side.
You mentioned that C9 allowing you guys to have Abathur was disrespect. Did you expect a ban? Have you seen bans in the past in scrims?
Fan: Not only did they not ban abathur, they also drafted straight into each player’s comfort picks. Their draft was extremely strong in 5v5 teamfights, but they didn’t realize the need for waveclear and had nothing to deal with a last pick abathur. I think with the drafts set up that way, our win was guaranteed as long as we played correctly.
Erho: We set up our draft in such a way that we were able to take Thrall or Abathur last pick and they both be excellent picks. C9 decided they were more afraid of thrall on BHB than abathur, which surprised us since we have arguably the best Abathur in the world on our team.
Kenma: Yeah we were all very suprised they gave us abathur, we were going to take thrall if it was banned that game.
McIntyre: It’s funny because c9 hates abathur but let us have it. Like Erho said we had outs depending on what they drafted and dominated them because of it. Quote of that game, “Just bleed them”
Zuna: We scrimmed them with abathur and there’s no one on c9 that will tell u they dont fear fan’s abathur.
What was your favorite part of the event overall?
Fan: Winning the event was great. Felt like I had something to prove in grand finals as well reading all the articles about the event beforehand that said c9 was untouchable among other things.
Erho: Winning the event and seeing my brothers that both go to school in Santa Ana.
Kenma: i got cream pan for breakfast on sunday, and i haven’t had it in like 2 years. strawberry croissant is godlike.
McIntyre: Getting 2-0’d by c9 then beating them in the finals and disbanding. Proving NA that we are a top team after all. Just another day in our Happy Little Team Environment
Zuna: winning
Is remaining the unsponsored “fan favorites,” as Jesse Cox suggested in a video yesterday, a possibility for this team? Or are you definitely seeking to sign with a large eSports organization?
Fan: Haven’t seen the video just yet but professional gaming isn’t exactly a rich profession, and I think signing for salary, travel accommodations, etc is pretty important at this point in the game.
Erho: We want to sign with an organization. The idea in theory is really good, but in practice eventually won’t work consistently enough in the current state of eSports.
Kenma: I think he has good intentions with his video but that option isn’t very realistic. We are looking to sign with whoever is the best fit with us and wants us representing them.
McIntyre: The scene and the game are both not big enough for us to do that. It’s a cool idea but not likely
Zuna: I think more than anything we would have to make a org as all 5 players to do that which is a lot of work and very hard.
Have you had many offers so far? What organizations have you talked to?
Fan:no comment
Erho: Funyons and Morton’s Iodized Salt
Kenma: secret
McIntyre: We discussed it on my stream last night, our manager brought Kenma reese’s peanutbutter cups day 2 and after eating them he decided we would win the tournament. So I’m hoping after such an inspirational story we get them as a sponsor. But we are looking 🙂
Zuna: no comment
You guys crowdfunded your way to the event: any words to the fans who helped you get here?
Fan: Thanks to everyone for letting us have a chance to show what we are capable of, and cheering for us during the tournament. The fans definitely gave us huge motivation to play our hardest and show everyone what we can do. Big thanks to FLCarGuy as well, awesome person for helping us so much with the crowdfunding.
Erho:Special thanks to FLCarGuy.
Kenma: you the real mvp’s, we wouldn’t even have played in this tourny without you guys.
McIntyre: A huge shoutout to everyone who chipped in. It’s amazing to think we are in the position we are in now because of you guys, we can’t be more grateful. Hots Community is full of happy little people.
Zuna:Huge thanks to everyone that donated for us to get there hopefully we made you guys proud!
Anything else to add?
Fan: Thanks to HeroesRising and our fans once again. Check out fan heroes of the storm on youtube for informative guides!
Erho: Thanks to the Heroes Rising team and eSports arena for the event. Thanks to bigempct for lending me his energy. Oh, and the real reason we won is because Kruglife told us to win.
Kenma: thx to the fans, my teammates/manager, and everyone who makes this esport thing a reality.
McIntyre: Shoutout again to everyone who made this event possible for us. Also shoutout to both my fitness consigilare, Michelle, and my family for the support. BRFC hitting 2016 hard and I think this event hopefully showed that.
Zuna: we only practiced as five for 4 days before the event.
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