Heroes of the Storm's Western Clash competition returned to IEM Katowice this past weekend, and speaking of returns, it was Team Dignitas once again who lifted the trophy after fulfilling everyone's expectations to win the whole tournament, but it wasn't an easy road, and there were a lot of surprises for everyone along the way.
For a start, fellow EU team Fnatic had announced days before the competition that their shot-caller QuackNiix was ill and unable to play, and that they'd drafted top of the League leaderboard SonicLeBeast as a stand-in, a player without competitive experience and who had never been to a tournament before. As a result, it was a mixed back for Fnatic, who won against Team Freedom but then lost against Tempo Storm, being sent to the losers' bracket where they beat HeroesHearth 3-0 before getting eliminated by their own 3-0 defeat by Zealots.
It's safe to say that Zealots were a large part of this surprising tournament, as despite an early 2-0 defeat to Tempo Storm to send them to losers' bracket, yesterday in particular they continued to impress again and again, defeating not only Fnatic but also Tempo Storm again to get into the final. Even then they posed problems, taking the lead from Dignitas and only losing out on the title by the closest margin, coming down to the last few seconds of the sixth map of the series, with chaotic team fights eventually deciding the close grand final.
Dignitas probably weren't as convincing as they'd have liked to have been here, but elsewhere they looked like the confident and dominant side we expected them to be, beating HeroesHeart, Team Twelve, and Tempo Storm to seal their place in last night's final against a Zealots team that they felt were so hard to prepare against, as they said in interviews below.
For more on the tournament, check out all our videos below with the top teams and players. Did you expect Dignitas to win like they did?