The night started slow. I joined Merlock and friends to quickly gain three levels on Zul. The first game was one of my worst in a long time, but I kinda figured him out after that. The party grew tired of AI, and I was faced with the choice between crazy quick match and solo AI. But lo, there came a better way. Custom game.
Custom game. Custom. Game. We had ten. Eight? Nine. Close enough. The custom game was on. I took Thrall into a four on four and fared surprisingly well. We lost handily, but it was fun more often than not. I gave up at the end, chasing a kill while the enemy pounded on our weakened core. I'm sure we had a chance at one point, but that wasn't it.
Custom games are the most relaxing way to play outside of AI. Sometimes, more than that. They don't count for anything in your in-game profile, and they only upload to HotSlogs if you play five on five. Whether you play with friends or random chatters, it's a good way to practice against real people without hurting one or more of your invisible rankings.
Next up was all-random, my least favorite modifier on any game mode. I survived three brawls in Silver City, all embarrassing losses, and that was already too much ARAM for me. I elected to watch this eight hero rumble, and probably had more fun than I would have playing. I joked, cheered and taunted as blue team got out to an early lead. They had, arguably, the two best players in the clan. Didn't seem fair. Sagasti's Zeratul made several clever plays, at times toying with red team. Then the wind shifted. Red team found a foothold and clawed their way back in, pushing, playing aggressive but smart, securing a Dragon and completing the underdog win.
By this point, we were having entirely too much fun. Someone suggested an all-Cho team vs. an all-Gall team and we ran a test match. In case you're curious, no, it doesn't behave like Try Mode, where choosing Cho gives you a melee-only bruiser and choosing Gall gives you an immobile mage. Turns out, all those one-headed ogres get randomized into other heroes. Boring.
A couple people left at this point, and I figured we were through for the night. Started up an AI game just in time to hear someone suggest Brawl. I cursed myself, but they still had a party of five, so I don't suppose I missed out. Still, I was jealous as I listened to them laughing and cruising to victory in four straight rounds. That was when the night went from average to pretty damn good. The party lost one more member to sleep and I got the invite. Welcome to the fun.
Now, going into this, I was riding a six game QM losing streak and a seven game streak in Brawl. I couldn't beat an egg. And wouldn't you know it, I broke everyone's perfect Brawl record with a first round loss. Good thing it's best of three.
Round One gave me the choice between Tassadar, Li Li and Tyrande. I don't play Li Li, so I had to pick one of my least favorite non-Uther supports. In hindsight, I should've taken Tyrande. She's less dependent on the talents you don't get in Arena Brawls, she has a stun, her Hunter's Mark is great for racing, and I could have done more with her heroics. I got little use out of Tassadar's Force Wall. On the upside, I only died once, despite mistaking Dimensional Shift for Psionic Storm early on. Oh, and I just realized I never used Oracle. Between that and throwing my shield around with little purpose, I'm confident I cost us the round.
Round Two gave me a choice of supports again, but this time I had at least two who could make a difference. One was Lt. Morales, the most powerful single-target healer in the game and a tremendous enabler. But why play healbot when I could be the slavering hellbeast that is Rehgar? A damaging shield, a slowing totem, and best of all, the teamwide version of Stimdrone, Bloodlust! The other team had Rehgar, too, but I clearly outplayed him because we won the round. Joking aside, I do believe the round ended when I popped BL and we took a Punisher from about 100 to 0 for the final points. Always punish the punishers.
Round Three was shaping up to be the best yet. I got my favorite class - warrior - and two good choices in E.T.C. and Dehaka. I waffled and, total brain fart, neglected to pre-select a hero before time ran out. The game automatically assigned the first option, my worst warrior, the least tanky hero in the class, the barbarian Sonya. Great, I thought, I just threw the game. Somehow, some way, my teammates carried my ass through, and I managed to make a few decent plays. It went about the same as the second round, close but not too close, and we completed the comeback. Streak snapped.
Sadly, that was the end of Brawl, as the rest of the party collected a thousand gold, and it seemed once more that my night was over. Quick Match was back on the docket, and it didn't sound like anyone was looking for a serious game. I thought to excuse myself and leave with my modest winnings, but as I tend to do, I hesitated. Someone said "all specialists" and I was lost. We only wound up with two, Xul and my Sylvanas, but I figured that was enough.
Things went south in a hurry. The enemy team was as strangely composed as ours, with two healers and damage split between the front and backline. They were only a party of four, though, with Morales thrown in. I found myself facing a simple strategy that was more effective than it should have been. Zul'Jin and Morales sat in top lane, begging for someone to dive in for the kill, but punishing anything short of overwhelming force. In hindsight, I should've called for help. Instead, I spent most of the time in a one on two or two on two, neither of which we could win. I knew I needed to hit Morales, if only to force her back to recharge, but I didn't think I could go that deep and survive. Even though she was close enough to high-five Zul for his seventeen kills and six-digit hero damage.
By the way, HotSlogs says the Zul'Jin player in our match had a bronze level MMR, so I might have been outplayed by someone very bad using a very basic strategy. Or he doesn't upload his games. It also tells me he took Guillotine, which might account for his six deaths, and that he never healed himself, electing to drain his healers' mana, presumably while balancing his health to increase damage. Wise or reckless? Hard to say, though he certainly helped his team more than hurt them. I'll have to watch the replay to investigate further.
My struggles up top led to the enemy securing the first two Dragon Knights and a commanding lead. Somehow, in all this time, they didn't get a Keep. When we fought back, winning a team fight to get our first Dragon, I marched it down the middle lane and burned it to the ground. Their Keep, that is, and anything else I could. Don't ask me why I thought it was a good idea to put Sylvanas, the push-enabler, in the pushing machine, but hey, it worked. I was just happy our team got in there at all. Happier still when we banded together to carve a path to their core. Really came in handy later.
As good as our push was, we lost three heroes and found ourselves on the back foot when the Dragon expired. That led to more deaths, a lost Keep, and the enemy's third DK. It was all but over when they made the fatal mistake of crossing the top lane bridge, a notorious choke point. At first, I thought we were losing the fight. After spending most of the game running from fights I didn't think we could win, I decided to stay in this one because I thought we'd lose? I dunno. I wasn't giving up. I guess I couldn't choose between pumping out as much damage as possible and saving myself while my friends died.
Uther and I perished, but three of our number lived while four of theirs fell. Putting Morales in the Dragon made sense on paper, seeing as they had redundant supports and Rehgar had Bloodlust. With only the Dragon left alive, Morales was left to skitter away hopelessly, mopped up by a marauding bear.
Three on nil, keep down, level 20+ death timers, guaranteed victory. Our bloodsoaked few ran to the core and punched it till it cried. Another streak snapped. Bonus, it was my first win as Sylvanas outside of AI.
What followed next was one of the
We drew my best map, Cursed Hollow, and I made sure to follow or teleport to my team at all times. I did little other than heal and stay alive, but I did those pretty well. I once queued into an AI game with Auriel and found a Cho'Gall on my team. I followed him around and healed more than 40k in a ten minute win. This game ran about ten minutes, too, but I didn't heal for 40k. I healed well over fifty thousand HP. The other team had two supports, Malf and Tass, yet only combined for 42k while losing all game. You'd think they'd have plenty to heal, but I guess they were too dead for that.
This game taught me that Gul'Dan is incredibly weak against Brightwing. Kinda obvious that sustained damage would be weak against sustained healing, but it was amazing how nothing he did affected me for more than a few seconds. If he tried to drain my life, I could polymorph him. A more adept BW would likely drop a Q-W combo on him while auto-attacking, but that didn't occur to me.
Anyways, we got all three tributes, took a Keep, took a Boss, built a pile of corpses and won my second fastest QM game ever. The fastest? The one time I've been able to run Thrall-Rehgar-Diablo. The power!
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