We sat down with Team Dignitas Heroes of the Storm Support player Kenn "Zaelia" Rasmussen to discuss the current state of the Support meta, how the team is fairing in HGC, and what sort of impact the changes to the draft will have on the competitive scene.

Looks like Double Support is making a bit of a comeback… Why’s that? For Team Dignitas, is it mostly for the Valla composition on Volskaya?

Zaelia: That composition is specifically for Volskaya, but I think Double Support is here, mostly with Medivh or Tassadar, not two hard supports. I think the meta just slowed down a bit. There’s not really much blow-up anymore. I think the main reason is just Supports falling off in general. The only real strong Supports are Malfurion and Deckard, now maybe Alexstrasza with her new Life-Binder heroic. It just feels horrible when you play Uther and you cannot fight for more than 30 seconds. It’s just not viable when you’ve got Blaze and Yrel that can just sustain so well. Now all of a sudden, you have the Double Support meta coming back because everything slowed down and you just want the most sustained damage you can get and the most sustained healing from a Support.

We saw some really fun and different drafts from you guys in the series against Team Liquid. What was the reasoning behind the Abathur-Tassadar Support composition, and then later the Rehgar Bloodlust pick?

Zaelia: The drafts were prepared and practiced. We had been practicing specifically the Muradin and Yrel opener in the draft because that opens up a lot of paths for later in the draft. Cursed Hollow, specifically, that’s just kinda what we’ve been playing. If we start off with those two, we can get a bit more exotic after that because we will be able to control the fights with those two beefy front-liners. Then we just responded to how Team Liquid drafted, and in this case, we’re like, “Medivh looks good,” we’re very well practiced with him at all times, and Rehgar recently got changed, perhaps slightly buffed.

With the nerf to Ancestral Healing and the buff to his regular Chain Heal, that naturally makes Bloodlust stronger. We didn’t need the saving tool from Ancestral because we had Medivh, so we just decided that if a Muradin and a Yrel got the Bloodlust, they would just run over what Team Liquid had drafted. That was just something we came up with in the moment during the draft, and it worked out beautifully. Exactly as expected.

And the Abathur game, we do this kind of ‘opener’ move of picking Tassadar and Leoric, and that can lead you down so many different paths. Team Liquid locked Diablo and Alexstrasza in, so they basically secured the team fights. And in that case, we’ll have the Tassadar and Tracer to run around them. Because they went all in on team fighting, we just said: “we’re never gonna fight”. We’re not going to need a Support anyway, so we were just going to run the macro, run the Abathur, and completely run around them the entire game. I guess we kinda practiced this, but it’s just something we come up with on the fly and we’re kinda well-versed on all the cheese-ish strategies. We basically just snap decide in the moment, it’s not like we picked Infernal Shrines and went, “we’re going to pick Abathur”.

Team Liquid could be seen as your biggest competitor in EU. With the recent 3-0 sweep, do you think it could hurt your chances at international events that you are not getting pushed to your limits in the HGC EU league play?

Zaelia: Nah, I think generally the level of teams are rising with every roster swap. Teams are getting close to a strong, solid roster. It was complete chaos after BlizzCon. The timings, like straight after the tournament it was the release period, and so there was a lot of chaos there, and rosters didn’t end up exactly how people wished. I think now, we’re getting more settled towards where people are happy again with the rosters, and I think people now actively work towards being the absolute best.

No one is looking forward to the next roster shuffle period anymore. So no, I think the levels are rising and the teams are getting stronger. We’re still practicing good. Great opponents. Actually, even though we win basically all HGC games, sometimes we’re really getting slapped in scrims. It happens quite often that we just show up one day and we just get swept. It’s all about, for new teams, translating practice into high-pressure matches. That’s the struggle that every team has to go through when there’s a new lineup.

Deckard and Malfurion seem to be the top of the meta right now - what makes them so strong in comparison to the other Supports?

Zaelia: I think a lot of new characters came into the picture, like Blaze, Yrel, and Garrosh even. They all have “oh sh*t” buttons that you can press if someone is about to die. Garrosh can ally throw with Into the Fray, Blaze can use Bunker Drop, Yrel has her own bubble (Ardent Defender). So, it’s very easy to play an “in your face” kind of style. Again, the one-shot compositions are gone because it is impossible to break through all this front-line with the double-layered protection from Tyrael, Blaze, or Malfurion. It’s just impossible to blow people up.

So naturally, people gravitate towards the more sustained teamfight and the only really good sustain healers now are Deckard and Malfurion, so generally, you will see those in every game, either picked or banned, unless you’re going maybe Kharazim for diving and playing the macro. Other than that, maybe the new Alexstrasza is going to see some play. We’ve been practicing with the new Life-Binder and it seems kinda strong, so maybe there’s going to be a new hero at the top of the Support list.

You talked about your desire to play Ana in our recent DIGscord AMA, have you persuaded Wubby to let you play Ana in scrims yet? What needs to happen to make her viable?

Zaelia: We played it once today and once yesterday as well. She’s very niche, and she only works probably in one position in the entire pool of maps, so she’s not going to see much play. But I have an idea and it’s looking kinda good, I would say. It’s not looking amazing, like, “wow Ana’s going to be new meta!” but it’s an ace up our sleeve, so to say.

Do you enjoy playing the solo Abathur more than standard Supports? Was it fun to play some Tracer again as the copy?

Zaelia: The Tracer copy was actually so pathetic that game because they all just clumped as five. I just walked in and got shut-down immediately. So I didn’t have that much fun on the copy of Tracer. I think I ended up copying Muradin later just because my job was to be a distraction. But Abathur is kinda fun. It’s just a change of pace. I enjoy it, I don’t know what it is about it, but it’s fun just sitting there and annoying people all the time with your mines and stuff. You’re like, the puppet master.

Going forward, HGC will have the third ban implemented - how much of an impact on draft and meta will this third ban have?

Zaelia: This change is going to be huge. Not only the ban is gonna be huge, but the draft-pick timer has been reduced from 60 seconds to 25. The drafts are like *snap*, you gotta be on your toes. It’s insane how quick the drafts are going now and it’s something we really gotta adapt to. I actually expect changes. I expect there is going to be a lot of people complaining, and Blizzard might add another 5 seconds to the timer, or even 10 seconds so it’s 35 instead of the 25, which right now, is very hard to deal with.

And the third ban coming in here, it’s gonna be huge. I think a lot of ‘cheeses’ are going to be completely gone. I think Abathur might just be banned in every single game. I think Medivh is going to see a lot less play. I think Tracer, Genji, like the dive and all-in heroes are going to be mostly obsolete. I think it’s just going to be a more regulated meta with more standard picks. If you play against a team like Method, I think it’s going to be easier in a way. Because they revolve around a few picks, like Medivh and Abathur, for example, and you can now take those out every single game. So every game is just going to be more regulated and balanced, I hope.

Looking towards the upcoming Western Clash, have you followed NA, and do you think they’ll be a threat? Or do you think that your fellow EU teams will be the toughest competition?

Zaelia: Right now, it looks like the EU teams are gonna clap NA. Tempo Storm was the biggest contender, they lost Psalm, they’re still looking kinda promising but it’s always a huge, huge blow when you lose a core part of the team. So I have very little faith in NA showing up, to this Western Clash at least. From EU, it kinda depends on these last two weeks. I think they will show a lot about the strengths of EU. Fnatic might qualify, and if they do, I think they will be a great contender.

I think losing to Leftovers was a huge wake-up call, and they’re all experienced players so they’ll bounce back and perhaps become the biggest contender. After we beat Team Liquid, I think the hype and the momentum kinda got… Like they were full-blown going giga-mode, like “wow Liquid is going to be amazing!” and then they get swept. I expect Fnatic to come back and perhaps be the biggest contender. And also Method is a scary team, although, I don’t know, a lot of things can happen. We can probably see better after the next two weeks of HGC.

Thanks for your time! Do you have any shoutouts?

Zaelia: Shoutouts to Team Dignitas, and to our sponsors, Buffalo Wild Wings, Mountain Dew, WD, and HyperX. And, apparently, I may have forgotten to mention the DIGscord in my latest HGC interview, so here is my giga-shout out to the DIGscord: Wowee! Love you guys. Thank you for the support!