We’re now halfway through the second season of the inaugural Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) league for the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship (HGC), and the favorites are running away with it in the Premier Division.
Mindfreak proved they’re the ANZ region’s top Heroes of the Storm team in phase one of the HGC calendar, ranking atop the standings with an undefeated 14-0 record and eventually qualifying for 2018 HGC Mid-Season Brawl by besting the top team from the Latin America region, Encore e-Sports, at the first Intercontinental Clash in Brazil.
Mindfreak failed to reach the playoff round at the Mid-Season Brawl, only beating Chinese team TheOne in the group stage, but the squad continues to set their sights on the international stage, and right now it looks like they’ll return as ANZ’s representative.
Midway through Phase #2 of the ANZ Premier Division Mindfreak again sits atop the standings undefeated, a 6-0 record ranking them above their toughest competition, the 7-1 Crimson Gaming. Crimson Gaming placed second in the first phase with an 11-3 mark, but they couldn’t beat Mindfreak in the playoff to reach the international rounds. They’re the only team to take a map off of Mindfreak this phase so far, but they still fell in a 2-1 series last week.
The Premier Divison returns on July 24 with a big match between Crimson and Aztech Entertainment, the third ranked team, but both are chasing Mindfreak’s heels. They’ll have four weeks to secure a spot in the top two and a playoff matchup that could earn them an appearance on the global stage.
The bottom two teams in the Premier Divison must compete with the top two teams from the Open Division to avoid falling into the lower tier, and right now that’s a close battle between REEality, Pleb2Pro, and Impenetrable Hill, three teams with just one win on the Premier season so far. They’ll have four more weeks to avoid the Crucible where they might lose their Premier status to a hungrier squad.
All in all it’s shaping up to be another exciting season in the inaugural year of the HGC ANZ Premier Division. Will Mindfreak continue their dominance, and return to the international stage? We’ll find out in the coming weeks.
