February Rundown - Another Rollercoaster Month
February Rundown - Another Rollercoaster Month
A recap of what our CS and Dota squads have gotten up to in February and breaking down our DraculaN tounament win
A recap of what our CS and Dota squads have gotten up to in February and breaking down our DraculaN tounament win
Want to know what our CS and Dota squads have been up to this month? Well you’ve come to the right place, as we’re going to run you through all of our results from February!
Counter-Strike
The month started with our run at PGL Cluj Napoca. With our last LAN win being in November at IEM Chengdu, all 10 of the LAN win slots in our VRS ranking were looking to be refreshed.
Sadly, that wouldn’t be happening in our opening 2 games as FaZe and B8 made light work of our squad with back-to-back 2-0s. The squad seemed to be playing very individualistically and it was clear that they hadn’t fully adapted to the lack of a permanent Awper on the team which was made particularly clear on Overpass.
However, staring down the barrel of elimination, we finally showed our best form by taking down 3DMax in a decisive 2-0 victory. Susp put on one of his best ever series performances for our first LAN win of the year and some much needed VRS points. Sadly though, this momentum wouldn’t continue into the match against G2 as we repeated the same mistakes as our earlier matches and were knocked out with a 1:3 record alongside both FaZe and B8.
Romanian Redemption at DraculaN
But our time in Romania was far from done; the squad travelled from Cluj Napoca to Bucharest to compete in DraculaN Season 5 - and this tournament was exactly what the squad needed! DraculaN felt like a reset for the squad. It gave them a much needed break from the punishing Tier 1 opposition they faced at Krakow and Cluj and allowed them to both build their confidence back up with some convincing wins.
Starting with a win over Infinite, HEROIC steadily progressed through increasingly difficult opposition in ASTRAL, CYBERSHOKE and FlyQuest whilst looking better each game. You could see the team synergy and mood noticeably improving (along with our reluctant Awper becoming increasingly sharp with the extra practice) to the point where we were stringing together comebacks with ease and ensuring we didn’t drop a single map on the way to the grand finals. It was here they met the dark-horse, newly formed 100Thieves squad - their toughest challenge yet.
It wasn’t an easy series. Map 1 of Inferno slipped through the squad's fingers 10-13. But the yxngstxr and susp carry kicked into gear for both Nuke and Ancient as the squad powered through to win the reverse sweep and HEROIC’s first trophy in 300 days! Up next is ESL Pro League S23, where the squad will be hoping to continue their winstreak and finally push through to Stage 2 on their road to the Major!
Want to know what our CS and Dota squads have been up to this month? Well you’ve come to the right place, as we’re going to run you through all of our results from February!
Counter-Strike
The month started with our run at PGL Cluj Napoca. With our last LAN win being in November at IEM Chengdu, all 10 of the LAN win slots in our VRS ranking were looking to be refreshed.
Sadly, that wouldn’t be happening in our opening 2 games as FaZe and B8 made light work of our squad with back-to-back 2-0s. The squad seemed to be playing very individualistically and it was clear that they hadn’t fully adapted to the lack of a permanent Awper on the team which was made particularly clear on Overpass.
However, staring down the barrel of elimination, we finally showed our best form by taking down 3DMax in a decisive 2-0 victory. Susp put on one of his best ever series performances for our first LAN win of the year and some much needed VRS points. Sadly though, this momentum wouldn’t continue into the match against G2 as we repeated the same mistakes as our earlier matches and were knocked out with a 1:3 record alongside both FaZe and B8.
Romanian Redemption at DraculaN
But our time in Romania was far from done; the squad travelled from Cluj Napoca to Bucharest to compete in DraculaN Season 5 - and this tournament was exactly what the squad needed! DraculaN felt like a reset for the squad. It gave them a much needed break from the punishing Tier 1 opposition they faced at Krakow and Cluj and allowed them to both build their confidence back up with some convincing wins.
Starting with a win over Infinite, HEROIC steadily progressed through increasingly difficult opposition in ASTRAL, CYBERSHOKE and FlyQuest whilst looking better each game. You could see the team synergy and mood noticeably improving (along with our reluctant Awper becoming increasingly sharp with the extra practice) to the point where we were stringing together comebacks with ease and ensuring we didn’t drop a single map on the way to the grand finals. It was here they met the dark-horse, newly formed 100Thieves squad - their toughest challenge yet.
It wasn’t an easy series. Map 1 of Inferno slipped through the squad's fingers 10-13. But the yxngstxr and susp carry kicked into gear for both Nuke and Ancient as the squad powered through to win the reverse sweep and HEROIC’s first trophy in 300 days! Up next is ESL Pro League S23, where the squad will be hoping to continue their winstreak and finally push through to Stage 2 on their road to the Major!
Dota 2
The Dota 2 team managed to bounce back from their shaky start to the year. They’ve now qualified to PGL Wallachia Season 7 and arrived at the group stage for BLAST Slam VI.
Spearheaded by our new youngster, TaiLung, HEROIC scored some underdog wins in the group stage but a few nightmare slip-ups (especially against Xtreme Gaming) in our endgames put us into the last-chance bracket. But it was here that everything seemed to click as the team kept a clean sheet against REKONIX before dominating the winners of the 4 previous seasons of BLAST Slam, Tundra.
TaiLung shined with 30 kills across the 2 maps, with the highest recorded count on Tundra being just 5 from Pure. With this win over Tundra, the squad reached the final 6 teams and qualified to the first Tier 1 LAN of the year in Malta where they would rematch against Team Yandex in the quarter finals.
This quarter finals would be the first time either TaiLung or Thiolicor would compete at a Tier 1 event in front of a crowd, but this fact evidently didn’t phase them for map 1 of this BO5 series, as the team looked clean throughout. Sadly, the squad’s successes wouldn’t last though, as for the next three maps, Yandex would wake up and score 3 big wins in a row to eliminate HEROIC from the tournament.
For more insight into what went wrong in those last 3 maps, make sure to check out coach kaffs’ breakdown on our YouTube channel. But for their first tier 1 event as a team, reaching playoffs was an achievement in itself, and they now have plenty of time to prepare for PGL Wallachia Season 7 which starts on March 7th!
It’s safe to say that it’s been a roller coaster start to the year for HEROIC, but as always, we’d like to thank our fans for sticking with us and cheering along regardless of the results. We’ll be back stronger as we always are, and we won’t rest until we’re back at both The International and the Major!
Dota 2
The Dota 2 team managed to bounce back from their shaky start to the year. They’ve now qualified to PGL Wallachia Season 7 and arrived at the group stage for BLAST Slam VI.
Spearheaded by our new youngster, TaiLung, HEROIC scored some underdog wins in the group stage but a few nightmare slip-ups (especially against Xtreme Gaming) in our endgames put us into the last-chance bracket. But it was here that everything seemed to click as the team kept a clean sheet against REKONIX before dominating the winners of the 4 previous seasons of BLAST Slam, Tundra.
TaiLung shined with 30 kills across the 2 maps, with the highest recorded count on Tundra being just 5 from Pure. With this win over Tundra, the squad reached the final 6 teams and qualified to the first Tier 1 LAN of the year in Malta where they would rematch against Team Yandex in the quarter finals.
This quarter finals would be the first time either TaiLung or Thiolicor would compete at a Tier 1 event in front of a crowd, but this fact evidently didn’t phase them for map 1 of this BO5 series, as the team looked clean throughout. Sadly, the squad’s successes wouldn’t last though, as for the next three maps, Yandex would wake up and score 3 big wins in a row to eliminate HEROIC from the tournament.
For more insight into what went wrong in those last 3 maps, make sure to check out coach kaffs’ breakdown on our YouTube channel. But for their first tier 1 event as a team, reaching playoffs was an achievement in itself, and they now have plenty of time to prepare for PGL Wallachia Season 7 which starts on March 7th!
It’s safe to say that it’s been a roller coaster start to the year for HEROIC, but as always, we’d like to thank our fans for sticking with us and cheering along regardless of the results. We’ll be back stronger as we always are, and we won’t rest until we’re back at both The International and the Major!
