This weekend kicks off the first international event of the Heroes Global Championship in 2017 at IEM Katowice. Teams from North America, Europe, Latin America, and Australia & New Zealand will all be competing against each other.

$100,000 is at stake for the professional Heroes of the Storm players. Who will come out on top? Let’s take a closer look at the teams and find out how they match up against each other!

Misfits (EU)

HasuObs - Flex
Nurok - Fle
Blumbi - Tank
darkmok - Melee Flex
Splendour - Support

In Europe, the top three are all very close in skill, but Misfits has managed to pull ahead so far this year with an undefeated record.

Misfits’ grip on the macro game and attention to detail—clearing waves properly, rotating correctly, and knowing every map perfectly—is well beyond any other team in Europe, and even rivals some of the top teams in Korea. Though they have been known to play exotic and non-standard compositions in the past, they’ve settled on a more balanced approach recently that prioritizes metagame heroes.

It’s difficult to call it with utmost certainty, but Misfits is going to be the team to beat at the Western Clash. Misfits often play even better during a live environment, so Fnatic or Dignitas will need to step up and play at the top of their game if they want to win. Then again, Misfits has also been known to butcher their drafts at the most critical moments of the tournament….

Fnatic (EU)

Breez - Tank
Smexystyle - Support
Quackniix - Ranged
scHwimpi - Flex
Wubby - Melee Flex

Fnatic had an insane year in 2016, rising through the ranks and finally capping it off with an unbelievable win over MVP Black and a second place finish at BlizzCon.

Previously considered a hyper-aggressive set of mechanically gifted players, Fnatic has matured quite a bit in terms of decision making and strategy. This newfound patience, coupled with some of the best mechanical players in the world, (Wubby and Quackniix in particular), has propelled them to new heights on the HGC stage.

The team isn’t qualifying for the Clash with an undefeated record, but history shows that Fnatic can take a series from Misfits or Dignitas any day of the week if they play to their strengths.

Team Dignitas (EU)

Bakery - Support
Snitch - Flex
JayPL - Tank
Ménè - Ranged
Zaelia - Melee Flex

...Where to even begin with this team? Bob Question Mark came out of nowhere in 2015 before being picked up by Dignitas and finishing second at BlizzCon. Since then, Dignitas has won the most championships of any European team, despite numerous setbacks due to roster changes.

The latest round of roster swaps brought in Zaelia, an up-and-coming Danish player formerly on CrowingCocks and ExcelenteEleccion. The team has taken quite a while to adjust to new players, but in recent weeks, Dignitas has been running like a finely tuned machine.

Zaelia has shown incredible performances on Ragnaros, but otherwise, his hero pool has been quite limited in HGC—a potential weakness other teams could use to their advantage. All in all, Dignitas is coming in as the “underdog” for Europe, but there’s no telling how much they’ll improve during bootcamp while being coached by former Cloud9 player DunkTrain.

Tempo Storm (NA)

Fury - Tank
CauthonLuck - Ranged
psalm - Melee
Jun - Support
cattlepillar - Flex

The team is relatively new, but the players are veterans in the scene (with the exception of Jun, who is simply a support god). Built with three of the original Murloc Genius members near the end of last year, they went on to win back-to-back regional championships during the Fall season. Their momentum was curbed a bit at BlizzCon and GCWC, but Tempo Storm remains one of the most consistent teams in the North American scene.

Aside from Jun, Tempo Storm doesn’t have any particularly standout players, but their strength comes from teamwork and coordination. Solid drafting combined with balanced strategies often makes them more reliable than other North American teams and a potent force against any team.

That said, they’ll still need to play the best tournament of their life if they want to take a series against one of the European giants. Despite Tempo’s impressive teamwork, most of the European teams surpass them on an individual level. Tempo Storm has also been known to make a few drafting errors which can adversely alter the outcome of their games.

Team 8 (NA)

Prismaticism - Melee
Glaurung - Flex
YoDa - Ranged Flex
Buds - Support
Justing - Tank

Team 8 is by far the most surprising team of the split. The team was originally created as a “joke team” when Chu8, a popular streamer, merged his team with the remnants of Team Name Change (TNC), but everything changed when they actually qualified for HGC. Chu8 realized that the rest of his team wanted to compete at the highest levels and stepped down; since then, Team 8 has been seemingly unstoppable.

Glaurung has always been an impressive player without results, but he may have finally found the right team. Even though most eyes are on Glaurung as the hyper carry of the group, everyone else has stepped up their game too, especially Justing during his performances on Diablo. Team 8’s strategy is balanced but often employs that unique Glaurung-style aggression to capitalize on mistakes and seize advantages.

Out of all the North American teams, Team 8 probably has the best shot at winning the Western Clash. Their teamwork and individual skill level is matched by their relative consistency, but their aggression may turn into recklessness, which can be exploited by more mature teams.

Gale Force eSports (NA)

Khroen - Ranged Flex
MichaelUdall - Flex
akaface - Support
Fan - Flex
Equinox - Tank Flex

This team is a wildcard. Literally anything can happen with Gale Force eSports.

There’s no doubt that GFE has the largest concentration of god tier players in North America; between MichaelUdall, Fan, and Equinox, they are quite a collection of all-stars, but the team suffers from extreme polarity shifts. One day they will be the best team in North America by a huge margin, the next they will struggle against the weakest team in the league due to several rookie mistakes.

Does Gale Force have a chance at winning the Western Clash? Absolutely. Are they likely to win? Probably not. Their consistency, especially in international tournaments, has always been very poor. Against teams like Misfits, Fnatic, and Dignitas, you have to play at the top of your game every day. Then again, GFE could randomly go Super Saiyan—there’s no telling what’s going to happen.

Infamous (LatAm)

Typhex - Tank
dBlaNk - Support
Genre - Melee Flex
JSchritte - Flex
Unusual -Ranged

Representing Latin America, Infamous is a small team hailing from Peru. During 2016, the Brazilian squad formerly known as Burning Rage (JSchritte, beto, Typhex, Vieira, and murizzz) dominated the region and represented them at every international competition. Unfortunately, after a disappointing performance at BlizzCon, the team parted ways and scattered across different teams. Typhex moved to Overwatch while JSchritte joined Infamous Gaming and beto and Vieira created a new team called pontaL.

The finals of LatAm were very close. Infamous lost to pontaL in the winners’ finals but managed to claw their way back to a victory in the grand finals. Ping played a huge role in determining the winner due to online regionals in an area twice as large as North America, a flaw which Blizzard may have overlooked when they originally planned the qualifier. Nonetheless, the Peruvian team captained by JSchritte is ready to take the stage at Katowice.

It’s extraordinarily unlikely that Infamous will even get out of the first round. The mechanical skill level in Latin America is actually quite close to most North Americans, but their regional ping issues coupled with a lack of sponsored teams make scrims a near impossibility. As such, Infamous will have a lot of trouble with drafting and coordination in their games, but at least they’ll get some good practice against the other teams in Poland. (Note: Former Burning Rage player Typhex is subbing in for Surprise due to visa issues).

Nomia (ANZ)

Arcaner - Support
Benjamin94 - Flex
robadobah - Tank
john - Melee Flex
Vanilla - Ranged
jimjam - Sub

Like Infamous, Nomia is also a reformed team. Reborn, formerly Negative Synergy, was at every single international tournament in 2016 representing Australia & New Zealand. Despite things looking good for them, they failed at BlizzCon and inevitably parted ways with a few members. Ninja and Daspurtz retired and were replaced with john and Vanilla, two relatively unknown players to the outside world, and the team was renamed to Nomia.

It’s hard to tell how good the team actually is due to the limited competition in ANZ. Unfortunately, the region is at a low point in competitiveness; the regionals were a one-sided clown fiesta stomp against a “joke” team for Nomia. I place them slightly higher than Infamous due to having more experienced players, but they have about the same shot at winning the Western Clash: 0%.

Nomia might be able to take a game or two off one off the North American teams, but otherwise they’re mostly just getting travel and scrim experience out of this trip.