Week two of the Heroes Celebrity Clash League has finally come to an end and things have certainly been shaken up a bit! With week one we saw teams still finding their footing and players getting comfortable with one another; everyone came swinging out of the gate in this week’s games.

Match one of the night was between Upstanding Citizens and Easy Money. Upstanding Citizens went 0-2 week one against The KT-Ls, while Easy Money took a game off of Down to Dongle but fell 1-2 in the end. Despite both teams being down, they certainly were not out.

Upstanding Citizens took the series 2-1 against Easy Money in the end.

Game one brought us to Infernal Shrines, where Upstanding Citizens brought us an extremely unconventional team composition of Cho’gall and The Lost Vikings. Leonblack of The KT-Ls had mentioned how Turk plays an exceptionally scary Lost Vikings, and although Upstanding Citizens lost this game they certainly played well despite their odd team. On the side of Easy Money, I want to highlight Mochrie’s Hanzo play. He played consistently well throughout the series but his Hanzo during game one, alongside ZaneHyde’s Johanna, allowed his team to set the pace.

After the series, I got a moment to speak to Mochrie from Easy Money and AlexDidz from Upstanding Citizens to just get a feel on their team’s morale and how they were feeling heading into week three!

Beckwin: “You’re known for your Tracer gameplay, and unfortunately she was banned in all three games. Do you believe the outcome of the series would have been different if she wasn’t banned?”

Mochrie: “Life is suffering.”

Beckwin: “Upstanding Citizens had a pretty rough start in week one, making this week even more important for your team. Knowing you were playing against a team that also struggled week one, what were you feeling going into this series? Were you nervous at all or were you confident that you guys would come out on top?”

AlexDidz: “There was absolutely zero confidence coming from me, which might’ve been an advantage. For me, I just wanted it to be close, winning the bo3 was a pleasant surprise given the circumstances. It may come as a huge surprise to some, but we don’t practice, and those of us that do, we’ve only played a few garbage quick matches. Things clicked into place sheerly through role swapping constantly. Heading into game 2 after we lost the first against Easy Money, Mewn said: “Alright, this isn’t working, we need to change things.” And we did just that. He became the support main hyper carry Ana that could shot call, and everything else fell into place. Coffee and Aullora got their comfort picks, Turk continued to be extremely high, and I continued to be the only constant from the start, the tank player.”

Beckwin: “Bless Turk’s soul. So! Next week you’ll be playing against Down to Dongle. There’s a rich history between Mewnfare and Trikslyr, do you think that will affect Mewn’s ability to play against his friend? How are you feeling heading into week three?”

AlexDidz: “I don’t think Mewn really cares. DtD made some poor drafting decisions regarding bans and picking Deathwing twice. Not banning Auriel? Not picking the most consistently strong Rag pick on Tomb in a must-win situation? Was an off night for the team, they might’ve been a bit psyched out by the strength of the kT-Ls. Plus, it’s important to note that indeed, one team plays the game still and the other doesn’t. I still consider DtD the powerhouse of the league; they just need to be extremely careful with how they manage drafting. Very possible their knowledge of the game is outdated; I know it can be that way with our team e.g. Mewn having no clue that Mochrie is a Tracer main and having to repeatedly explain to him that we need to ban that character.

As for how I’m feeling about next week, I’m feeling significantly better than I did going into week 2. Week 1 was demoralizing, week 2 was vindicating, and now week 3 we’ve got an opportunity to contend for the championship. Our team is comprised of pure memery, which is our strength and weakness. Strong in that nobody knows what to expect from us and we’re skilled individually, and as I previously stated, we’re weak because we literally don’t do s#$* for practice. We’re not to be underestimated, so it’s going to be interesting to see what changes DtD makes with a week’s time. If they’ve got their eyes set on the potential rematch with KT-Ls and not week 3’s match, they’re in trouble.”

Seems like Mochrie is feeling a bit defeated, no pun intended, after the games this week. Hopefully heading into week three, where they’ll be playing The KT-Ls, we’ll see a more cohesive unit from Easy Money.

AlexDidz had some fair criticisms for Down to Dongle and it sounds like Upstanding Citizens have plenty of tricks up their sleeve still. It seems they’re an extremely momentum-based team and heading into week three off of a win is going to help them set the pace in their games against DtD.

In the second match of week two, we had The KT-Ls versus Down to Dongle with The KT-Ls taking the series in a surprisingly clean 2-0.

Game one we were sent to Towers of Doom, where The KT-Ls drafted their signature Auriel for Lakefu and Yrel for Liam. However, we saw something a bit out of the ordinary for them. A Cho’gall. With an extremely heavy control-oriented team, The KT-Ls maintained a two-level lead for a significant portion of the game. As always, on the side of Down to Dongle, we saw a strong showing from Kiyeberries as Anduin. Triksylr played a consistently strong Valla throughout the game as well. Interestingly enough, DtD also took a bit of a risk with their draft this game and went with Deathwing. In the end, The KT-Ls wiped DtD in a big team fight and took the map.

With game two we headed to Tomb of the Spider Queen, a map that Down to Dongle seems to like. Yet again, we saw Lakefu’s Auriel and Liam’s Yrel. Down to Dongle, in an attempt to shutdown Leonblack’s consistently dominant frontline performances, banned out several tanks. However, this did not slow Leonblack down at all as he went with our first Stitches pick of the league and played an extraordinary game. We saw an extremely unconventional draft from DtD, with Jaina, Maiev, Alexstrasza, Deathwing, and Qhira. Opting for Deathwing to act as their primary tank. Unfortunately, their risky draft did not pay off and DtD fell to The KT-Ls in game two and ultimately lost the series.

If only they were privy to AlexDidz’s comments before the match. I did manage to have a little chat with Kiyeberries from Down to Dongle and Lakefu from The KT-Ls, both playing support for their teams.

Beckwin: “Your team was the Fight Night champs and gave us a strong display in week one. Unfortunately, things didn’t go your way in week two. What are you and the rest of your team feeling after your first major loss?”

Kiyeberries: “I’m pretty bummed, and I think we all are. I’m not happy with my healer play. I didn’t feel like I had much impact on either game and didn’t feel like I was getting good or valuable use out of any of my big cooldowns like Lifegrip or Dragonqueen. I didn’t feel like we were able to play to the strengths of the comps we drafted, especially in game 2. We were just on the back foot the whole game and being forced to react rather than being the ones to engage. It felt real bad.”

Beckwin: “It seemed like your team had a tough time. If you could turn back the clock, what would you do differently?”

Kiyeberries: “The draft in game one did not go our way. We were basically panic picking and swapping at the end and it showed. We needed a better plan going in for sure. Game two our draft looked crazy, but the comp could have worked. We needed to respect the Stitches’ hooks more, and I wish I had picked Lifebinder instead of Cleansing Flame. CF would have worked had we been able to execute the kind of hard engages we wanted but with the plays we were getting Linfebinder would have helped me a lot. Respecting Auriel and giving her a ban would also have changed the games entirely. We spend a lot of time being afraid of the tank players and kind of glossed over how strong Rez is right now.”

Beckwin: “I agree with needing to respect the Auriel pick. It hasn’t failed them yet. Next week you play Upstanding Citizens, Mewn’s team. We all know Mewn is a big memer, are you prepared for any kind of wild pick he might throw at you? Overall do you feel like you’re ready to beat them?”

Kiyeberries: “I think we are more comfortable with the plays on Upstanding Citizens than we are with The KT-Ls, which might help us be less blindsided in the draft. I welcome the memes next week. :)”

Beckwin: “This week you went against the league favorite, Down to Dongle, and came out on top in a clean 2-0 sweep. How did you and the team feel going into the game, and what’re you all feeling now?”

Lakefu: “I went into the match feeling very confident that we would win. We all respect each other and listen to our shot caller, Leon, whom I have never seen get overconfident or tilted at our gameplay even when we make mistakes. Tatski and Kags were really anxious but I think our calm and collected team dynamic helps them relax and be able to perform to their best ability. I feel happy that we won but I am also sad to see some of the Dongle members be down and overly hard on themselves because I don’t think they played as bad as they think they did.”

Beckwin: “I think everyone certainly played well, despite the outcome of the match. Next week you’ll be going up against Easy Money. There’s been some talk that Leonblack claims he has the best Cho’gall in the universe and it seems Zanehyde may contest that claim. What is the possibility we’ll see an ogre in week three from The KT-Ls?”

Lakefu: “Oh I can say with no doubt Leon is the best Cho in the universe. They can ban it if they want but you can’t ban out Leon completely, the Dongles tried that. So might as well give the chat a fun game to watch since they love to see Cho’gall, especially if Zane thinks he's better than he should just not ban it. :)”

I think it’s safe to say that week three will be a very interesting week for games all around. Down to Dongle looks like they’ve been hit hard by their first major loss but I hope we’ll see them bounce back for next week and head into their match with Upstanding Citizens with full confidence. As for The KT-Ls, they seem extremely confident and comfortable with one another, which is always a great thing to see from a team. Hopefully, they can continue into week three with this levelheaded thinking for their games against Easy Money.

Week three of the Heroes Celebrity Clash League starts February 5th, at 8 PM CT. Tune into the HeroesHearth Twitch channel for all the action!