For the second year in a row, the Arizona State University Real Dream Team will be competing in the Heroes of the Dorm grand finals, as they took down fellow No. 1 seed UConn Trickly Turtles in the semifinals Saturday night.
Replacing University of California Berkeley as the 2015 grand finals opponent this year is University of Texas-Arlington Dark Blaze. The squad defeated the University of Tennessee We Vollin two games to zero.
The No. 1 seeded Dark Blaze went into the semifinal matchup looking to appeal to the crowd at the CenturyLink Field Event Center in Seattle, Washington, with a couple unique combinations during its hero selection draft. Team member Andrew "MiST" Rodrigues drafted powerful lane bully Zagara, and David "DXN817" Nguyen took the crowd favorite evolution master Abathur in Game 1.
MiST opted to take the far less popular ultimate ability on Zagara called Nydus Network to create trenches around the map for global movement, and with the combination of Abathur's hero clones he's capable of creating, Dark Blaze used a seldom seen talent synergy to push into We Vollin's base early in the match.
Dark Blaze finished off its opponents in Game 1 in less than 18 minutes before playing the map bully in Game 2 to cruise to a match victory over We Vollin to advance to the grand finals Sunday night.
.@utarlington looking good 👌#heroesofthedorm pic.twitter.com/vGqa6QyUyF
- David Gordon (@imdg) April 9, 2016
On the other side of the bracket, the Real Dream Team took on the Tricky Turtles in a highly anticipated heavyweight bout between two No. 1 seeds, but it didn't end up feeling like one.
ASU is considered the favorite to win the 2016 Heroes of the Dorm amongst the general public, and it reinforced that belief with a quick knockout blow to the methodical UConn squad.
Led by Michael "MichaelUdall" Udall on his trusty winged assassin Falstad, ASU played very aggressively in Game 1, and UConn fell behind early. The team was never able to come back, and it lost in less than 15 minutes on the Sky Temple map.
Game 2 required the Tricky Turtles to match their opponents' intensity right from the get-go. The match stayed competitive for the first half, before ASU's Parham "Pham" Emami teamed up with Udall to dominate the map objectives en route to the core for another speedy victory.
Both the Real Dream Team and Dark Blaze will face off in the grand finals, which will on ESPN2 and WatchESPN at 8 p.m. EST Sunday. The most recent time these teams played, ASU Real Dream Team defeated UT Arlington in the round of 16 of the 2015 Heroes of the Dorm tournament before falling in the grand finals. Both teams have chips on their shoulders entering Sunday's match.