10 Drafting Mistakes That Make Your Team Hate You

‘Sup friends! Today our Heroes of the Storm boost team will talk about the drafting - believe it or not, it’s not as simple as picking the best hero according to our Heroes of the Storm tier list, but there are a lot of common mistakes to avoid here. In the Hero League, it’s easy to see people that simply can’t draft properly. Maybe they first pick Nova and get hard countered, or simply lock in their pick at the last second without communicating (fuck Hearthstone, dude), or have the impelling need to criticize every single pick of their teammates. Today, we will teach you how not to be that guy.

If you want to climb, you will need to learn how to deal with bad drafts, and according to our HotS Boost team the first trick is to improve your own drafting - let's find how. If you still need help, check our newly released HotS Coaching section and pick your mentor according to your needs, language and more!

Don’t first pick Nova. Just. Don’t. Period.

Simple as that - don’t do it! I know, her win rate is decent - higher than 51% last time I checked- but she is nevertheless a bad hero to first pick.

I know, after all she can be pretty strong, and she is in a better shape now, but she has one great weakness: countering her is super easy because she has many hard counters. If you are first picking Nova, expect the enemies to pick a comp totally built to neutralize her. If she is still available as a fourth or last pick, go for it, but first picking her is not worth the risk.

Not Talking

Okay, this is easy. During our duo queue boost sessions, we can’t emphasize enough that the easiest way to coordinate with your team is using that chat, and you can - and should- start using it as soon as your team is ready. Tell your teammates your best picks, what they should ban, elaborate a strategy for the early game. Your games will improve a lot, believe me.

Non Meta Picks

This is pretty controversial. We all know that the easiest way to climb the ladder is to abuse the op champions following our HotS tier list, so why would you pick Illidan?. This rule applies to you even if you call yourself the “best [insert random underpowered champion here] EU”. Just think that you could have a higher rank playing a decent hero.

.We know that win rates aren’t the Holy Bible, but most heroes are popular because they are stronger than others in this meta. Do yourself a favour, start playing Kael’thas, Raynor, Thrall and so on. Your future rank will thank you.

Bitching and flaming

We talked about this many times, yet we still need to repeat it. Bitching, flaming, shit talking - however you call it, avoid it. It will only make things worse, and it’s even more terrible if you start doing it before the game actually starts, since you are denying the benefit of the doubt. Constructive criticism is cool, passive-aggressive comments are not. Straight insults? No, not at all.

Don’t try new Heroes in Ranked.

Simple as that, we have a foolproof rule of thumb for this point. Ask yourself an easy question: “Is this my first game with this hero?” If the answer is yes, don’t pick it. If it’s no, go on. We are working on a binary decision diagram for that, but in the meanwhile, this comic should be enough

Ignoring the best Combos

Some of the best heroes according to our HotS tier list are strong alone, but even awesome together. The first two heroes that come to mind are Diablo and Tyrande. together they are an unbreakable force. Other heroes have some sort of anti synergy, so try to avoid them. TL;DR Nova isn’t always the best option…

Being AFK

If you start a game, you should at the very least try to finish it. Don’t go away from your keyboard, don’t play Hearthstone in queue so you won’t have to multitask. Offline games were made for this, am I right?

Ignoring counters

This is pretty complicated, so I’ll try to be as clear as possible. If you aren’t first pick, you can probably have a general idea of the enemy picks. If you have a decent knowledge of the game, you can probably imagine a few heroes that perform exceptionally well against their carries or their team comp - awesome, right? Don’t always pick your main hero into bad match-ups, but be flexible and take advantage of every information you can get during the draft phase.

Not Knowing your role.

If you need to pick a tank, don’t pick Sonya. If your team needs a support, don’t lock in Tassadar. Try to cooperate with your team and again, be flexible, especially if you are last pick. Understand your team comp and what it needs to be effective, and try to fill any gap. Your team will thank you, your win rate will increase, you will feel good. Win-win scenario.

Pre-picking and then locking a different champion at the last second.

This is one of the most infuriating scenarios, and it happens often. You see that your last pick is going to play Kharazim, and your team already has a tank, so you decide to pick your amazing Nova to show your mechanics (since you follow our tips and you are not first picking). But at the last second, the fifth pick switches to Rehgar… and locks in Thrall.

The result? A terrible composition, since you really need a healer, and probably a terrible game. Don’t be that guy. Communicate with your allies. If you don’t know what champion to pick, at the very least call your role. Low efforts, great results. We care about our elo after all.

Final bonus tip: don’t first pick Nova. Whoops.

This ends our guide. If you enjoy our content, check our site in the next days for more guides and articles about new heroes Li-Ming and Xul, we're hyped to see if we're finally getting a viable release!