Team Dignitas defeated Team Zealots 4-3 in a best-of-seven series to clinch their third straight victory at HGC Western Clash located in Katowice, Poland. In the first HGC tournament of the 2018 calendar year, Dignitas and Zealots were among the eight teams that qualified for the Western Clash from the North America and EU region (four from each).

From Friday to Sunday, both teams worked their way through the bracket filled with opponents that had proven worthy based on their HGC league play performance in phase one.

The final map of the series featured an intense finish as both teams needed to secure the final objective on Towers of Doom to clinch the series.

“You see a hero, you scream its name and you hope it dies. During the last team fight I was not even listening to them, I was too excited.” 

- Jerome “JayPL” Trinh

“We were just using all of our skills off cooldown and everytime JayPL has a charge off cooldown I would yell to POILK to target them...there was a lot of screaming and I wouldn’t call it composed,”

- Joshua “Snitch” Bennett.

In addition to the $30,000 cash prize for finishing in first place, as the winning team was from the EU HGC league, that region has earned one additional team which will qualify for the Mid-Season Brawl tournament taking place in June. Team Zealots, the 2nd place team will be awarded $20,000. 

While Dignitas was confident against Zealots, when they spoke about the potential matchup earlier in the tournament, the unpredictability of their compositions and drafts caused problems.

“The only time you get experience against Zealots is when you play against Zealots. No other team is like that. Sometimes we know what they’re going to pick but we can’t ban them all and they’re very good at playing niche styles which makes them very unpredictable.”

- Joshua “Snitch” Bennett.

With Western Clash concluding, a three week break lies ahead for teams before phase two of HGC kicks back up. As to what Dignitas members plan on doing with their first break since league play began months ago:  "We need to actually relax for at least one week." said JayPL.

Though Snitch was quick to remember the Eastern Clash:  "We have the Eastern Clash upcoming so it gives us a nice three week break. We can’t take too much time off but we’ll get to relax a little."