MVP Black secure second international title at World Cyber Arena

After missing out on the Heroes World Championship, MVP Black secured their second international Heroes of the Storm title at the World Cyber Arena.

MVP Black might be the strongest team in the world, but thanks to Korea getting just one spot in the Heroes World Championship they narrowly missed out on the year’s premier competition.

The team avenged its loss to Team DK in the WCA qualifiers and went on to best Chinese regional champions eStar Gaming in the final to claim the 800,000 yuan ($125,600) prize.

The event was supposed to be the final major international event of the year, but top North American sides Tempo Storm, CompLexity and world champions Cloud9 declined to make the trip due to concerns about how the event was run. That left COGnitive Gaming as the sole NA representatives. It also meant Brave Heart was the only team to appear in the World Championship and at WCA—though this time doing so with enough notice to bring its entire team.

Team Liquid were the best Western hopes for the event. The new-look side went 4-0 in the group stage with wins over both MVP Black and eStar, but lost out to OMG in the quarter finals. In a post on Reddit, Liquid’s Christoph “Cris” Gowitzke claimed that OMG were helped by players from eStar and EDG during the games, and played without headsets. OMG had gone 0-3 in the group stage, but advanced thanks to byes against Tempo Storm and CompLexity.

MVP Black finish the year winning two out of the three available international titles, adding WCA to the Masters Gaming Arena title they captured back in August.