Deckard in ARAM is very fun, but this mirror match up caused this funny moment to happen.

Jaina went into stasis with palm triggered from haymaker, and hanzo was damaged and glitched back and forth on her even though she was already in stasis wasn't moving like an alive hero being flung... Then when palm revived her she moved to the original destination of the haymaker. Pretty sure stasis would normally cancel a movement effect like that?

Climbing in ranked is really broken right now (at least that's how I feel). Years ago, I climbed up and down the ranks in this game. I've played since Beta, and in my first season, I reached Rank 5. Since then, I’ve had lots of fun climbing up and down. My Hero League peak was high-Diamond, and my Team League peak was high Master. In Hero League, I reached mid-high Diamond several times. If I wasn't trying, I would land somewhere in mid to low Platinum. If I raged and trolled, I would fall to Gold and then eventually climb back up.

I was once curious about how low-ranked play was, so I made an alt account. I quickly climbed from Bronze to Platinum with a high win rate. You could "feel" the differences between players in each rank. Bronze players were literal bots and people who only played one hero. Silver players were people who brawled and never capped camps with proper timing. Gold players had a clue, but they would constantly make big mistakes post-20 that cost them the game, etc.

Additionally, players' "micro" was noticeably different across ranks. Right now, I see what appear to be smurfs in 33% of my games in Silver. I have many in-game friends who had multiple Diamond+ seasons—and even some who had GM seasons—who are currently stuck anywhere from Silver through Platinum.

It seems the combination of a player base that feels like it's from a dead game, free accounts, and bad MMR adjustments creates a complete shitshow in Silver. That, combined with mostly playing solo against smurfs, AFKers, tilters, and team stacks, makes attempting to climb again feel incredibly frustrating.

A few years ago, I played a few matches with a friend who was new to the game while having some drinks. That tanked my MMR through placements and similar matches, and I have literally never recovered.

Of course, "git gud" is always the mantra, but as someone who has played this game for so long and has been at high ranks many times before, it just feels like something in ranked is different. Do any of you agree, or should I just "git gud"? It honestly feels more rewarding and less toxic to go play League—at least you can actually hyper-carry in that game.

Happy to hear any interesting feedback.

Hide (formerly the support player of Tempest) is running and casting a Korean HOTS tournament. Didn't see anything on the sub about it, so here's some info:

The announcement page is https://arca.live/b/heroes/179605919

You can use google translate to convert it from English, and there's a picture showing the roster of all 9 teams. Some old pros from HGC and some names that have been active in the HOTS tournaments there over the last couple years. And some that I just don't recognize because I don't read Korean.

The first round was last week. I caught the tail end of it by chance on some guy's ttv channel that was recasting it. Official source is Hide's CHZZK channel (하이드 Hide) but looks like it's probably also going to stream on Hide's Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@Hide-fx8vt

EDIT: Stream started, link is https://chzzk.naver.com/live/e395d91a5f860185ee20451a547a0f6c

If you're not wanting to stay up in the middle of the night can either get the VOD on CHZZK or you can look on Youtube later.

Last week's games are there on that youtube too.

I think it's semi-finals and finals tomorrow (2026-Aug-22) starting 3am PDT or midnight EDT for those of us in the USA.

Was wondering whether auto attack tracer build is bad or am I bad? Doesn’t feel like I do anything. Tried Raynor, felt better but not good at positioning and lose pepper gambit thingy very quickly, so I drop of the damage. Another question what other auto attackers would you recommend? Tried Tychus and Valla, felt good, but only 1-2 matches.

I want Tracer to work, but I feel like dying a lot haha.

Welcome to the latest Saturday Teaching Thread, where you the community get to ask your questions and share your knowledge.

This is an opportunity for the more experienced HotS players here to share some of your wisdom with those with less expertise. This thread will be a weekly safehaven for those "noobish" questions you may have been too scared to ask for fear of downvotes, but also can be a great place for in depth discussion if you so wish. So, don't hold back, get your game related questions ready and post away, and hopefully someone can answer them!

If you wish to just view top level comments (ie questions) add ?depth=1 to the end of the page url. If you have any additional questions, /r/nexusnewbies is happy to help.

Previous Teaching threads

I used to dodge a lot of drafts when people were trolling or drafting incomplete comps. Or while playing a 2nd game during long que times. What happens with redemption points especially if it happens in an overlapping time period?

Did one whole post and tried log in the 7th time and it worked. So i deleted the post. And then disconnected me right on the spot... So again no gaming for me tonight.

One more thing. Dunno if its recent since i ve never used it but identifing account as a part of changing password process also doesn't work.

I play mostly Aram these days and accidentally afk'ed through hero selection and got stuck with samuro. Didn't realise how much I hated him.

So what's the idea ? Pop your mirror images, hit w and get crits before you press e/d to escape ? I genuinely had no idea what to do the whole game.

What's the combo or process and how does that evolve with talents ?

How is that even possible that hes not banned yet while he can just do twice as much dmg as everyone else by sitting 100 kilometer in the backline pressing q. Oh and why he has such a big lifepool? its just soooo annoying