So, I was talking to a guy at Worlds you all might know—Siggie. He and I had a rather emphatic conversation about how people don't particularly seem to like tailoring their tournament teams to the map. That made me want to pitch in with an article about team selection on specialty maps. Siggie seemed to like that idea, so here I am! More importantly, here is the new map for Realm Championships: a King of the Hill scenario.

First, a quick refresher:

1. At the end of each tick, if you control a non-pet character on the glistening hill, you score a Victory Point.

That's about all there is to know! So, time to dive in.

There are two obvious teams that you absolutely need to be able to beat in order to play on this map: Ice Block and Savin Wall. Ice Block makes the list for fairly obvious reasons (mostly because 10 points per 10 ticks is better than 6), and Savin Wall shows up because of Foreman's Reinforced Helmet, the 0-cost crafted equipment that prevents your character from being moved. It's fairly silly looking, but that's not going to stop Savin from putting it on and hoisting his Bulwark. These teams are the foundation of the early metagame, and one thing is for sure—if you can't beat these teams with what you're playing, you shouldn't be playing it.

Next, we need to think about what seems good against these strategies. Well, against Ice Blocks, you either want DoT effects or buff removal effects. The only buff removal effects that are really good enough are Purge (because you can hopefully force it through Counterspells) and Mass Dispel (which you can fire against Blindlight Murlocs by hiding behind a hill and casting it), so the most successful counter-configurations are going to be packing a Priest or a Shaman. Let's start with the most obvious Shamans: Lady Vashj and her pet Ogre, Crushridge. These two can both pack the Purge button, giving them favorable odds against Ice Blocks, but the next question is whether or not they can beat Savin Wall. The easiest way for them to beat that team is to include Wavecaller, with Flamestrike and Polymorph. Those cards are the epitome of ridiculous against Savin Wall.

So that's one team you should expect to show up—Vashj/Crushridge/Wavecaller. On the plus side, she won't be as dominating as she was at the last Realm Championships! The emtagame has clearly evolved to include Vashj, rather than just get whooped by h

Next, the Priest question. Champion Shadowsun comes to mind, because he also happens to solve the problem of Savin's helmet by using Mana Tap to exhaust it. On a rather unrefined level, Shadowsun/Illiana/Morganis might do quite well, both by pumping out heavy magic damage and by ushering Savin off of his hill with a Psychic Scream. Alternatively, since your team is heavy on magic, you can just explode his head. Definitely keep Champion Shadowsun teams in mind.

Shadowsun leads us in another interesting direction, as 2 range just got a lot better, considering the new hill placements. Umbrage could be quite a beating here, but underutilized models like Shadowsun, Boris, and Omedus might finally see the light of day.

I'm looking forward to seeing what succeeds come Realm Championship weekend, and can't wait for another crack at the title. If you think you've found some new technology, or a team that I've missed, sound off in the forums!