During the first months of 2019 we’ve witnessed a surge in the number of tournaments in the European scene. Many organizations have stepped forward and presented their own tournaments, bringing some new and refreshing formats to the table, and this has kept heroes esports as varied and engaging as it has ever been. However, can this amazing diversity become overwhelming for the viewers?

One to rule them all

During the HGC era all the top tier teams were grouped under a single competition. Having only one league was something good as we got to know the participating teams and had a regular schedule to watch their games. Apart from the top eight teams, all the others fought in the Open Division. Organized by GosuGamers in 2017 and by HeroesHype in 2018, the concept for OD was the same as in HGC: a single competition (in this case biweekly cups followed by a playoff) hoarding all the attention.

Having multiple tournaments rather than one main one has brought to light some issues we didn’t have before: do we know the schedule for all the different tournaments? Do players know all the available competitions they can join?

Also, if someday an international tournament were to be held, which teams would be invited? The winners of that league or the winners of that other cup? HGC gave us a regional champion, and that’s something we don’t have anymore.

An idea to solve these issues without losing the rich diversity we are witnessing would be making all the different tournaments part of something bigger. Let’s talk about a possible approach to this problem: the Heroes European Circuit.

What, the HEC?

Disclaimer: this is only a concept. It’s a hypothetical circuit, inspired in Dota Pro Circuit (a circuit format for a MOBA) and Tekken World Tour (a circuit with a huge tournament diversity).

The Heroes European Circuit, HEC, would be a point-based system. After the end of a season, top teams would attend a big tournament hosted by the different organizations involved. HEC would assign tournaments to different tiers, with different point distribution, attending to the following criteria:

• Prize pool: this is the main one. Community-based tournaments have their prizes capped at $10,000. The bigger the prize, the harder the teams will try to get it.
  
  
• Premier teams presence: an invitational tournament with a big prize where none of the top teams are invited would be counterproductive for the circuit system, so if there are less than two premier teams, less points would be rewarded. For the first HEC, Division S teams could be considered the premier ones.
  
  
• Accessibility: if a tournaments gives a great amount of points, it needs to be accessible for all the teams. It should have some open slots (everyone can join or open qualifiers grant access), and not have country-based restrictions. Invitational and country-based tournaments are fine, but they wouldn’t reward the same amount of points as their open-for-all counterparts.
  
  
• Number of teams: this would only be taken into account for the tournaments with lower prizes. The more teams involved, the bigger the competitiveness, and so, the more points granted.
  
  

To sum up, the criteria are: the prize pool (>$5,000, >$1,000, >400$, <$400), the limitations (premier teams presence, qualifiers, country-based restrictions) and the number of teams.



And the points granted at the different tiers would be:



To compensate for the effort of participating in long leagues, tournaments lasting three weeks or more would grant 150% points.

Just like in the Dota 2 circuit, if a team uses a sub, it would have a 40% point penalty. However, as it’s almost impossible for players to full-time commit to the game, rosters would be able to have a sixth man who wouldn’t count as a sub.

Current HEC standings

If we apply these tiers to the main European tournaments since February (when Division S qualifiers began), this is how the standings would look like:

Benefits of a circuit

A system like the one we presented would grant a proper seeding for upcoming tournaments. This has already been an issue: for example, at Master Clash Series there were early clashes between Division S teams - Wind and Rain faced LFT in the first round, and after defeating them, they had to play against Divine Vendetta.

Coordinating the efforts from the different organizations would make easier to establish a regular schedule and to communicate it to the Heroes esports audience, also avoiding possible schedule conflicts between different tournaments. But not only would the viewers benefit from a circuit system, it would also be easier for the players to keep track of the tournaments and qualifiers.

Finally, it would encourage smaller organizations to host their own tournaments. Even if they were Silver or Bronze tier, they would be part of something bigger, and players and viewers would hear of them.

This is just our idea of how the European Heroes scene could improve, let us know what you think of the HEC and what would you do to get the best of the exciting diversity we currently have.