The last beacon of premier Heroes tournaments is here.

The Chinese Gold Series Heroes League returns for its second season of 2019. Its format is the same as the previous season, with qualifiers filtering the teams down to 32 that advance into the first group stage. From there, teams are seeded into four round-robin groups, in which the top two teams of each group earn a spot in the 6-week league.

The first group stage lured in many powerful teams, but only the best could advance. RPG, a former HGC team, as well as The Avengers, one of the strongest Taiwanese teams, didn’t even make it out of groups. Six teams from last season defended their spots though: Chall Enge, Beyond The Game, Super Perfect Team, TheOne, KiTN and OFD. The two remaining spots were taken by two “Korean” teams—meaning that most of their players are from South Korea because GHL requires at least two Chinese players per team—HOTS and Tsunami. This time no Western players heard the Chinese call, but the Korean presence has doubled, rising to 14 players.

We’d like to introduce some of Season 2’s contenders.

TheOne.Hugo

Hugo has been a member of TheOne since the beginning. This flex player attracted a lot of attention when he and his team made it out of groups last BlizzCon, something no Chinese team had achieved since the eStar era. With that, he turned into one of the most notorious names of the new Chinese wave. Hugo and hehe rebuilt TheOne with its current roster to become the GHL Season 1 champions, and they haven’t made any roster changes for Season 2.

CE.Reset

A player who has won BlizzCon not once, but twice, Reset doesn’t need much of an introduction. Now playing for Chall Enge, his transition into the Chinese competition has gone well, but he was not good enough to take down TheOne in last season’s finals. Now, with more powerful teams in the league, Reset will need to use all his knowledge and experience to step up the team’s level.

BTG.619

619, the warrior for Beyond the Game, is one of the pillars of his team. Their performance hasn’t been always the best, but he and his long-time teammates, Bruiser and LLK, have demonstrated they can overcome any situation they face. Their rivals should fear not only 619’s tanks, but also his pocket pick, Zarya.

SPT.Dancing

After a whole year in the BTG ranks, Dancing joined Super Perfect Team in 2019. His growth as a player since he entered the pro scene last year is huge, and he has become one of the players with the widest hero pools. He keeps playing the Shimada brothers, his signature heroes, but now he isn’t afraid to play any ranged character when his team needs him.

OFD.TaiDao

Chinese teams usually have much more flex players than their Western and Korean counterparts. That’s partly due to their larger rosters. One of the keys for OFD flexibility is TaiDao. He can play offlaners, such as Leoric or Malthael, but also go for mages or other ranged assassins. This enables OFD to enable different strategies with their two melee players, Zhiiia and TuBo, without commiting to a specific playstyle.

KiTN.Lyanna

The name Lyanna may not be familiar for those who didn’t watch the first 2019 GHL season, but the name change is recent. He was formerly known as Sea or butcher when he was on RPG, Sunny Lion, and KT. The name change was necessary to match his teammates’ nicknames, all of them from the Stark family of A Song of Ice and Fire. Though Lyanna is usually the offlaner for the team, he can also play tanks to enable heavy frontlines in KiTN compositions.

HOTS.365

After his Swedish adventures with Boluo, 365 comes back to the GHL with a new team which features legendary players Wind and Lockdown. The Swede roster didn’t work out and failed to make it to playoffs, but now 365 knows how to work with an international roster. For the first time, he will play with Korean teammates. However, the HOTS support will not be alone—Wind will be covering his back.

Tsunami.KyoCha

After Reset’s success in the first season, another former Gen.G player has followed his steps and arrived at China. KyoCha brings a brand new team named Tsunami, born from the ashes of Blast, his team for REVIVAL Season 2.The Chinese flexible meta may let KyoCha play more melee assassins than he used to back in the Gen.G days, where offlaners were almost mandatory.

If you want to watch what these players are capable of, tune in the GHL on Mondays and Tuesdays on Malganyr and B4ithoven Twitch channels. Or, if you prefer, you can watch the clean feed provided by GHL at Douyu TV.

The group stages are close to being over, but the playoffs start next week! Stay tuned!