Since the HGC cancellation, North America has lacked a stable competitive infrastructure. The Toasty & Gladman Invitational seemed to be a promising new beginning, but it was actually the last goodbye for most of the involved players. After that tournament, the first Division S and HeroesHype Premier Series seemed to bring a balance between new blood and HGC veterans (a formula that still works nowadays in Europe), but it didn’t last long.

The end of these two tournament series after two editions left NA with a weakened scene. They may have looked like the only two beacons of new Heroes esports, but that was far from the truth - even if Division S had drawn all the attention, the endemic North American organizers had kept working in the shadows. And so we come to the Nexus Gaming Series and HeroesHearth.

NGS has been organizing their amateur series all this time. They partnered with Heroes Lounge for the first Division S edition, and now they’re more than ready to occupy that niche with the NGS Storm Division. On the HeroesHearth end, they produced the Fight Nights and the Celebrity Clash League, combining in both formats entertainment and competitiveness. CCL has now evolved into Community Clash League, the new draft tournament from HeroesHearth.

Since 2017, our core has been community-focused content built on our love of @BlizzHeroes.

Today, we're proud to share the next stage of our evolution: the Heroes Community Clash League.

Full deets, dates, and application info can be found below!

🔥 https://t.co/F4utxrOQDF 🔥 pic.twitter.com/CyMEyZfPO8

— Community Clash League by HeroesHearth (@HeroesHearthCCL) August 18, 2020

We’re in the dawn of a new era for the North American Heroes of the Storm scene. While we’ll have to wait until next fall and winter to watch the upcoming tournaments, we’ve already had a glimpse of how this revamped scene will look like.

The first taster was the Kapptains Draft Tournament. This brief tournament gathered many of the retired HGC veterans with its draft format, similar to the European Inhouse League or the Korean HotS Manager. The second “pre-season” event was the Chilly Mountain Supercup. This tournament brought together ex-HGC players, some new blood, some of South America's finest and a full-Korean roster: Team Alexander.

Alexander the Great

In the 4th century BC Alexander, son of Philip II, came back from exile to claim the Kingdom of Macedon, becoming Alexander III. After securing the frontiers of Macedonia and dealing with some rebel factions, he was named Hegemon (Supreme Commander of the Greek nations), but he didn’t stop there. Alexander continued his conquests into Media, Egypt, Persia and even India, building one of the largest empires in history and becoming Alexander the Great.





It seems fitting then that the new - or rather the old - conquerors on the block are named after history’s finest. Lockdown, Hide, Ttsst, NaCHoJin and Gondar were already royals, descendants of the four greatest Korean teams: Gen.G, Tempest, Ballistix and Blossom. But they didn’t stop there, they aimed for more. Thus, they marched into China, where the Gold Series still shone bright, and led HOTS and Tsunami to victory.

“There are few tournaments in Korea, so I started looking for tournaments overseas,” explains Lockdown, the captain of this Korean wandering task force. “In the case of China, the ping is low, so it is good for tournaments. However, it's a pity that we couldn't play as a full-Korean team. I gave up European tournaments because the ping was too high.”

North America is something in between for them. Ping from Korea is about 130-200 ms, depending on the servers. That’s why they joined the NGS Storm Division qualifiers, earning a spot at the main event at their second qualifying cup. When asked about the differences between the regions, Lockdown comments that “NA players have an interesting strategy” and that “any team is good if you can play the game at a similar level”.

The Korean player thanks tournament organizers for their kindness and doesn't discard that some of his compatriots also venture into this new world. It will all depend on the latency and the available heroes in their accounts, as Heroes of the Storm doesn’t support cross-region progress.

Team Alexander is already looking fearsome. In the Chilly Mountain Supercup finals, they took VGM Gaming (cattlepillar, Hebi, Mokka, TigerJK and Vespertine) to the fifth map of the bo5, though they eventually lost. Will they overcome their adversities and extend their empire through another continent?