The CCL ecosystem keeps growing with a new series of amateur tournaments sponsored by CCL and organized by 30k, Diamond Hands and WildHeart Esports: the Heroes Rise: Contender Series. The HR:CS are monthly tournaments with a prize pool of $500. Each series has three weekly qualifiers where teams can earn points to claim their seat at the main event. The better they perform at qualifiers, the better seeding they get.

HR:CS is open to players from all the regions (though games are played on the NA server), as long as they're not playing at CCL. Both the main tournament and the qualifiers are really fast events, taking place in only one or two days. To fit in with the HeroesHarth major league, HR:CS has been scheduled on Thursdays and Fridays until CCL ends next January 22nd. The tournament organizers have released their full schedule with all the dates we need to keep in mind for the next couple months:



The first Series 1 qualifier has already taken place, introducing us to the academies of the three CCL organizations involved: Baby Diamond Hands, WildHeart Omega and 30k Violet. They feature some of the best players from the European and North American amateur scenes, led by veterans such as Galnegunnar. However, none of these teams was able to win the first HR:CS qualifier. Both 30k Violet and WildHeart Omega fell against the champions: NotFans. This winning roster is led by jae12321 (ex-Simplicity) and Mokka, one of the players who has been ruling the NA amateur scene. Both recently became the NGS Storm Division victors playing for GG till i die.

The arrival of the HR:CS means much more action for the amateur scene. While NGS Storm Division is focused on North America, this new tournament series seems to have a global aim, just like CCL. The NGS league fits in perfectly with these new events, as they combine a longer and more stable league format with sporadic one-day tournaments. Hosting a whole qualifier in just one day makes it necessary to have multiple streams. This issue has been solved with a large team of casters and streamers, including well-known faces such as Bahamut from CCL or Jazzalene from GirlsGankSquad. The players can also stream their point of view, with the single condition of adding a 20-second delay.



If you are interested in taking part on HR:CS as a player or a streamer, be sure to join their Discord channel to keep track of all the qualifiers. There you can also find all the info about where to watch each game.

X-Cup Fall

Meanwhile in Europe, X-Cup Fall is about to take off after its ten qualifiers. After the success of X-Cup Summer, Khaldor’s tournament has gathered many of the best European players. The event has a perfect timing, as it will take place from November 26th to November 28th, which is the Thanksgiving break at CCL.

The eight qualified teams are Wurst and Homies, The Hardos, Chilly Mountain, Inting for Ruby, Team Name Change, ORDAH, GUNNARS ON and Charming Tomcats. Their backgrounds are quite different: some of them earned their spots through perseverance and some others performed well in a few qualifiers and didn’t take part in the rest. And then there’s the French-German mix Wurst and Homies, which played almost every qualifier and won five of them.