Ameateur leagues are few and far-between in the Heroes scene but definitely worth participating in. Different from previous non-Blizzard sanctioned tournaments, Heroes United is strictly for amateur teams only, meaning any player that has played at a recent LAN event is not allowed to participate. Many current pro players started in this same position of the amateur scene from teams such as Gale Force eSports and Astral Authority. Vox Nihili, yes the same team that won season one, actually has now gone pro, qualifying for the first Fall Regional in Burbank.
With the great success of season one, we talked to CEO, Mathieu 'TiMBO' Bor and Director Helen 'Royalite' Bor about the future of the league:
You just got done with season one of Heroes United Can you give us a brief rundown of the concept of the tournament?
TiMBO: So Heroes United is really a conglomeration of all the Heroes amateur tournaments which are Heroes Hype, Divergent Gaming, Sweet Synergy, and Random CS.
We made it a big thing so the amateur teams had something really cool to do and not have to be professional players to do it.
We all came together and decided to form a league for the amateur players so they would have a big thing to work for. That all came together in season one which we split into eight weeks and the finale. For the finale we set up a Matcherino so we could have a prize pool. That’s what was missing from the amateur tournaments, so we got a prize pool together and backer rewards. We made it a big thing so the amateur teams had something really cool to do and not have to be professional players to do it.
Royalite, you’ve been at the forefront of getting sponsors for this and something like that might be why other people may not have been interested in amateur tournaments in the past because of the lack of rewards and prizes. How difficult was it to get people to back this up with a prize pool and sponsors?
Royalite: There actually was a lot of enthusiasm. We weren’t getting flooded with offers or anything but there was a lot of enthusiasm from the community and Matcherino. I approached them about campaigning for this and they were like “Great we’re going to help you guys out and give you 100 dollars” and then each of the individual organizations put in 100 dollars. There was a big boost at the start and we didn’t know how big it would go but we just thought that was a nice foundation to be laid.
Then reddit took it over. One of the players from a team decided to put it up on reddit and it just exploded. In terms of the backers rewards, I just approached people that were in the Heroes scene and they responded positively. Gilly sent out hilarious thank you tweets and did a wonderful job. She gave people that bought her reward her famous Sonya ‘yell’. Then we had JHow who’s always been a really strong supporter of amateur Heroes, especially with RandomCS, and DJTyrant, he’s such a great fun guy. Big thanks to darkchimera as well. He offered coaching for backers and those sold out immediately.
We set really low goals at the beginning and they were just blown away. We just shattered every goal we set.
It’s been very positive. In the Heroes community we’ve had some doom and gloom like “where is the Heroes scene going?”, but really there is just such passion and enthusiasm for amateur teams and for esports so it really wasn't that difficult. At the beginning I was concerned where this is going to go. We set really low goals and they were just blown away. We just shattered every goal we set. It was really amazing to see that response from the community.
In general, how do you feel like the first season went?
TiM: I think in general, season one started out really well. Towards the end we were conflicting with the Fall qualifiers, so the turnout was a lot lower near the end. There was also fatigue. People not thinking they could get in anymore because we had no point decay or anything. We’re thinking about that for season two, making a point decay so that if teams do not participate within two weeks their points would go down or something like that. That’s something we’ve been talking about. So that teams that aren’t as good as the top teams still have a chance to participate in the finals.
That brings up my next question, now that you’ve been through a full season what kind of changes do you want to implement into season two?
TiM: There’s a few other things. Sweet Synergy is moving their tournament to Saturdays, Nexverse is getting moved to Fridays and we’re also dropping Divergent Gaming out. Teams said four tournaments was too much to do in a week. Another thing is we did ‘best of one’ single eliminations so teams would come in, play one game, lose and that's it. People would like to play more than one game in a tournament, so we're changing that to double elimination. We'll have 'best of ones' for the weekday tournaments and Saturday we’re going to start at Noon (PST) and do 'best of threes' all the way through. So I hope that will be a draw.
What does the future look like for Heroes United?
TiM- We’re still planning a lot of stuff, working through things, talking to sponsors, getting the team together, we’re also hiring lots of people. We want to expand Heroes United into a lot more than just tournaments.
Can you elaborate on that?
TiM: We’re working on our website to make it bigger. We want to start working with bloggers and streamers, basically anyone in the Heroes community. Right now we’re focused on amateurs but we might expand that in the future too. Basically we want to be a place that everyone that loves heroes wants to go. Starting with a complete overhaul with the website and we’ll have more news with that coming soon.
How do you feel like amateur tournaments like this help the Heroes competitive scene?
Royalite: It’s interesting because you say the ‘pro’ teams and we've seen so many teams and players that have come through the amateur scene that have graduated to the pro scene. Vox Nihili won our tournament, took first place and now they’ve qualified and they’re going to Burbank. That’s the whole point of the tournament. That's exactly what we’re here for. It was like that for King of Blades, TNC, and Team Nom as well.
It’s been awesome. I really think we provide an environment that is really close. We try to emulate official Blizzard rules so that you get practice, you get the tournament environment and that experience going through the bracket. Unless you play in a tournament style, scrims just aren’t going to match that. It’s very limited in it’s scope you’re just testing things.
Unless you play in a tournament style, scrims just aren’t going to match that.
But when it comes down to: ‘okay here, you're going to be facing all these teams for the night’, having that stamina and having to adjust different strategies into the night. I think over and over we’ve proved with teams that have moved onto Blizzard tournaments that this is a very valuable learning environment for teams to grow and take it to the next level.
I hope that season two is bigger and better. We have teams that are moving on so we have the space that is open. If you are someone that is very interested in playing competitively but you're discouraged because you don't want to get stomped, that's not the situation at all.
Heroes United is here and there is space for new teams to take up the mantle. Make a team, come on out. There's plenty of incentives. There's plenty of people that will be rooting for you.
Season two of Heroes United starts Wednesday, August 3rd with Heroes Hype! You can sign up for it here and watch it on the Heroes Hype Channel
Follow us on Twitter @GosuGamersHotS and on Facebook for more competitive Heroes of the Storm news and coverage from around the world.
