ESports Arena has put the power in the viewers' hands with a 100% Kickstarter backed tournament.
In a Heroes of the Storm first, eSports Arena has created a kickstarter for a LAN event for top tier teams to compete in. Their goal is to put the ability to create large scale tournaments in the hands of those who watch. "Traditionally, the community has been at the mercy of companies (whether they be developers or sponsors) when it comes to producing a huge, high-production value event like this, but that’s all about to change. This is your time, your event, and your game. So let’s make eSports history."
The teams that have been invited to play so far are: Tempo Storm, Cloud 9, COGnitive Gaming, Murloc Geniuses, and Kappa Wolves. In addition to these highly skilled top-tier teams, five teams will be invited from online qualifiers and two teams will be invited from LAN qualifiers. Should they meet their $10,000 stretch goal, two of the online qualifier spots will instead be given to Natus Vincere, and Dignitas from Europe.
Online qualifiers will begin on December 4th and end on the 5th. Anyone is welcome to sign up, and it will be formatted as a standard double elimination. The top five (or three given the stretch goal) teams will be brought in to the LAN event to compete there. The LAN qualifiers will take place on December 12th through the 13th and are also open to anyone, so long as you can travel to the eSports Arena where they're held. Games will be played in Swiss Rounds in a best of three, and the top teams will be put into a single elimination bracket. The two teams who make it from there will also be invited to compete in the main event.
The main event will take place January 8-10, live at twitch.tv/eSportsArena. Gillyweed and Zoia will be the casters for the event (although a certain European caster will make an appearance if the final stretch goal is reached). The prize pool begins at $10,000 but will be increased by %70 of all the money they make over $10,000.
You can head over to their Kickstarter page or their website to learn more information, and to check out the backer rewards. Also something you should check out is the AMA that eSports Arena conducted on Reddit yesterday. In it, many questions you may have are likely answered.
I personally think this is a great step in the right direction for Heroes of the Storm as a competitive game, since there are very few tournaments that offer a middle ground right now. Most are either amateur tournaments, or solely reserved for the best in the world. It's great to see the two groups merge every now and again.
Follow us on twitter @GosuGamersHoTS for more Heroes of the Storm esports news.
