The wait is over as the group stages are out! It's finally happening as the much anticipated Steelseries HoN World Cup with a $40,000 prize pool is about to get underway. 64 teams will battle it out in the group stages for a berth in the playoffs.
The draw was conducted using standard FIFA procedures in accordance to our World Cup theme. The participating teams were divided into 4 Pots, with 1 team from each pot being randomly picked to join each group. Pot 1 being the seeded teams, Pots 2, 3 and 4 based on region to avoid an extension of a region's qualifier happening in the group stage.
The champions of every region's qualifier were automatically given a seeding. The rest were voted by our HoN staff. The 16 selected teams were : Loaded, Interpol, KD-Gaming, FnaticMSI, Never Back Down, Empire Multigaming, SK-Gaming, Deal With it, TS-Gaming, iMpUniTy, Koroks Crew, Druidz, unZ, Roam and KiLL, Tease em, Dotally Rad.
Pot 2 : North and South American Region + PusoY + SHE
Pot 3 : Western Europe + African Region + Lesgit + Bboys
Pot 4 : Eastern Europe Region + Asian, Oceanic and Mixed Region + Goat
The results of the draw were as follows :
| Groupings | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Group A | Group B | Group C | Group D | |||||||||||||||||||||
 TS-Gaming |  Dotally Rad | Loaded |  unZ | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Team.Team | Milk International | Pro Sex Inc |  Cats | |||||||||||||||||||||
| The Hatchet Pyros | Whats Your Name |  Ventus Gaming | Odyssey | |||||||||||||||||||||
 Failures United | SMEK | Any Pinoy? | MILF International | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Group E | Group F | Group G | Group H | |||||||||||||||||||||
| SK-Gaming |  Never Back Down | Tease em | Roam and KiLL | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Used to be Good |  Pokerstars | Epic | MyLilPwnies | |||||||||||||||||||||
| We are Always Slayin Pinoys | Bboys | Revolutions |  fap fap fap | |||||||||||||||||||||
 124Nagibatora | Metal Warriors Xtreme | KIWI | Lahtisko vitosella | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Group I | Group J | Group K | Group L | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Interpol | dRavens eSports Club | Empire Multigaming | Druidz | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Dilateds Dream Team |  Singapore Hon Elites | Keep Six | Roshan Roulette | |||||||||||||||||||||
 Homestone | What I do to Your Mother | Corona Extra Mell | Global Core Gamers | |||||||||||||||||||||
| HEROS ASSASINS |  Goat | Stop Attacking Axe | Dirty Minds | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Group M | Group N | Group O | Group P | |||||||||||||||||||||
| KD-Gaming | FnaticMSI | iMpUniTy | Deal With it | |||||||||||||||||||||
 CNB Gaming | PusoY | Not Quite There | You Need Six | |||||||||||||||||||||
| GGED | Lesgit | FitForGamingSuper | SLAMMERS | |||||||||||||||||||||
 Universal Soldiers | Finale | Dont know |  TheGrand | |||||||||||||||||||||
The exact pairings for each playday will be announced soon, in another news.
Group stage matches will be bo1, each win will earn a team 1 point and a loss will result in 0. Should there be a tie on points at the end, time rating will be used as a tiebreaker. In the unlikely event 2 teams have the same time rating, head-on-head record will be used.
Eventhough the top two teams will qualify together, they will still have the incentive of playing for a lower ranked opponent in the playoffs. The bracket below shows how the playoffs will work.
Click the image to enlarge.
