Heroes Of The Storm: How Spring Esports Is Shaping Up

Blizzard has announced the full details of its Heroes of the Storm [official site] Spring Global Championship with eight regional shindigs culminating in a Global Championship event in April. The various prize pools for all of this top $1m and the company will be rinsing and repeating for a Summer and Fall season as well.

I'll put their more detailed breakdown below with prizes and regional partners and dates and things. I suspect that when the full details for the Spring Global Championship are announced it'll explain more about how this all feeds into the next World Championship.

FYI the Spring Global Championship Event will be taking place in Seoul, South Korea and has a prize pool of $500k. Everything is as it is on their site except I've added in the info about how many teams from each region will get through to Seoul.

Australia/New Zealand – Season 1 Regional

Dates: January 30 - February 28
Location: Preliminaries online; Finals live streamed from Sydney, Australia
Partner: ESL
Prize Pool: $20k USD
Teams advancing from this event: 1
For more infomation check out our forum thread.

China – Gold League

Dates: January 15–24
Location: Shanghai, China
Partner: NetEase / NeoTV
Prize Pool: $100k USD*
Teams advancing from this event: 2
For more information, visit http://gold.blizzard.cn/live-stream/ (Chinese)

Europe – Spring Regional

Dates: March 5–6 (Finals)
Location: Preliminaries online; Finals in Katowice, Poland
Partner: ESL
Prize Pool: $100k USD
Teams advancing from this event: 2
For more information, visit http://play.eslgaming.com/heroesofthestorm/europe/championship/katowice/

Korea – Super League

Dates: January 12–March 20
Location: Preliminaries online; Finals in Seoul, South Korea
Partner: OGN
Prize Pool: $200k USD
Teams advancing from this event: 2
For more information, visit http://www.playxp.com/heroes/ogn/superleague/ (Korean)

Latin America – Copa America

Dates: January 25–March 19
Location: Preliminaries online; Finals in Brazil
Partner: VIU / BRMA
Prize Pool: $18.5k USD
Teams advancing from this event: 1
For more information, visit http://esports.viustudio.com/heroes-of-the-storm-copa-america

North America – Spring Regional

Dates: February 27–28 (Finals)
Location: Preliminaries online; Finals in Los Angeles, California
Partner: ESL
Prize Pool: $100k USD
Teams advancing from this event: 2
Check back soon for more information

South East Asia – Spring Regional

Dates: January 16–March 6
Location: Preliminaries online and offline; SEA finals online, cast live from Singapore
Partner: AsiaSoft
Prize Pool: $22.5k USD*
Teams advancing from this event: 1
For more information, visit http://esports.heroessea.com/en/index.html

Taiwan – Spring Regional

Dates: February 18–March 13
Location: Preliminaries online; Finals in Taipei, Taiwan
Partner: 4Gamers
Prize Pool: $60k USD
Teams advancing from this event: 1
For more information, visit http://tw.battle.net/heroes/zh/blog/ (Chinese)

*Regional prize pools may vary; USD values according to exchange rates; see regional websites for local prizing.

I've not really kept up with Heroes of the Storm as a competitive scene since the Worlds qualifier in Prague last year. For various reasons I found the spectator interface to be a bit awkward and I prefer the structure you get with a longer laning phase so I gravitate towards other games. Probably time to dip back in and see what's been happening in my absence. Preliminary investigations mean I'm in favour of Bob Ross Fan Club. This decision was entirely based on the name but further Googling reveals that the North American side is actually pretty good as well.

It is a good day for Pip Esports.