▲ Heroes Lounge, HeroesHearth Esports, and Tempo Storm are exploring options to keep the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene alive.

Activision Blizzard announced last week that they are no longer supporting the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene but the community hasn’t.

Since the press release that effectively ended the Heroes Global Championship (HGC) and Heroes of the Dorm circuits released last Thursday, numerous organizations, fans, and community members have voiced their interest in making a new tournament structure or league viable.

The hashtag “#saveHotS” began appearing on different social platforms and is now acting as a rallying cry for those who do not want to see the competitive scene of one of their beloved games die altogether.

Heroes Lounge, one of the largest amateur Heroes of the Storm sites in the world, announced on Wednesday the launch of “Division S.”

According to their site:

Heroes Lounge Division S will be a high-level competition where the top teams from Europe and NA can compete in their own region. Teams will be competing in a round robin format, will compete for crowdfunded prizes, have a chance to drop out of the division via crucibles with new teams being able to fight their way in via qualifiers and most games being cast by no one less than Khaldor himself. Most importantly, this is all going to happen now.



Our timeline for this is planned as follows:



- Signups for the qualifiers open the start of January

- Qualifiers will be played on the 2nd and 3rd of February

- League play will start at the beginning of March

In two days, the site has crowdfunded over $8,700 of their $10,000 goal in hopes of creating a grass root league structure that can, over time, fill the HGC-fix that the community has.

However, Heroes Lounge isn’t the only party that is looking to fill the void in the competitive scene.

HeroesHearth Esports and Tempo Storm, two organizations that held professional teams in the HGC, have publicly acknowledged that they are looking into options that can be viable long-term.

Ian “workhorse” Anderson, the co-founder of HeroesHearth Esports issued a statement on their site the day after Blizzard made their announcement.

“For years now, I have wanted to launch what I’ve been calling HeroesHearth Events. It’s a platform that I started working on long ago to foster a high-level tournament circuit that is fueled by the community -- we are rebooting it now.”

With more information to come, Anderson told InvenGlobal that he is talking to numerous other interested parties to see what they can come up with.

Former captain of Dignitas and current Business Development Manager, James “Bakery” Baker has expressed his interest as well in circumventing a way to create a league that appeals to the former pro players who may be looking for different career paths.

He recently told InvenGlobal he’s confident he will be able to “save HotS” and is actively working to speak with as many partners as possible.

Time will tell as to whether all currently interested parties plan on working together to create a singular tournament or league going forward.

In 2018, Blizzard committed more than $5 million in salaries and prize pools globally for the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene but crowdfunding nearly $10,000 in two days is a start.