▲The last Heroes of the Storm event with pro players featured a packed audience.

Less than a week after Heroes Lounge opened sign-ups for their crowd-funded competitive tournament, Division S, 20 former professional Heroes of the Storm players have formed teams.

Thomas “Mene” Cailleux, Dennis "HasuObs" Schneider, Jérôme "JayPL" Trinh, Filip "SmX" Liljeström and Aleksandar "ethernal" Milanov will make up one team from Europe.

The former Leftovers squad from EU consisting of Maksym "Mopsio" Szczypa, Mark "Linked" Šepec, Arkadiusz “Bl3kitny” Czarnecki and Mikołaj "PotiBoss" Potera have teamed up together to assert their dominance.

On the other side of the world, the former Team Freedom roster consisting of Yusuf "Kure" Sunka, Jerome "KilluZiioN" Tanguay, Vincent "Lutano" Alonso, Merek "zugrug" Kangas and Raphael "Hosty" Tsantili will be competing.

Another former North American squad, LFM Esports, with a lineup of Andrew “Droplets” Chi, Manuel “Fury” Medina, Chris “Darkchimaera” Beery and Andrew “Swabs” Papazian will join long-time pro player, Skylar "Casanova" Mulder, to show they still got it when it matters most.

While numerous former professional players have moved on to different games or career paths outside of the gaming industry, others just can’t leave Heroes behind them. Currently, the tournament, which will kick off in February, has raised nearly $15,000 for their prize pool. It’s also the first event that features former professional players since Blizzard made the decision to no longer support the Heroes Global Championship league last month.

Time will tell as to whether more players from the former pro circuit get involved but, less than a week into sign-ups, the tournament is shaping up to be much more competitive than some may have thought.