Earlier this month Blizzard upper management issued a statement to the Heroes of the Storm community. In this announcement, they explained that Blizzard would be ending the Heroes Global Championship (HGC) and the Heroes of the Dorms competitive scenes. Additionally, it was mentioned that Blizzard would also be moving some of the developers that work on Heroes of the Storm to different projects inside the company.

This news was not taken well with prominent streamers such as Mewnfare, Bambam, and many others moving to League of Legends, Dota 2, Overwatch, or Path of Exile. Organizations such as Dignitas and Fnatic have left the scene, further adding to the bad news for HotS players.

However, despite the grim news, HeroesLounge.gg stood up to be a beacon of hope with the message #SaveHotS.

Heroes Lounge has run the largest Heroes of the Storm amateur league for several years now as a way for casually competitive players to experience real competition. In a blog post on December 19, the organization detailed their plan to implement a new division that would exist outside their amateur league: Division S. This Division will allow the top teams from Europe and North America to participate in a round-robin format against other teams for real, crowd-funded prizes.

Khaldor, an ex-HGC caster for Blizzard, is teaming up with Heroes Lounge in this endeavor. He, alongside other unnamed professional casters, will be casting and providing live commentary over the matches for Divison S.

Initially, Heroes Lounge set a community goal of $10,000 and the goal was quickly met by the HotS fanbase. This money will serve as a way to pay competing players and as a prize pool for the Division S competitions. It’s important to mention that every penny of this money is dedicated to the players. Heroes Lounge is a volunteer-oriented organization whose upkeep costs are covered by their Patreon supporters.

If you would like to financially support this movement to #SaveHotS, you can contribute here. The initial goal has been met but this is just the beginning, so let’s keep the ball rolling!