The second Heroes of the Storm North American Summer Regional is here! The early rounds of the group stages will be broadcast from a community stream on Friday, June 3, starting at 10AM PDT. Be sure to catch today’s matches and then tune in for the main event this weekend starting on Saturday, June 4 at 10AM PDT on the ESL Heroes of the Storm Twitch channel.
The top eight North American teams will be battling it out for a share of the US$100,000 prize pool and chance to represent their region at the Summer Global Championship in Sweden. All of the teams have been putting in hours of practice in anticipation for this event, but only one of them will travel to Sweden alongside Team Naventic. Let’s take a look at how the players are feeling going into the weekend:
GROUP A
Team Naventic vs. Tempo Storm
According to McIntyre, Naventic is, “here to crush dreams.” With the top seed and a Summer Global Championship seat already in hand, Naventic, in the words of Bigempct, “can literally just chill.” However, Zuna assures, “We're in it to win it. I'm gonna go hard. If we play our best, we can't lose. It's impossible.”
Kenma alluded to the success of a tight main roster, saying, “I think it matters most who your core is, even Cloud9 maintain their core roster and switch out one spot when it's not working.”
“I learned a lot from being on this team,” said Bigempct, the newest addition to the powerhouse Naventic roster. “I thought that playing was everything and I thought that’s how you become the best, but I realized that talking about the game and thinking about the game is more important. When you're just playing for eight hours straight you're not really thinking about the game you're just kind of mindless.”
Naventic are going into this weekend fighting for first and agree that their confidence, game knowledge, and mechanics set them apart from the rest.
Tempo Storm grabbed the last Summer Regional spot in the Invitational Qualifier and will have to face their biggest challenge right off the bat. “We've been scrimming a lot trying to improve our synergy,” said Kaeyoh. “We expect Naventic to be our toughest matchup, so we're preparing most for that because we think it will be a close set. Overall we are feeling really confident in ourselves.”
“It's definitely going to be a tough first match,” Zixz added, “but I'm a better support than Kenma so I'm feeling confident. I love every support player.” Tempo Storm has shuffled their roster a lot since their early competitive days as well, with TigerJK joining most recently.
Tomster, who earned the nickname ‘T-god’ for his phenomenal Thrall plays is another new addition. One of the youngest players at 17 years old, Tomster also added a new ‘T’ character to his god list, Tracer.
“It's going to be a lot of close competition,” said Goku. “A lot of the teams are strong at this tournament and there are going to be a lot of very strong matchups. It's all dependent on the early game, whoever has a good early game will snowball into the victory. Compared to the last Regional we're going to come off a lot stronger.”
Astral Authority vs. Panda Global
“We feel very confident going into the first match,” said Bkid of Panda Global. “It's going to be us and Naventic in first and second.”
Former PG members are spread throughout all of the top teams, and the current roster is set on making themselves known as the best. “We're here to get first,” said Yuuj. “We're good friends you know, so we just want to destroy them all. You're enemies when you go on the stage and friends again when you walk off.”
Continuing on this note, Klaudeous identified more friends PG is eager to fight, “I’m looking forward to playing Naventic again and beating Zuna and Bigempct because they're our friends and good players.”
"And I can't wait to body MichaelUdall,” Psalm added commenting on the former PG member, to which the whole team replied, “SAME."
Equinox of Astral Authority assured that the #AstralArmy is also excited about moving out of the group stages. “We're pretty confident in our first match against Panda Global. The only team we're worried about is Naventic. We're prepped for all three teams in our group and some others who we think we might end up against after the group stages.”
TalkingTrees added, “I'm ready to see what Panda has finally since we haven't scrimmed them in a month.”
Overall, Astral Authority is on the upswing and their matchup against Panda Global is set to be a close one. “I want everyone to understand that we're not an amateur team,” said Killuzion. “We're not the dark horse. We're a top team now and we're here to prove it.”
GROUP B
Brain Power vs. Cloud9
Brain Power will be starting off the regional going up against Cloud9, the new home of former teammate Cattlepillar. “I'm really excited to play Cloud9,” said Glaurung of Brain Power. “Two new rosters debuting against each other and we get to see who adjusts better. The community definitely favors Cloud9 though.”
“Initially we were stressed out and sad because we had to find a replacement so quickly,” Glaurung said of Cattlepillar’s recent move. Their new fifth player is Srey, who is feeling good about his new teammates, “I think we have a good chance to win. Glau calling shots instead of Cattle changes a lot of things up and it works out pretty well. I think Cattle was more passive whereas Glau is more aggressive.”
“It's also nice going into it without a lot of expectations,” Srey continued. “C9 has to perform with their new roster, and for us, it's more like, how are we going to perform? It's way more relaxed if that makes sense.”
Cattlepillar is also confident with his new team, saying, “I'm feeling good. I feel like we had enough time to get used to the change.”
“Cattle is the secret sauce,” said DunkTrain of C9. “The thing about the qualifiers is that there isn't a lot on the line, there's no prize pool. There isn't a lot of incentive to dominate, it's more of a testing ground, so people shouldn’t be discouraged by our late entrance into the Regional.”
“We just need a reason to try and LAN is a reason,” added k1pro.
“I'm really confident going into this weekend,” said KingCaffeine. “We made a lot of mistakes at the last tournament and we're not going to repeat that. We're planning on taking first like we usually do.”
DunkTrain added, “Our biggest challenge is just making sure that everyone plays at their best and that everyone works together well since we're working with a new roster. The seeding coming out of groups this tournament is going to be really important because we're not in the same group as Naventic.”
Team Name Change vs. Gale Force eSports
“On our best day we can beat everyone,” said MATRE of Team Name Change. “I feel like no one is talking about us at all. We are the invisible team, and that just gives us more motivation to prove that we can make it to Sweden.”
TNC surprised everyone by qualifying for the second North America Summer Regional before Cloud9 or Tempo Storm and are looking to continue their impressive performance. Their first matchup will be against Gale Force eSports who are also focused on punching their ticket to Sweden.
“We're going to Sweden!” Roflcopter repeated over and over as if to make it true. “We’re not at all nervous about getting out of the group stages,” a more calculated Fury added. “We're very confident that we'll make it to the playoffs.”
The team has been bootcamping at esports arena, bonding, scrimming, and theory-crafting six to ten hours a day, seven days a week. “I'm the theory craft machine,” said Akaface as his partner in crime MichaelUdall sat next to him. “The mad-scientist.”
“Akaface and I have been on the same team for a year,” said MichaelUdall. “If I'm solo-laning people are going to die, and he's going to play brightwing.” The pair moved over from Panda Global and recently worked together to help take home first place in Heroes of the Dorm for Arizona State University. “Just like dorms, we're gonna do another sweet 2-0,” said MichaelUdall. “Dorms was a where I became a pretty good drafter and shotcaller. I've only been doing it for like two months, but I really like it and it's been a great experience.”
“I'm excited to take our first tournament and win it all,” said Fury. “I'm ready to play C9 on stage and get the same results as before. This roster hasn't lost to C9 ever.”
“We're going to be trying our best to qualify for Sweden,” added Khroen. “We won't be satisfied unless we get number one.”
THE NA SUMMER REGIONAL #2
The Heroes of the Storm North American Summer Regional begins today at 10AM PDT, and the action will continue at the ESL Studios in front of a sold-out audience for the rest of the weekend. Tune in to the ESL Heroes of the Storm Twitch channel to see which team will go on to represent North America at the Summer Global Championship in Jönköping, Sweden!
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