By ESL Gaming
This weekend, the top eight North American Heroes of the Storm teams will battle for a share of a $100,000 prize pool and the last NA seat for the Heroes of the Storm Fall Championship at BlizzCon 2016. Everything will go down this weekend at PAX West, but if you’re not on the show floor in Seattle, be sure to tune into the ESL Heroes of the Storm Twitch channel starting at 10AM PDT on Friday, September 2 to watch all three days of action.
GROUP A – SEPTEMBER 2, 10AM PDT
Murloc Geniuses
• Rori “CauthonLuck” Bryant-Raible
• Manny “Fury” Medina
• Ben “ Cattlepillar” Bunk
• Harrison “Psalm” Chang
• Jun “Jun” Jang
Made up of players from Gale Force eSports, Brain Power, Panda Global, and Cloud9, with the addition of newcomer Jun, Murloc Geniuses were the team that rose to the top in the wake of the North America rosterpocalypse. With a spot at BlizzCon 2016 already under their belts and the title of reigning North American champions, Murloc Geniuses are headed into PAX West a little more relaxed than the other teams. However, all eyes will be on this new roster to see if they can duplicate the amazing success that they had in the first NA Fall Regional.
Denial eSports
• Keiwan “k1pro” Itakura
• Mike “Glaurung” Fisk
• Kun “iDream” Fan
• John Paul “King Caffeine” Lopez
• Francis “aPm” Gilbert-Brodeur
Denial eSports were the roster that everyone expected would take the NA Heroes scene by storm. Although they didn’t live up to the hype with their performance in the first Fall Regional, just failing to make it out of the group stages after falling to Murloc Geniuses 2-0, this team still has a lot of promise. Denial made one roster change between regionals, replacing Prismaticism with iDream, who was a part of the Cloud9 roster that won the 2015 Heroes of the Storm World Championship.
Dumpster Tier Superstars
• Jeffrey “Iakona” Dolan
• Kayla “Faye” Murray
• Quinn “Srey” Fischer
• Richard “Kladeous” Tran
• Kyle “Prismaticism” Belaiche
Prismaticism went from Denial eSports to Dumpster Tier Superstars, along with a group of core players that we seem to see at every regional under a different name. Iakona, Faye, and Srey, who made up the bulk of GulDansGame last regional and Brain Power from the Summer Regional #2, are back again and embracing the feeling shared by many as they switch from roster to roster with their new team name. Rounding out the new squad is Kaldeous who moved over from Astral Authority.
Team Name Change
• Justin “Justing” Gapp
• Chandler “Buds” Gavran
• Hao “HaoNguyen” Nguyen
• Edward “TigerJK” Hong
• Francisco “Goku” Avalos
Team Name Change have stayed relatively stable, maintaining their core roster between summer and fall, while adding TigerJK and Goku of Tempo Storm to replace aPm and Prismaticism who were picked up by Denial. They made no roster changes after the first NA Fall Regional, which is an apt decision after they performed better than ever, placing 5-6th and just falling short of the playoffs after a very close fight against Gale Force eSports.
GROUP B – SEPTEMBER 3, 10AM PDT
Gale Force eSports
• Stefen “Akaface” Anderson
• Josh “bkid” Choi
• Khalif “Khroen” Hashim
• Fan “Fan” Yang
• Michael “MichaelUdall” Udall
Gale Force eSports, winners of the NA Summer Regional #2 and fan-favorites to take it all at the first Fall Regional, were invited to PAX West after losing to Murloc Geniuses and going home with second place. Hopes are high once again for GFE after they announced that NA titan Fan would replace Roflcopter, who decided to take some time off to focus on his education.
Team Naventic
• Christopher “Zuna” Buechter
• Ken “Kenma” Buechter
• Sammuel “bigempct” Hua
• Thomas “Tomster” Maguire
• Jason “Jason” Mei
Team Naventic, formerly the face of the North American Heroes of the Storm scene, have been struggling and for the first time since their inception had to make their way to a regional through qualifiers. But they did so with ease, replacing Fan with Jason and stomping through Qualifier #1. After months of success that possibly led them to complacency, we’ll see if Naventic’s 3-4th place finish in the last regional will be enough to wake them up.
Astral Authority
• Marty “Batterry” Nivinski
• Damian “FrozenX” Nagel
• Jon “Equinox” Peterson
• Kevin “TalkingTrees” Marco
• Chris “DarkChimaera” Beery
With the return of shotcaller Equinox, four out of five players of the original Astral Authority roster are headed to the NA Fall Regional #2. Despite some challenges over the last few months, the #AstralArmy continue to make top eight. After a polarizing presence at the first Fall Regional and a 7-8th place finish, the team is headed to PAX West with a lot to prove.
Imported Support
• Ben “Hoss” Hosford
• Forrest “FZignition” Zhong
• Austin “HecarimJ” Bollich
• Nick “Drated” Broyles
• Austin “Shot” Lonsert
Imported Support knocked out the dark horse of the first NA Fall Regional Vox Nihili in the semifinals of the last PAX West qualifier. The squad is headed up by the imported support player himself, Hoss, who is from the UK, but is currently attending college and living in the United States. A European player on the North American side of the Heroes Global Circuit is not the only notable thing about this new team, as Shot was part of the winning Arizona State University Heroes of the Dorm team and is Akaface’s roommate.
CHAMPIONSHIP SUNDAY – SEPTEMBER 4, 10AM PDT
After the best-of-three group stages on Friday and Saturday, the playoffs will be best-of-five series on Sunday, September 4, also starting at 10AM PDT on the ESL Heroes of the Storm Twitch channel. If necessary, the tie-breaker match will be best-of-three.