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Heroes CCL Season 2 - Format and Details!
by CCL on 02/08/2021
Hello, CCL Fans and Friends!

It's time for us to reveal the big plans we've put together for HeroesCCL Season 2. There's a lot of information to share, so we'll do a TL;DR breakdown up front with the details below for further clarification.

Please note that there are still portions of these plans that are in active development. We'll continue to release information along the way and keep you informed as plans are finalized.

If this is the first time you've heard about HeroesCCL, you can refer to this blog post for all the details and the format about Season 1.

Let's get into it!

Overview

HeroesCCL Season 2 is a 15-week long Heroes of the Storm league composed of Masters-plus players from any region.

HeroesCCL is owned and operated by Wisdom Gaming Group d/b/a Heroes Hearth and not affiliated or administrated by Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. in any way.

Eight (8) Orgs will continue to be a part of CCL and those Orgs are selected by CCL Admin. Orgs will be responsible for drafting their team, managing their rosters and paying Players their monthly stipend and prize money.

One Org spot will be re-filled after the exit of Sidestep Kings in Season 1. Org applications opened February 1, 2021 and will close February 15, 2021.

Summary of Changes in Season 2

(You can read up on the details of these changes after the summary.)

  • Orgs will be permitted to protect a maximum of 4 Players from their Season 1 roster. They may option to protect 3 or 0 Players. Any Player not protected will be released from their roster. All released Players must sign up again for Free Agency. The protection deadline for the CCL Org rosters is February 15, 2021.

  • The Sidestep Kings roster has been released. All Players previously under the Sidestep Kings roster must sign up for Free Agency during the application period to be re-drafted by another Org.

  • Free Agent Player applications open February 15, 2021 and close March 8, 2021. The pool will not re-open again during the season.

  • Exhibition Season 2 will involve two optional Free Agent Open Tournaments. Free Agents will form their own 5-person teams to compete in the Free Agent Tournaments from players within the Free Agent Pool only. The Free Agent Tournaments will be held March 26-28, 2021 and April 8-11, 2021.

  • After the Free Agent Open Tournaments have been played, Orgs will participate in a Live Draft conducted on broadcast (April 17, 2021). Each team will draft the open spots in their roster from players who signed up as Free Agents.

  • Orgs will receive $4,200 USD per season to be distributed evenly to the six Players on their team. Players will receive $700 as a minimum seasonal stipend for participation in CCL Season 2. (An increase of $100 per player for the season.)

  • CCL will keep the same start time as in Season 1 (4pm ET/1pm PT/10pm CET) to allow the EU players participating in Masters Clash to play in both tournaments.  *Edited February 9

The Details

Teams

Eight (8) Organizations (Orgs) were selected by HeroesCCL for the league in Season 1.

Organizations in CCL Season 2:

30k
CrowdControl
Chilly Mountain
Granit Gaming
Oxygen Esports
Simplicity
WildHeart Esports
[TBD]*

*One (1) Org spot will be refilled after the announced departure of Sidestep Kings on January 26, 2021. An open application process began February 1, 2021 and closes February 15, 2021. CCL Admin will select a new Org to join the league by March 1, 2021.

Mandatory Roster Changes

There will be a mandatory re-draft in Season 2 for all Season 1 CCL Organizations for a portion of their roster.

  • All Season 1 CCL Organizations will be given the opportunity to protect a maximum of 4 Players from their Season 1 final roster. 

  • Organizations may choose to protect 4, 3 or 0 players from their roster.

    1. Phrased another way, teams must release at least 2 players from their roster and re-draft those spots. Alternatively, they may choose to release 3 or 6 players from their roster and re-draft those spots.

  • All Players who are released from their rosters must sign up for Season 2 Free Agency to declare their intent to be re-drafted.

  • Players who are released by an Org are eligible to be re-drafted by that same Org.

  • Orgs may not trade or pick up any Players prior to Draft Day.

  • The Players previously under the Sidestep Kings roster in Season 1 have been released  and must sign up for Free Agency again for Season 2 to be eligible to be re-drafted.

Commissioner's Note: It's very important for us that we create a path to entry into the league and foster the competitive scene by creating opportunities for new players to enter the league each season. Protecting 4 of 6 players on a roster allows the Orgs to maintain over 60% of their core roster, but also creates parity. The higher performing teams will have to work to maintain their dominance, and the lower performing teams have opportunities to pick up players to improve their performance.
 
Free Agency

On February 15, 2021, HeroesCCL will open Player applications to the Season 2 Free Agent Pool. Any Player who signed up for Free Agency in Season 1 must sign up again in Season 2 if they wish to be eligible to be drafted in Season 2.

To enter into Free Agency a Player must achieve a Master Rank or higher at some point in 2020 Seasons 3, 4 or 5 and submit a screenshot of this achievement in their Free Agent application. Player applications will close on March 8, 2021 and will not reopen again during the season.

Players from any region who meet the eligibility requirements may enter the Free Agent Pool.

All games will be played on the North American Central server.

No member of an Org’s leadership team or administration staff that works directly with the CCL team will be permitted to compete in CCL as a Player at any time.

Commissioner's Note: Opening HeroesCCL to players from all regions was a revision we made early on after the announcement of Season 1, and we feel it's been a great benefit to the league's success.
 

Exhibition Play

Once the Free Agent pool has closed, the eligible Free Agents will be invited to compete in two (2) Free Agent Open Tournaments run by HeroesCCL.

  • Free Agents will form their own 5-person teams to compete in the Free Agent Tournaments from players within the Free Agent Pool only.

  • Free Agent Teams will be responsible for signing up and maintaining their rosters for each tournament - they may change rosters between the two tournaments.

Players do not have to participate in any Free Agent Open Tournament to be drafted by an Org.

The Free Agent Tournaments will be held March 26-28, 2021 and April 8-11, 2021.

Note: More details regarding the Free Agent Open Tournament format and signups will be released after the close of the Free Agent Application Period (after March 8, 2021).
 
Commissioner's Note: We received a lot of feedback in Season 1 that the Exhibition Season did not give enough opportunities to all of the Free Agents to showcase themselves. We've revised our Exhibition format in Season 2 to give all Free Agents the chance to network within the CCL Free Agent Pool, form their own teams and compete twice during the Free Agency season to show their skills to potential Org scouts. 

The details of the Free Agent Open Tournaments are TBD - we'll be able to finalize our planning in early March once we get a better sense of the number of players signed up in the Free Agent pool.
 

Draft

Draft pick order for Season 2 will be determined by the final placements of the Season 1 playoffs and grand finals. The draft will be a standard draft, ranked by worst record to best record.

The final placements in Season 1 were as follows:

Simplicity
WildHeart Esports
CrowdControl
Oxygen Esports
30k
Granit Gaming
Chilly Mountain

  • With Sidestep Kings’ departure in Season 2, the new Org that will be selected will draft a full 6-Player roster.

Details regarding draft pick order are still being finalized. We'll release those details at a later date.

Draft will be held live on April 17, 2021.

We will continue to maintain our current Player Transaction system with two Draft Transactions and two Regular Season Transactions that was established in Season 1. You can read those details here: https://wsdm.gg/CCL-Draft-Transactions
 
Commissioner's Note: We are working closely together with the Orgs to create a draft pick order system that makes the most sense based on the number of open spots on the rosters. We'll know more after the roster protection deadline of February 15, 2021.


League Schedule

Commissioner's Note: The schedule was modified on February 9, 2021 in collaboration with the Masters Clash admin team and the CCL Orgs. An extra week was added between the ladder playoffs and Top 4 playoffs to allow Masters Clash players to attend their LAN event on July 10-11, 2021.


Map Pool

The 48 Players of CCL Season 1 were given a survey to rate their top 9 map picks for Season 2.

They have selected the following maps for Season 2 by majority vote:

Towers of Doom
Infernal Shrines
Tomb of the Spider Queen
Battlefield of Eternity
Dragon Shire
Cursed Hollow
Sky Temple
Alterac Pass
Garden of Terror

Commissioner's Note: The map pool remains largely unchanged. Volskaya Foundry is out from Season 1 and Alterac Pass is in. Let the debates in Discord begin. :)


We hope you're as excited as we are about the upcoming new Season of CCL! This is just the first of many announcements that we'll be making throughout the upcoming weeks as we progress through the preseason and move into draft and regular season.

Commissioner Jules Scott will be answering questions on an AMA on the Heroes Subreddit on Tuesday, February 9th at 2pm ET/11am PT.

She will also join Michael Udall on HotS Weekly on Thursday, February 11 at 9pm ET/6pm PT and Chilly Mountain's Esports & Content Creators podcast on Sunday, February 14. You can submit advanced questions for Chilly Mountain's show at info@chillymountain.com.

To stay as up to date as possible, here's where you should make sure to check often:

Socials:
Twitter
Discord

Thank you again for your outstanding support of CCL. We can't wait to watch the action with you again!

Comments
There are no comments for this post.
Fury
February 8 at 1:21 pm
Nice.
Nozdub
February 8 at 1:39 pm
So freaking excited! Can't wait until April =D