Heroes of the Storm is slowly working its way toward release, and now Blizzard have announced the addition of that most critical feature to an aspiring eSport: a ranked Team League.
Heroes gets teamed-up with its next Close Beta patch, so get ready to carry or be carried by your friends.
Here’s how it works. Veteran players who have both hit Level 40 and own 10 heroes can create (for 1,000 Gold for each created team) or join up to three teams. The Team League will have its own ladder and matchmaking. You can have up to nine players on a roster, so substitutes are baked-into the fabric of the team, but you have to have a full team of five to join Team League matchmaking.
“It is also worth noting,” Blizzard write, “that ranking is determined by a team’s performance as a whole in Team League matches, and will not be affected by the Hero League rankings, or matchmaking ratings, of its individual members.”
Another standard aspect of competitive play, a first-come, first-served draft selection, will be the mechanism by which teams choose heroes for their match.
Once the match is over, your team’s rank is recalculated, and the individual players make Hero and Level progress based on their performance.
It sounds like a very welcome feature for Heroes, one that will really facilitate casual competitive play among friends. And, of course, the inevitable friendship break-ups that ensue once a team decides it’s not that casual and kicks an underperforming buddy to the curb. But until that day, it should be fun for all.