Eight years after shuttering its esports league, Blizzard Entertainment is reviving top-tier Heroes of the Storm esports with an invite to BlizzCon 2026.
Revealed on March 19, competitive Heroes of the Storm will return via the newly announced Blizzard Classic Cup. Described as a celebration of rivalries, personalities and Blizzard esports as a whole, the Classic Cup will feature Warcraft III: Reforged, StarCraft II, StarCraft: Remastered, and Heroes of the Storm (HotS).
Competitive HotS effectively ended in 2018 with Blizzard closing the Heroes Global Championship in December of that year. Following this, a small but dedicated community continued to run tournaments, but without official support.
Now, years after its main league’s closure, HotS esports returns as part of the Classic Cup, a $100,000 USD combination tournament featuring captains Nick “Tasteless” Plott and Dan “Artosis” Stemkoski.
The tournament will seemingly be more of a triathlon-style event with multiple games, and HotS being just one of them. As per Blizzard:
“This isn’t a traditional bracket, as there’s no elimination tree. Instead, every match contributes points to each team’s total. The scoreboard is live all weekend and every match shifts the momentum.”
Each matchup in each game, HotS, StarCraft, SC2, and WC3, will have the potential to earn points, with Team Tasteless or Team Artosis claiming victory after all events have been played.
Additional details of the event are currently unknown, but the post teased “Legacy Matchups” rather than name teams at this time.
The full list of esports at BlizzCon 2026. Image Credit: Blizzard Esports
For those who missed the game, HotS was Blizzard’s answer to the MOBA craze of the 2010s. While Dota and League of Legends evolved out of Blizzard’s own Warcraft III, the company itself was slow to capitalize, instead attempting to take control of the Dota: Allstars branding via litigation.
HotS launched 2015, six years after League of Legends, five after Heroes of Newerth, and four after the first public betas for Dota 2. This meant it was a late entrant into a battle for users that had largely already been decided. Despite featuring iconic Blizzard characters, the game never had the staying power of its rivals.
The esports scene began the same year as launch, but official support shuttered just three years later. Now HotS returns as a nostalgic look back at what could have been, rather than a top flight game at BlizzCon.
BlizzCon will also feature the World of Warcraft: Mythic Dungeon International, WoW: Arena World Championship, Overwatch World Cup, and Hearthstone Masters.
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Featured Image Credit: Blizzard Entertainment
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