Farewell CCL: Season 4 Recap

Since its beginning back in 2020, CCL has been one of the beacons of competitive Heroes of the Storm. The tournament organized by Wisdom Media (HeroesHearth’s parent company) has brought together the best teams from all over the world for two years, making them fight for the closest thing to a world championship there has been in the entire post-HGC era. After four editions of this wonderful tournament series, Wisdom Media has announced there won’t be any more CCL seasons.

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— HeroesCCL by HeroesHearth (@HeroesHearthCCL) August 9, 2022

Season 4 was the chosen one, the tournament called to bring HotS back to its old-days glory. The event was supposed to end with an offline finals at the brand new Wisdom Media Studios, where the best teams from Europe and North American would collide. Though there had already been an international LAN event earlier this year (the Defrost Miami LAN), CCL finals were intended to be even greater.

But plans went sideways.

A few days before the season started, the organizers announced that the stream would be moved to Grubby’s channel. That decision came after rebranding HeroesCCL Twitch channel to Wisdom Media and presenting CCL as the main course of this new esports hub. After lots of questioning from the community, Wisdom Media took the decision to keep Grubby’s channel as the main stream, but also to simultaneously broadcast the games at their own channel, as they had initially planned. Despite the rush of the announcement, it actually made sense moving CCL to Grubby’s, as it could potentially reach his audience from other games, such as Age of Empires.

After some months of complete abandonment, Blizzard officially announced that they had moved Heroes of the Storm to life support. That bad news was followed by another nefarious announcement by Wisdom Media: CCL Season 4 wouldn’t have LAN finals anymore. This was a hard blow for the teams, the players and the audience. The offline closing event was one of the best appeals of Season 4. Some teams had made roster changes so their players could attend the finals, as Chris from Diamond Hands told us before the season began.

Last but not least, there have been scheduling conflicts with Masters Clash Championship. During the first four weeks of CCL, games overlapped with the ones from the MCC group stage and gauntlet. This was mostly a problem for the viewers, but it also became an issue for the teams when Granit Gaming forfeited their match on May 15, as they were actually playing MCC at the time their CCL match was supposed to begin.

Despite not having an offline event, the finals brought us great series with many exciting and close games. Oxygen Esports arrived at the finals as the European champions after lifting the Paris trophy at CCL, but they struggled more than expected to take down WildHeart Esports in the first round. In the other opening series, 30k—which had the highest seed from the group stage—defeated Diamond Hands. Thus, Oxygen and 30k faced each other at the winners’ finals, which ended with a convincing victory for the North American squad.

On the lower side of the bracket, WildHeart got rid of Diamond Hands and earned a spot at the losers’ finals, where they staged the biggest upset of the weekend. The European champions fell down, making way for the NA vs. NA grand finals. WildHeart and 30k fought ferociously to claim the CCL crown. In the end, Michael Udall’s organization conquered its second CCL in a row by winning the series 4-3.

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CCL S4 Grand Finals: 30k vs. WildHeart Esports.

End of an Era

There has been a mournful aura around each of the dreary announcements of CCL Season 4. Despite the great finals, there’s a bitter feeling surrounding this last season. The tough decisions were expectable, but the communication was poor. They left very short time windows to digest the news and try to content the damage. In other words, they reopened the wound. It felt much like Blizzard’s overnight HGC cancellation.

But this bitter ending can’t outshine all the good things Wisdom Media and HeroesHearth have done throughout the years. We can’t forget all their effort and involvement in the Heroes esports scene. We should celebrate their HGC team, their huge squad of streamers, the Fight Nights, the first version of CCL (Celebrity Clash League) and, of course, the Community Clash League. They have carried the torch for many years. They stepped forward when few were able to bring stability to the scene.

CCL was made by countless awesome people that gave their best to bring us all these amazing events. They also made the scene a better place with many tiny details that might have gone unnoticed. For example, they favored inclusion by adding pronouns to the free agent datasheet—something that I, as a non-binary person myself, was delighted to see. They also helped the grassroots scene by sponsoring Heroes Rise: Contender Series. They leave an outstanding legacy and a part of themselves in every Heroes of the Storm fan.

Thank you, HeroesCCL. See you in the Nexus.