More victors crowned in Heroes of the Storm PHL Qualifiers

The final two Philippines Online Qualifiers have produced more champions – each with the chance to earn the right to represent the country in the 2016 “Heroes of the Storm” Spring Global Championship.

Online Qualifier #3

On January 30, Team Skyline won first place after defeating runner-up Altair Esports. The final score was 2-0 in favor of Skyline.

The other teams who participated in the third Online Qualifier were Helios Gaming, Lotus Gaming B-Team, Claimh Solais, Lotus Gaming.

 

Skyline is not new to eSports. In fact, they were victorious in one of last year’s qualifiers. Back then, they were known as Southwind.

Skyline’s victory this time around was more a product of bad luck on the part of Altair Esports.

“Altair dropped out because their fifth man couldn’t play,” explained John Joseph Patrick Cruz of Skyline. “So we won by default.”

Online Qualifier #4

On February 6, Team Unknown placed first after besting Steal Trust, who came second. The final score was 2-0 in favor of Team Unknown.

The other teams who participated in the fourth Online Qualifier were Helios Gaming, Lotus Blossom, Lotus Gaming, and Claimh Solais.

 

In both Online Qualifiers, first place secured PHP 10,000, while second place took home PHP 5,000.


The coming storm

With the fourth Online Qualifier now over, Team Skyline, Altair Esports, Team Unknown, and Steal Trust join Renovatio, Renovatio 2, Psistorm, and Cow Level Gaming as the top “Heroes of the Storm” contenders from the Philippines. All eight teams will do battle once more on February 27.

We can expect the action in the February 27 National Qualifiers to be particularly fierce, thanks to the sheer skill and fighting spirit of our teams.

Those who’ve been following the local “Heroes of the Storm” eSports scene will remember Psistorm from the Road to BlizzCon 2015 tournaments. It seems additional time and training have served the team well; though they failed to secure a spot in any of last year’s preliminary qualifiers, they snatched first place in this year’s Online Qualifier #2, which was held on January 23.

It’s a good thing they didn’t let their previous defeat discourage them from trying again.

“We decided to join again because we didn’t want to waste the chance to play on a bigger stage,” explained Jeloless of Psistorm.

Psistorm is actually part of PSISTORM Gaming – a larger professional “StarCraft II” organization based in North America. Since its founding on August 2014, PSISTORM Gaming has attracted a fan base in the Philippines. This is mostly thanks to the team’s Caviar Napoleon “EnDerr” Marquises-Acampado – a Filipino Zerg expert who is considered one of the best “StarCraft II” players in the country.

“When the organization decided to expand into ‘Heroes of the Storm,’ they reached out to the Filipino community looking for a team,” said Psistorm.

Team Psistorm has experienced some upheavals in their line-up.

“There were a lot of changes in the team since last year,” stated Jeloless. “Me, Tet, and Zadkiel are the original members. We have been playing together since last year. Then Juu joined a few months ago. We had little time to practice as a five-man team since Papernz and Primo joined the team only three weeks prior to the tournament’s date. Luckily, everything worked out well.”

Their final match against Cow Level Gaming in Online Qualifier #2 proved suspenseful, yet enjoyable.

“The second game was a crucial one,” said Jeloless. “Cow Level Gaming got the early advantage, which forced us to play defensively. Luckily, we made a comeback in the late game with a game-ending hook from Papernz that led us to victory.”

Like many players participating in this year’s Spring Season tourneys, Psistorm’s members are veteran gamers.

“We were all playing different games (before ‘Heroes of the Storm’), like ‘Hearthstone,’ ‘DotA,’ ‘League of Legends,’ and ‘StarCraft II,’ but not professionally,” explained Jeloless. “Coming from different games had a good effect on us; we all had different understandings of the game which helped us share strategies to win.”

We’ll just have to see how well Psistorm fares against the competition on February 27. The two teams to come out on top in this event will earn the privilege to represent the country in the Southeast Asia Qualifier from March 5 to 6. Whoever emerges the champion in the Southeast Asia Qualifier will then go on to represent the entire region in the Spring Global Championship Event taking place in Seoul, South Korea, from April 1 to 3. — TJD, GMA News