This tournament is designed to be entertaining and to give a new and exclusive perspective on a competitive like environment. It is also a tournament that is self manage in the sense that teams must follow the guidelines to make the tournament run smoothly without the aid of a paid management team. Many untypical rules are to help respect this constraint.

If you have any suggestions or comments feel free to contact us.

Quick Checklist Before Starting A Match-up

1. All sound alerts must be disabled.
2. All team communications must be clearly heard on stream, make to do sound tests.
3. Teams must use their designated voice channel provided on the official league discord.
4. Only the five players actually in the game lobby can be in the voice channel, no extra help is permitted.
5. No interaction with the team's and opponent's broadcast is permitted. Make sure that no twitch chat or video window is open. Only once the best of three is over can twitch be opened.
6. If the game is paused, make sure the opponent have made it clear that they are ready to restart before unpausing. Review the "Pauses" Rules carefully.
7. Review the "Round Structure" Rules (specifically starting "Match Phase")

Streaming

1. The Streamer must participate in all matches. Explanation
2. All matches must be streamed with the streamer's point of view and all voice communication must be clearly broadcasted. Explanation
3. Players/Streamers are not allowed to interact/watch their own broadcast and their opponent's broadcast until all matches are done for their best of 3. All twitch chats and videos must be closed (not minimized). Explanation
4. Streamers are responsible for ensuring that the appropriate players are invited to the Custom Game and that the MMR Budget Rule is respected at all times.
5. (this rule will only be applicable once we sent an official email to all streamers) Streamers must enable a timer command that links the multitwitch of their series, it is basicly a webpage that merges both streams in one for easy viewing. Example, whosamanda vs yunalescka would be http://kadgar.net/live/whosamanda/yunalescka
6. The Title of the broadcast must have #HoTStream in it.
7. All matches must be available to rewatch for two weeks. If you feel you must remove the past broadcast, make sure to make a highlight of the matches before you delete the broadcast because organizers might need access to the "chat". Explanation
8. We require to disable sound alerts and it is recommended to attenuate any visual alerts while disputing matches. Explanation

Team

1. Team must respect an 'MMR Budget' of 13000 per match (an average of 2600 per player), this does not include players that are 'benched'. Make sure to carefully understand the 'MMR Budget' section.

2. Team members cannot be in multiple Teams.

3. Players cannot change teams. (Further explainations here)

4.There isn't a maximum number of players on a roster, we only require that they all players have been registered to the League and that their MMR was approved by the Organisers.

5. Players cannot watch or interact with any broadcasted matches while they are disputing a series of matches, they must wait until the series is complete before doing so.

6. Teams are to use the Heroes of the Streams discord during their matches, they will all have a private channel that only they have access to.

7. If during the League a team feel the need to add more players to their roster because of schedule restrictions or player drop outs contact the Organisers and something will be arranged.

Round Structure

Scheduling Phase

1. Teams look up who they will play against on "Toornament" Tracker.

2. Streamers open up a dialogue with opponent team to figure out when they will play their matches. It is recommended to createa Doodle Availability Poll and shares the link with all potential players. Use the contact page of both teams to find everyone's emails. Plan for 2 hours of gameplay.

3. Teams let the Organizers know when their matches will take place so that they can update the Match Calendar with their match slot so spectators may plan to come watch, this will also trigger announcement in the discord channel. Here is how to add a match to the calendar.

Match Phase

1. All players participating join the "Gathering" voice channel on discord to go through the Rule Checklist (see the first section of this page). Then go in their designated voice channels.

2. The 'Bottom Team' in the 'Toornament Tracker' will be the first in the map banning process. After both teams have banned one map from the map pool current available in Hero League, the 'Bottom Team' will choose the first battleground of the match, while the other team will receive first pick/ban in the draft (reference source).

3. 'Bottom Team' Captain creates a Custom Game and invites everyone. Use the following settings:

- "Lobby Mode" : "Tournament Draft"

- "Game Privacy" : "Normal"

- "First Draft Team" : Select the appropriate teams according to "Step 3" and "Step 5"

4. Players can choose to play with any Hero that is 10 000 gold or cheaper.

5. After each game, the defeated team will get the choice to either pick the next battleground or get first pick/ban in the draft (reference source).

6. After the matches are done, players are too meet in the "Post-Game Gathering" discord channel to say ggwp. This is the perfect time to say how awesome the enemy was and to share any clips that were voted popular in the #highlight text channel. At this point the participants can interact with their twitch chat they can even invite any eager spectator that want to comment if they want to.

Post Best of Three Phase

1. Managers record the results of the matches in 'Toornament' Tracker.

2. Teams await that all games of the Round have been recorded in the ''Toornament'' Tracker to unlock the next Round match ups and restart at step 1.

Pauses

1. In the case a player disconnects or has technical issues, it is allowed to use the pause. In all other cases, both teams have to agree to a pause of the game in all chat. (ref eslgaming rule)
2. It is recommended to have the players recap internally what was going on in the game for 1min before restarting the game.
3. To unpause a game is only allowed if both teams agree to it in all chat or a pause lasted longer as 10 minutes and no further agreements were made. (ref eslgaming rule).
4. Once both teams are ready, a count down of 10secs must be made.
5. If a team unpausing the game without comfirmation of their opponent, the team that unpaused will get a "lost" for that match.
6. It is prohibited to have a strategy discussion while a pause.
7. Teams may pause a total of 3 times per game. The amount of pause time must not exceed 10 minutes per game per team. (ref gosugamers HGC rules)
8. In the case a longer pause being needed, the opponent has to agree it, otherwise will the match continue. (ref eslgaming rule)

Cheating

If during a game there is the suspicion that someone is cheating, continue the game and a group of appointed 'referees' will rewatch the broadcasts to determine if the accusation is founded. If they are, the sanctions described below will be applied.

Sanctions Applied to Cheaters

Any teams and/or players found to be cheating or to have supplied misleading information while applying (such as MMR value) will be :

1. barred from all future events.
2. banned from all participating Twitch channels.