Banned Heroes/Bugs/Talents/Skins

Eligibility, acceptance and applicability

• Competing in Heroes Lounge Division S requires the player or team to accept the official rules. 
• By competing in Heroes Lounge Division S , your team will receive prize money equivalent of the following percentages of the total prize pool of the region.
• The rewards as detailed above will be distributed by Matcherino. This will require a Matcherino account. Cashout can be accomplished via either PayPal or check. 

    Applicability

• If you, a member of your team, violates these Official Rules, your team may be subject to game forfeitures, prize forfeitures and disciplinary action. 
• These Official Rules govern the competitive rulings for the Heroes Lounge Division S competitions.

    Eligibility

• You must have ownership and are able to play on the Battle.net account registered on the Heroes Lounge website. Being currently banned on Heroes of the Storm will make you ineligible to play matches until the player is unbanned. 
• You are not allowed to change your Battle.net account during the season (this applies to both qualifier and league play). 
• The registered Battle.net account must adhere to the Heroes of the Storm user guidelines. 
• You are not allowed to participate in both Heroes Lounge Division S NA and Heroes Lounge Division S EU, it is however allowed to participate in both regular Heroes Lounge seasons and Division S, you can only be part of one Division S team. 
• You are not allowed to participate in the Heroes Lounge Division S competition if you are a Heroes Lounge Division S staff member, this does not include regular season staff or casters. 

Team rules and requirements

• A team must consist of 5 players, each of whom must be an eligible participant. Players can not be part of multiple teams. 
• A team must designate one captain, who will be the only point of contact responsible for communications. This captain is not required to be an eligible participant, but can not be part of multiple teams.

Team changes

    Regular season

• Rosters are locked from the moment of the qualification until the end of the Division S season.
• In extreme emergencies a team is allowed to state their intent to release or acquire a player, by informing one of the Heroes Lounge Division S moderators with solid reasoning. 

    Qualifier

• Rosters are locked upon confirmation of participation to any qualifier.
• In order to make roster changes:
  • The roster change request must come from the captain.
  • the newly added player must fulfill the criteria of eligibility as stated above.
• A team can make a maximum of 2 roster changes while keeping their accumulated points.
• Making more than two roster changes resets the team's accumulated points and effectively treats the new roster as a new team.

Substitutes

    Regular season

• A substitute can be put in place for a member of the team roster, this substitute and the team must fulfil the following requirements: 
  • The request to use a substitute player must come from the captain
  • The team can use as much substitute players as they want in the season, but not more than 2 substitutes are allowed in the same match
  • The substitute player must fulfil the eligibility requirements, and can not be a player from a different team participating in Division S. 
  • The substitute player may not play for more than one team per week. 
  • Substitutes must be reported to, and approved by, a Division S moderator before the match starts. 

    Qualifier

• Teams participating in the qualifiers can use up to 1 substitute per qualifier weekend. 
• A substitute can be put in place for a member of the team roster, this substitute and the team must fulfil the following requirements: 
  • The request to use a substitute player must come from the captain
  • The substitute player must fulfil the eligibility requirements, and can not be a player from a different team participating in Division S. 
  • The substitute player may not play for more than one team per week. 
  • Heroes Lounge may allow additional substitutes in extreme circumstances
  • Substitutes must be reported to, and approved by, a Division S moderator. 

Streaming

• Teams and players are allowed to broadcast their own perspective. At a minimum delay of 20 seconds. 
• All streamers (casters and players-PoV) must provide Heroes Lounge with their analytical stats from their Division S streams. (Avg. viewers, max. viewers, unique viewers, minutes watched and time streamed). 
• Anyone intending to cast or stream PoV must contact Phalop on the Heroes Lounge discord before doing so.
• Streamers must use Heroes Lounge complementary assets in their overlays which include, but are not limited to:
  • Heroes Lounge Logo
  • Banner
  • Ticker
  • Sponsor logo's

Team replacement

• A team that disbands will automatically disqualify from Heroes Lounge Division S. The highest ranking team from the latest Heroes Lounge qualifiers will replace the team with no score inherited. 
• At the end of the Division S regular season, the 7th and 8th place will compete against the qualified teams from the qualifier. 

Format Qualifier

• Teams must register on heroeslounge.gg to participate in Division S. 
• Teams need to confirm their participation in each qualifier within the signup period on the Heroes Lounge website. 
• Signups will close for all regions simultaneously on the Friday before the qualifier weekend at 9:00am CET/ 3:00am EST / 12:00am PST.

    Points

• Qualifiers for Division S are based on a points structure where teams can accumulate points over 4 elimination tournaments.
• The following rewards are awarded for final placement in any given qualifier round:
  

   Qualifier reward breakdown 

  Position	Points*
  1st	200
  2nd	160
  3rd - 4th	100
  5th - 8th	65
  9th - 16th	40
  17th - 32nd	30

  *Only teams that participated in the qualifier by playing a game will be rewarded points. Teams seeded into point spots that did not participate do not receive points. 

    Tiebreakers

• Tiebreakers for the qualifiers will be decided base on: 
  1. Points
  2. Highest finish placement in any qualifier
  3. Second highest finish placement in any qualifier
  4. Third highest finish placement in any qualifier
  5. Fourth highest finish placement in any qualifier
  6. Head-to-head score
  7. Map score

    Match setup

• A command will be used to determine the map ban/pick order using a match lounge channel in the Heroes Lounge discord. 
  • The winner starts by banning a map
  • The loser responds by banning another map
  • The winner picks the first map
  • The loser receives first pick in the game
  • After the first game the losing team can choose to either pick a map or have first pick. The winner of the game will receive the other. 
• For North America, the server upon which the match will be played will be Central. It can be decided upon to play the game at a different server with both teams in agreement.
• Matches will always be played on the live server. 
• Matches use a single Bo3 elimination bracket to be played out in the established time period. 

    Attendance, delays, breaks and pauses

• A team must be present 30 minutes in advance of the scheduled start time, all matches after the first round will begin from the moment both teams for that round have been decided. 
• A team whom's first match is in the 2nd round of the bracket will have to be present 30 minutes in advance of the scheduled start time of the 2nd round. 
• A team will be considered tardy, if the team has not assembled 5 minutes after the agreed upon time. The team will receive a warning. 
• A team that is tardy for 10 minutes forfeits a match. 
• A maximum break of 5 minutes between maps is allowed before a team becoming tardy. 
• A maximum break of 10 minutes between rounds is allowed before a team becomes tardy. 
• Pauses may only be started for technical difficulties
• The time pool for pauses is 10 minutes, after which the game will resume. 

    Map pool

• Battlefield of Eternity
• Alterac Pass
• Cursed Hollow
• Dragon Shire
• Infernal Shrines
• Sky Temple
• Tomb of the Spider Queen
• Towers of Doom
• Volskaya Foundry
• Garden of Terror

Format league

• A team will qualify for Crucible tournament via the following criteria in EU
  • Be in the top 6 of acquired points during the qualifiers
  • Be a crucible team from Division S season 1 
• A team will qualify for league play in Division S NA by winning one of the 5 qualifier tournaments.
• The Heroes Lounge division S regular season will host 8 teams per region, competing in a round robin tournament for a total of 7 weeks and is concluded with a double elimination playoff tournament. 

    Tiebreakers

• Tiebreakers in the regular season will be divided based on: 
  1. Match score
  2. Head-to-head score
  3. Mapscore

    Scheduling

• Every round in Division S will be played on a different week, starting with round 1 which will be played in week one, round 2 will be played in week 2 and so on. A week starts the midnight between the Sunday and Monday
• Division S teams that have qualified for league play will receive one opponent per round. 
• Division S EU teams must schedule their match between 6pm CET and 10pm CET on any day of the week within the rounds week
• Division S NA teams must schedule their match between 6pm EST and 10pm EST on any day of the week within the rounds week
  • Example: Opponent 1 was scheduled for round 1 and therefore must be played within week 1 of the league

    Match setup

• For North America, the server upon which the match will be played will be Central. It can be decided upon to play the game at a different server with both teams in agreement.
• Matches will always be played on the live server. 
• Matches will be a Bo5.  
• A team must be present 10 minutes in advance of the scheduled start time.

  Attendance, delays, breaks and pauses

• A team will be considered tardy, if the team has not assembled 5 minutes after the agreed upon time. The team will receive a warning. 
• A team that is tardy for 10 minutes forfeits a match. 
• A maximum break of 5 minutes between maps is allowed before a team becoming tardy. 
• A maximum break of 10 minutes between rounds is allowed before a team becomes tardy. 
• Pauses may only be started for technical difficulties
• The time pool for pauses is 10 minutes, after which the game will resume. 

• The command !match will be used to determine the map ban/pick order using a match lounge channel in the Heroes Lounge discord. 
  • The winner starts by banning a map
  • The loser responds by banning another map
  • The winner picks the first map
  • The loser receives first pick in the game
  • After the first game the losing team can choose to either pick a map or have first pick. The winner of the game will receive the other. 

    New Heroes

• New heroes will be banned for 1 full round.
  • Example: A hero gets released midway trough round 4, the hero will become playable in round 6. 

Bugs & Exploits, Prohibited skins and sprays

• Teams participating in Heroes Lounge Division S are prohibited from using known bugs or exploits, doing so will result in the loss of the match and continued abuse will result in the expulsion from Division S.
• The ban list showcasing prohibited skins and sprays is uphold by a committee that exists of the appointed captains of every team and the Heroes Lounge team. Feedback from the teams will be respected and will be used to uphold competitive integrity.
• Bugs or exploits not shown on the ban list can still be declared known by the Heroes Lounge team. Use of said bugs or exploits to create unfair matches will be followed with disciplinary action.

Conduct of Participants

• Players and teams must uphold a sportsmanlike conduct. 
• Players and teams are prohibited from discriminating or harassing other participants and/or actors surrounding Division S. 
• Any form of cheating is not tolerated and punishment will be at the discretion of Heroes Lounge, this includes collusion, match fixing, attempts to interfere with other teams connection, tampering with the operation of Division S, account sharing and other forms of cheating. 

Disciplinary action

• Heroes Lounge reserves the right to apply disciplinary action as it sees fit. 
• Four stages of disciplinary actions can be taken, stages can be skipped in the case of severe breaches of the rules. 
  • Warning, a final reminder to keep to the rule set.
  • Loss, a loss of the match or game.
  • Money, a deduction of the prizes received at the end of the season. 
  • Kick, a team or player is disqualified from the tournament. 

Additional provisions

• Heroes Lounge has the right to publish statements regarding punishments, any team, player, captain or other physical or mental constructs that can be regarded as entities waive any right of legal action against Heroes Lounge if mentioned in such a statement.
• All decisions regarding the interpretations of these rules lies solely with Heroes Lounge. 
• These rules may be amended, modified, or supplemented by Heroes Lounge in order to ensure fair play, integrity and competition of Division S. 
• Rules may change in between seasons to ensure the continuation of Division S.