The best pro gaming to watch this weekend

Plenty to watch this weekend, from top tier Heroes of the Storm and CS:GO in North America to the last-chance battle for survival taking place in the western LoL scene. Plus: fighting games absolutely everywhere, as ever, the cream of team StarCraft II, and a renewed focus (on our part) on smaller-scale events taking place around the competitive community.

We want to start highlighting more community and grassroots competitive gaming events in this weekly feature, so if you've got a weekend event that you'd like to draw our attention to then email pcgamerpro@pcgamer.com with details: game, start time, stream link, and so on. We'll feature the most promising submissions every Friday!

Armored Warfare: EU PVP League

Something a little bit different, here, for a game we don't cover too often: a night of community-run competitive PVP in Armored Warfare, Obsidian's tank warfare MMO. Tonight (September 2nd) is the Soldier of Fortune league, a clash between up-and-coming players in Europe. The livestream starts at 19:30 CEST/10:30 PDT and you can find out more information on the official tournament site.

Heroes of the Storm: North America Fall Regional 2

For the second time this year, the best Heroes of the Storm teams in North America go to war with $100,000 and a shot at the world championships on the line. The regional runs from today until Sunday at Pax West in Seattle. Play kicks off at 10:00 PDT/19:00 every day. Heroes of the Storm's competitive scene has been rife with Cinderella stories over the last few months: tune in and you've got a decent chance to see some underdogs make it big. More info and livestream links right here.

League of Legends: NA and EU Regional Qualifiers

As Cassandra wrote in her column this week, the upcoming 'gauntlet' qualifiers in the LCS are going to be brutal. These matches will determine which of the remaining teams in each region can attend Worlds as the third seed: for some teams, this could be last-gasp effort. Games in the EU start tomorrow at 17:00 BST/08:00 PDT and continue Sunday at the same time. Play in NA starts at 21:00 CEST/12:00 PDT on both days. As ever, the best place to find more information and the livestream is at lolesports.com.

CSGO: Northern Arena 2016

An array of talented North American CSGO teams converge on Toronto for this $100,000 LAN tournament. Group stage play has been ongoing since Thursday with the playoffs set for this weekend. Matches start on Saturday at 10:45 EDT (07:45 PDT/16:45 CEST) and at 10:15 EDT on Sunday (07:15 PDT/16:15 CEST). Find the official tournament site here including links to both livestreams.

StarCraft II: 2016 SK Telecom Proleague

This team Legacy of the Void tournament has been ongoing for months, but you've still got time to catch the finals on Saturday. Jin Air Green Wings will go head-to-head with KT Rolster at 18:30 KST, which is 02:30 PDT and 11:30 CEST. The winners will take home $45,475. Find the English-language livestream here.

Capcom Pro Tour: There's loads of fighting happening, again

Another weekend, another four Capcom Pro Tour Ranking events taking place at the same time. This week we've got East Coast Throwdown in New Jersey, USA; First Attack in Peurto Rico; Celtic Throwdown 2016 in Dublin, Ireland; Ze Fighting Game in China. That's a lot of punching. As our fighting game expert Andi notes, Daigo Umehara will be at East Coast Throwdown looking to claim his third ranking victory in a row. Check out each tournament's site for schedule and stream details. These are massive tournaments, as you'd expect, so look for the top 32/top 8 towards the end for the highest standard of play.

Hearthstone:  ONOG 2016 Circuit Finals

Pax Prime plays host to the climax of this year's One Nation of Gamers series of open tournaments, with a $25,000  prize pool on the line. The event runs Friday through Monday, with Admirable  and TJ handling the casting on ONOG's Twitch channel. The start time each day is  13:00 PDT / 16:00 EDT / 22:00 CEST. Notable players include Dog, Frozen and Chakki, and promisingly this is the first big event to feature all the cards from One Night in Karazhan. Maybe that means we'll see some new decks beyond Dragon Warrior, Aggro Shaman and Zoo. 

Chris Thursten

Joining in 2011, Chris made his start with PC Gamer turning beautiful trees into magazines, first as a writer and later as deputy editor. Once PCG's reluctant MMO champion , his discovery of Dota 2 in 2012 led him to much darker, stranger places. In 2015, Chris became the editor of PC Gamer Pro, overseeing our online coverage of competitive gaming and esports. He left in 2017, and can be now found making games and recording the Crate & Crowbar podcast.