Hearthstone Esports Is Changing In 2019
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated points were required for invite-only events. This is not true and has been corrected.
Blizzard has outlined their plans for Hearthstone Esports for the next year which includes more than 4 million dollars in prizing. More details below!
- There will be hundreds of qualifier tournaments next year. No region locks.
- Three invite-only events will take place with invites going out to players who have won qualifier events.
- Top players will compete in "premier" events. Seasonal, round-robin online competition with regional divisions.
- Transition rewards for Hearthstone Competitive Point-earners so work this year is rewarded.
- 2018/2019 Transition Period - Official Competition Rules (PDF)
Quote from Blizzard2018 was a great year for Hearthstone Esports. Earlier this month Team China upset tournament favorite Brazil in the Grand Finals of the Hearthstone Global Games at BlizzCon. We’ve crowned two seasonal champions at our Summer and Fall Championships. We’ve seen more than 200,000 players attend 25 Tour Stops and other major events across the globe. And by the end of the Year of the Raven we’ll have awarded more than $2.8 million in prize money—our largest amount ever.
Along the way, we’ve gathered feedback from players and fans. We’ve learned that many of you feel the HCT system can be challenging to follow, not as accessible to new players as it could be, and unsustainable for pros. Today we are excited to share with you a preview of our plan for continuing to make Hearthstone esports the best it can be for viewers and competitors alike.
Next Year—and Beyond
The Hearthstone Championship Tour (HCT) as we know it will go out with a bang this coming spring with the HCT World Championship, where the best Hearthstone players in the world will duke it out for $1,000,000 in prizing.
After our World Championship, a new three-tiered competitive system will begin in earnest, consisting of qualifiers, live global tournaments, and an exclusive top tier, with more than $4 million in prizing up for grabs across the ecosystem in 2019. Here’s how it works:
Qualifiers
Throughout the year, in conjunction with a third-party platform partner, Hearthstone Esports will run hundreds of qualifier tournaments, primarily online. The first of these will start in the spring, and they will not be region-locked: anyone from anywhere will be able to compete at a time that works for them. Winning a qualifier grants you entry to the next tier of competition.
Live Global Tournaments
In 2019, we will hold three invite-only tournaments around the world, with more planned for 2020. These live events will see our best and brightest Hearthstone players—from household names to aspiring pros who spiked their first tourney—compete for $250,000 per event. Best of all, success here will open the door to the ultimate level of competition.
Premier Play
The top tier is a seasonal round-robin online competition, split into regional divisions, featuring the best and most compelling Hearthstone players in the world. It will begin after the HCT World Championship and climax with an epic finale at year’s end. Players who participate in this competition receive performance-based bonuses, as well as automatic invites to all the live global events in the previous tier. We look forward to sharing more details soon about this level of play, including how players will join the competition in its inaugural year.
Format
Our goals are for Hearthstone esports to be sustainable, entertaining, and accessible for all. As part of this, we will retire the Conquest format in 2019. Fundamentally, we want Hearthstone esports to better reflect the in-game experience, as well as be easier to grasp for new viewers. This new format, to be unveiled in the coming months, will be played across the ecosystem.
Hearthstone Masters and the Transitional Season
This year, the Hearthstone Masters System was created to recognize top players based on the consistency of their performance, with rewards pegged to Competitive Point totals from the previous three seasons. Many of you have been working toward these achievements—and so, while Hearthstone esports will change significantly in 2019, we will ensure that those who would have achieved Masters status earn rewards of equal or greater value.Additionally, points earned during 2018 Season 1 will not expire on Dec. 1. From then until March 31, 2019, players will have a bonus “transitional” season to rack up even more points toward benefits next year:
During this period players can earn points at Tour Stops, the HCT Winter Playoffs, and the HCT Winter Championship, but not on ladder. See the rules for full details.
Vision
Thank you for reading! We look forward to hearing your feedback about the broad outlines of this new system. And, rest assured: in the coming months we will meet with players to answer questions and address concerns. We want everyone to be accounted for in this long-term vision, from casual fans to the most dedicated pros. This is the next evolution of our promise to make Hearthstone esports sustainable—and enjoyable!—to all those who enter the tavern.
Totalbiscuit (rip) on Hearthstone as an e-sport. Couldn't agree more. "Hearthstone is garbage for E-sports, it's like flipping a coin and giving someone $100.000 dollars."
(0:30) https://youtu.be/5Pzk1dnLwXw?t=30
that's why we always see the same names playing at the top level... , also tb was the guy who posted a lot of dumb things, like this : ''Get cancer, have your coverage dropped, enjoy your third-world hellhole. Eat a dick.'' but i guess karma is a bitch sometimes ...
Shhhh… he has a narrative!
A Hearthstone game is not like flipping a coin, but lots of coins all together lol
The most important thing here is that there will be no more conquest!
hey man, i play hs for few months, and i dont understand the problem whit conquest, do you can explain me?
Several reasons but the most important being that only the absolute best decks and classes get played in that format. A format that forces players to play EVERY class would be much more interesting. It might also force Team 5 to put out better cards for EVERY class instead of 2-3 each expansion.
No, the problem with conquest is how it relies on luck more than skill.
It promotes building single-strategy lineups, like 4 aggro decks or 4 control decks. That means some series are decided before they even begin. And when they are not, you have to queue into the right matchup and there is often no strategy involved there. Just queuing your scissors against their paper.
As long as TJ and Admirable are still casting, I'll be watching.
I definitely don't know enough to judge whether these changes are good (especially given that they haven't even unveiled the new format) but I do know enough to know that some kind of change was needed, so fair play to Blizzard for trying to do something about it.
I look forward to hearing this discussed by far more knowledgeable people than myself on the next ValueTown/Talkstone/OmniSlash so I can get some idea of what it might really mean for the game!
Skill-based card game tournament LUL
Change most of the esports events to online-only while also cancelling the tournament mode
Nice blizzard logic
The tournament mode they were working on was a conquest Bo3. By the time it would have been released, conquest will be replaced.
If you think about it, this is most likely the *real* reason the feature was canned. It was too early to even hint at such drastic format changes, but they had to say *something* b/c they had promised to release the beta by the middle of summer.
So now the winner of the coin-flip (who curves/draws better = RNG) will win more money.
Huge changes...
If that's what you think top-level hearthstone is, you clearly know almost nothing about this game or probably card games in general.
You are in a really deep water.
I've been in top 100-200 multiple times (on 2 accounts / Europe), I'm playing competitive MTG(o) for almost 12 years now. Also played like 30 other card games online/offline.
No matter how good (skillfully) you play in Hearthstone, you won't get rewarded if you are drawing badly.
Since there is REALLY few or none Deck Thinning or Direct Search card, also have to mention here, there is no graveyard (manipulation), nor instant spells in the game.
You RELY on DRAWS (since the mana is given).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you DON'T draw well, meanwhile the opponent DOES. You WILL LOSE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You can't DO ANYTHING to prevent this to happen, since there is NO REASON to save up Mana/Turn for a spell or minion to cast it at the opponents turn (instant spells).
This means if you can't play anything turn 1/2/3/4 (this depends on the deck), you are wasted a turn, because u've done nothing.
This is why this game called Curvestone. Ask any Pro player, they will tell the same.
Or you can be really Skilled in a game and do some Paveling Book Trick.
Hearthstone is okey for casual play, for E-sports is laughable.
Please tell me where is the skill involved in this game? Playing around secrets or what?
every card game has some kind of rng
So you haven't been able to answer my question. Also straight forward calling me retarded, because you can't deal with known facts.
Being a fanboy is one thing, but when you try to shit-talk someone, without any knowledge of the game is next level.
Congratulation , there goes a report.
Yes, luck is involved. This is a card came. Luck is always a factor in a card game. But skill matters too.
Also, ladder is not the same as a tournament. Different skill set and much more luck dependent than multiple deck/ban matchs. The consistency with which high level players succeed on the pro-scene does not match the complaint that everything is a coin flip. If it was all luck w/ no skill involved, we wouldn't keep seeing the same names in regional finals. They would be filled with people no one has ever heard of.
I don't even know where to begin... but let's break it down in the simplest terms.
Every turn there is more than one option of play, where the better play will give you a small statistical edge in the game. No pro player will tell you that all of these choices are obvious, they disagree with each other all of the time. When you make a lot of statistically better decisions, you will have a statistically better performance. Sure, some games are out of your control, but others aren't, and that's why a card game should reward consistency more than a single big finish.
Then there is deck building and reading the meta, the very best performers tend to do a little bit more than just netdecking whatever VS says is best, at the last world championship the best performing lineup was the weird control mage lineup that wasn't on anybody's radar beforehand.
Yeah, there is RNG, there is RNG in any competition, but there is more in a card game. That doesn't mean skill isn't a factor.