It's been my observation that the Hearthstone tournament scene is a massive circle jerk to put it bluntly. You either have to grind your way into the top 1 percent or have a popular Twitch and/or Youtube following. I'm sure watching these same couple dozen people play was fun once upon a time it's incredibly stale at present. What I want to know is whether there are tournaments for everyone else?
When I played Magic: The Gathering there were tournaments every weekend that I could play in at various places in town. We'd do booster drafts, constructed, and even had leagues. How is it that Hearthstone, being online with a player base of millions and millions of players doesn't have a thriving tournament scene beyond watching Firebat and Lifecoach in the finals battling it out to be the next pivot man (Google that one kids). If Magic could have a thriving tournament scene in a small town with a few hundred players Hearthstone should be able to have one online with millions of players it stands to reason.
Perhaps I'm wrong and there is a tournament scene out there and I haven't stumbled across it yet. Christ, I hope there is. If there is they do a total shit job of promoting themselves but I would love to find them.
Magic's tournament scene is more than just "we had tournaments every weekend" There are low-REL events like FNMs some are small (8 players) some are very big (40-60 players). The you have the events that wizards make wich are preceded by pre-tournaments where you have to achieve certain rank to be eligible for the big tournaments.
Then there is "the grind" for planeswalker points or whatever those are called now, where you have to reap victory after victory traveling across your country, some times several countries around the world to finally get a chance to play into the magic world's cup.
And THEN there are the third-party events wich are not responsability of wizards (think of batstone but bigger, a lot bigger) wich also has preliminary encounters and some are with invitation.
So, as I said, hearthstone is too young for all this.
But there is strifewire and thelike where you can play for tiny/small/medium sized prizes and enjoy some competitiveness in this game.
To be fair you raise a very good point. Not everyone can reach legend each season, nor everyone wants (or can run) a twitch/youtube channel. The believe that's why Blizzard allows players to gain the Fireside Card Back for getting people to play together, it encourages players to play together.
However if you are in a area where you can't reach that venue because of the place/time, then you only option is to play online. And that's a shame really.
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My Entry for this week's Card Design Competition - Season 8.16:
You just didn't look for it..... Really, how can you say something like that when you can play tournament almost everyday online
They are plenty of online tournament (battlefy is a great website for this!) But they are others and they are even findable in the official blizzard website, please use google not bing ;p
If you want to play offline, I admit the scene is still poor. But it is an online game and they are plenty off possibility to play it online (and some small offline tournament depending on the country and city
Magic's tournament scene is more than just "we had tournaments every weekend" There are low-REL events like FNMs some are small (8 players) some are very big (40-60 players). The you have the events that wizards make wich are preceded by pre-tournaments where you have to achieve certain rank to be eligible for the big tournaments.
Then there is "the grind" for planeswalker points or whatever those are called now, where you have to reap victory after victory traveling across your country, some times several countries around the world to finally get a chance to play into the magic world's cup.
And THEN there are the third-party events wich are not responsability of wizards (think of batstone but bigger, a lot bigger) wich also has preliminary encounters and some are with invitation.
So, as I said, hearthstone is too young for all this.
But there is strifewire and thelike where you can play for tiny/small/medium sized prizes and enjoy some competitiveness in this game.
The MtG tournament scene was really good out of the gate. I will date myself and say that I competed in tournaments all over in 95 through 98 when I was in college and while many weren't sanctioned by Wizards many were. There were few weekends I couldn't find a tournament, or often multiple tournaments to play in within driving distance of Notre Dame which is in South Bend Indiana of all places.
That being said I will certainly check out Strifewire and see if that won't take me down a rabbit hole into more like tournaments. Hopefully it does. However, I still think that Blizz is really dropping the ball. They should have something in place for the player base at large to compete in that doesn't rely on spending hours upon hours grinding to legendary or amassing a huge pool of followers.
I really love Hearthstone and this isn't a dealbreaker by any means. I will continue play regardless but I would love to see them get behind getting more people involved in tournament play in the future.
The MtG tournament scene was really good out of the gate. I will date myself and say that I competed in tournaments all over in 95 through 98 when I was in college and while many weren't sanctioned by Wizards many were. There were few weekends I couldn't find a tournament, or often multiple tournaments to play in within driving distance of Notre Dame which is in South Bend Indiana of all places.
All I said is that magic has had a lot more time to develope this, and even then, during the time you played the digital enviroment for anything was minimal so finding physical tournaments was the only possible option, so if you keep using that reference you should consider it's skewed based on the conditions that surrounded the game at the time.
I agree to an extent that Blizz is losing opportunities with how little they support the possible of official events. 2 months ago we had a begginers tournament here in my city, we tried to contact blizz for some kind of prizes, no response, meanwhile on may another group of people made a LoL tournament and Riot gave them 2 high-cost skins and 3 random chests for the small cost of a "thank you".
But, online events are a thing that could work (and indeed does) and considering a big part of HS's playerbase are young people they have the time to play online tournaments at any time of the day, meanwhile more adult players really need to set-up a schedule during obvious free-time days like weekends, there is where those physical tournaments can be fired by Blizz. And please, all around the world, not only US...
It's been my observation that the Hearthstone tournament scene is a massive circle jerk to put it bluntly. You either have to grind your way into the top 1 percent or have a popular Twitch and/or Youtube following. I'm sure watching these same couple dozen people play was fun once upon a time it's incredibly stale at present. What I want to know is whether there are tournaments for everyone else?
When I played Magic: The Gathering there were tournaments every weekend that I could play in at various places in town. We'd do booster drafts, constructed, and even had leagues. How is it that Hearthstone, being online with a player base of millions and millions of players doesn't have a thriving tournament scene beyond watching Firebat and Lifecoach in the finals battling it out to be the next pivot man (Google that one kids). If Magic could have a thriving tournament scene in a small town with a few hundred players Hearthstone should be able to have one online with millions of players it stands to reason.
Perhaps I'm wrong and there is a tournament scene out there and I haven't stumbled across it yet. Christ, I hope there is. If there is they do a total shit job of promoting themselves but I would love to find them.
There are tons of websites that allow anyone to join in Hearthstone tournaments and some even offer a lot of money prizes.
Hearthstone is too young.
Magic's tournament scene is more than just "we had tournaments every weekend" There are low-REL events like FNMs some are small (8 players) some are very big (40-60 players). The you have the events that wizards make wich are preceded by pre-tournaments where you have to achieve certain rank to be eligible for the big tournaments.
Then there is "the grind" for planeswalker points or whatever those are called now, where you have to reap victory after victory traveling across your country, some times several countries around the world to finally get a chance to play into the magic world's cup.
And THEN there are the third-party events wich are not responsability of wizards (think of batstone but bigger, a lot bigger) wich also has preliminary encounters and some are with invitation.
So, as I said, hearthstone is too young for all this.
But there is strifewire and thelike where you can play for tiny/small/medium sized prizes and enjoy some competitiveness in this game.
There is nothing left if you can not has the right to bear your arms - werebear 2016-eternity campaign
To be fair you raise a very good point. Not everyone can reach legend each season, nor everyone wants (or can run) a twitch/youtube channel. The believe that's why Blizzard allows players to gain the Fireside Card Back for getting people to play together, it encourages players to play together.
However if you are in a area where you can't reach that venue because of the place/time, then you only option is to play online. And that's a shame really.
My Entry for this week's Card Design Competition - Season 8.16:
You just didn't look for it..... Really, how can you say something like that when you can play tournament almost everyday online
They are plenty of online tournament (battlefy is a great website for this!) But they are others and they are even findable in the official blizzard website, please use google not bing ;p
If you want to play offline, I admit the scene is still poor. But it is an online game and they are plenty off possibility to play it online (and some small offline tournament depending on the country and city
I agree to an extent that Blizz is losing opportunities with how little they support the possible of official events. 2 months ago we had a begginers tournament here in my city, we tried to contact blizz for some kind of prizes, no response, meanwhile on may another group of people made a LoL tournament and Riot gave them 2 high-cost skins and 3 random chests for the small cost of a "thank you".
There is nothing left if you can not has the right to bear your arms - werebear 2016-eternity campaign
Google? There are multiple open online events every day, in both NA and EU.