Changes Coming to Hearthstone Competitive Play for 2017
There are several changes coming to Hearthstone Esports next year.
- The prize pool for next year will be over 2 Million USD.
- The World Championship for the next Standard year will take place in 2018. This aligns better with the real Standard season.
- Competitive points for the next year will start to be earned in November 2016.
- There are two new esports programs coming, Inn-vitationals and Global Games.
- The Swiss format will be used in Season Playoffs.
- The Global Games will be 4-man Teams. (Source: Yong Woo on PlayHearthstone Stream)
Quote from BlizzardWe introduced the 2016 Hearthstone Championship Tour (HCT) last year to help create a system that would bring together the most dedicated Hearthstone players in the world and showcase their ability to compete at the highest levels throughout the year. Standard also debuted with the inaugural Year of the Kraken which will wrap up when the first new Expansion of 2017 is released, ringing in the next Standard year. Through this journey, we’ve learned quite a bit, and we’ve heard your valuable feedback as well. We’re excited to share with you some key changes we’ll be making next year:
- Global Season Championships – We’d like to see more global clashes throughout the year, so we have combined the regional Season Championships into global Season Championships. Each of these global Season Championships next year will take place at a select host region, and will be held in venues that you can attend in-person to cheer on your favorite competitors!
- Season Playoffs – The regional Season Preliminaries have been replaced with regional Season Playoffs, and each of the 4 regions (Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and China) will send 4 representatives to the Season Championships each season. Each Season Playoffs will use the Swiss Tournament format and continue to include local Tavern Heroes, but they’ll be more competitive to qualify for, and include deeper prizing to reward more participants.
- Championships Synced with Standard – We’d like to keep the tournament meta fresh and exciting, and we will work toward aligning the HCT tournaments with our Standard Year and its associated content releases. What this means for next year is that each of the global Season Championships will take place during its own content cycle. This also means that the next World Championship will take place at the end the upcoming Standard year in early 2018.
- Points and Cups – We’ll be adjusting the amounts of points earned from tournaments and Ranked Play to be more evenly distributed and include more players. We’re also making improvements to the Cup system. Hearthstone Competitive Points from Ranked Play begins with the November Standard Ranked Play Season next month.
- Prize Pool – The total HCT prize pool for next year will be over $2 million USD. The World Championship will have a $1 million USD prize pool, each Season Championship will have a prize pool of a quarter million USD, and each Season Playoffs will have at least $20,000 USD in prizing to reward more participants.
We’re very excited about the changes to the HCT next year, and we hope that you’ll find it a more exciting playing and viewing experience—but that’s not all! We have two new esports programs that we’d like to introduce for Hearthstone next year detailed below.
Hearthstone Global Games
We love seeing the passion of players rooting on their fellow players, particularly their local heroes. We also love the cooperation, collaboration, and camaraderie that emerges from team-based competitions. The Hearthstone Global Games (HGG) aims to scratch this competitive itch and will feature teams of players from various countries battling it out weekly in a global league. Each team in the HGG will consist of the top Hearthstone Competitive Point earner from their country and three of their fellow community-voted countrypersons. Cheer on competitors from your country like never before!
Hearthstone Inn-vitationals
Looking for a more light-hearted viewing experience? We’ve got you covered with the Hearthstone Inn-vitationals (HSI)! This series of exhibitions will showcase a variety of fun Hearthstone formats with some of your favorite Hearthstone personalities. Among the invitees will be popular streamers, winners of major tournaments, and celebrities. When a Hearthstone Inn-vitational rolls around, you won’t want to miss the zany antics or “playful banter” that might ensue!
We hope you’ve enjoyed our brief preview of the exciting updates to our Hearthstone esports programs next year. We’ll have many more details to share with you when we officially announce each of the programs next year.
We’d also love your feedback! Which program are you most excited about? Let us know by tweeting @PlayHearthstone with the #HCT, #HGG, or #HSI hashtags.
Same football, different quarterbacks.
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT for the rest of the world to know that HE. DOES. NOT. CARE.
This makes zero sense, because the people are the ones who come up with the ideas, and when they do, it is an event. That's the whole point.
The top players are not the ones with the most refined version of whatever deck is climbing the ladder. If that was the case, anyone that could netdeck would be Blizzcon Champion. The top players are the ones that put in the time, the effort, and crucially the innovation to counter or upturn the meta and gain advantage over their opponents. Those innovations cause big waves in ladder and the general Hearthstone community, so they effect you even if you don't care about the tournaments. See Evolved Kobold Mage for a recent example of this.
Another thing topoint out is the fact that they are not talking about any barstone (qualifications). Like I really liked these barstones the most out of all of them as it gave opportunity to everyone to compete and try to qualify to a high place for the blizzcon. Did they really remove this just to get these hearthstone global games? Sounds too fishy to me. Like blizz just closed the door to all gamers and opened the doors to all "popular gamers". I don't really care about Amaz, Trump or Forsen competing for their country but the crowd needs the chance to compete and not just a vunch of people. Same mistake like the distribution of Tyrande. Well played Blizzard, well played...
Yeah kinda that. But guess these won't really get you to the HCT tournament. Is just for fun I guess (rivalry to Seatstory Cup or other tournaments lol). Anyway I can't really read anything about barstones and this is what is mostly disgusting. Like the barstones were the only connection to see other people straight away. Getting the seasonal Tavern Hero to qualify for the tavern hero qualifiers and then straight up to the seasons prelims :(
"Each team in the HGG will consist of the top Hearthstone Competitive Point earner from their country and three of their fellow community-voted countrypersons."
So if you're a popular HS streamer you're auto included? No need to work on HCW points or anything?
Sounds like it. One of the criticisms of the competitive HS scene is that not enough competitors are recognizable, well-known names. Streamer inclusion will fix that. More people will tune in to watch something like Kripp vs. Forsen than most of the HCT matches this year.
Besides, the HGG sounds more like a fun diversion, an experiment and views-generator, than a real part of the HCT.
These Inn-vitationals are a straight response to the popularity and viewership of Batstone/Challengestone if ever there could be one.
No HS world championship on Blizzcon anymore? What the bwok-bwok-bwok-BWOK!?!?!?!?!
lol they abbreviate Hearthstone Inn-vitationals to HSI instead of HIV.
"Man, this HIV is AIDS." - Typical Internet bro
"Not yet, but it's going to be!" - Doctor
Blizzcon will no longer host the World Championship ?? I don't think that's a good idea. Blizzzcon brings a lot of media attention and give HS a lot of plubicity.
Wouldn't be better to adapt the standar rotation to the Blizzcon calendar instead and keep the World championship at Blizzcon?
We love seeing the passion of players rooting on their fellow players, particularly their local heroes. We also love the cooperation, collaboration, and camaraderie that emerges from team-based competitions. The Hearthstone Global Games (HGG) aims to scratch this competitive itch and will feature teams of players from various countries battling it out weekly in a global league. Each team in the HGG will consist of the top Hearthstone Competitive Point earner from their country and three of their fellow community-voted countrypersons. Cheer on competitors from your country like never before!
I really don't like this one. Like either you can just abuse this and the less popular but better players won't really be able to get the chance of winning something or I dunno You just win without really deserving it. I mean ok the one with the most HCT points out of the country is fine I agree but the other 3 people should have been made by winning a goddamn barstone tournament in the region. Like now you don't even have the chance of competing in the tournament without either being popular (even tough you might not have the skill) or grinding through the ladder. Blizz you just triggered me...
Does this mean no World Championship at Blizzcon next year? That's really disappointing.
They want to milk more money from tickets ^^ People come to BlizzCon anyway.
You can imagine how much money Hearthstone brings to Blizzard just by looking to the prize pool.