OnGameNet to Broadcast Competitive Hearthstone in Korea
Announced today on the StarCraft II Blog, OnGameNet, longtime producers of StarCraft and StarCraft II competitive content will be entering the world of Hearthstone next year. The blog was vague in what exactly OGN has planned for Hearthstone, but the post mentions that they will produce entertainment shows and tournaments for the game. Let's hope that we see a spectator client from the Hearthstone team sooner rather than later! #ESPORTS!
OGN has been a dedicated partner for WCS Korea 2013. In addition to hosting a season of WCS Korea and a Season Final, OGN also broadcasted the WCS Global Finals live from BlizzCon on November 8-9. With the goal to provide a more streamlined experience for both the players and the audience, OGN will not be hosting WCS Korea 2014. OGN has rights to run both StarCraft and StarCraft II tournaments alongside WCS and will be able to run WCS global events that offer WCS points. Additionally, OGN will remain our partner outside of the WCS and will produce entertainment shows and tournaments for Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.
ManaCast #13 - The Hearthstone Show
The thirteenth episode of ManaCast aired yesterday, and now the VoD is up! Trump was invited as a guest host on this week's ManaCast where the hosts discussed the latest weekend tournament results, incoming card changes announced at BlizzCon, and the decks that we saw in play during the Hearthstone Innkeeper's Invitational.
ManaCast is a Hearthstone Show which features high level discussion about various aspects of Hearthstone while staying not too serious. ManaCast airs live on Tuesdays, usually in the afternoon, over on the ManaGrind Twitch channel. The crew are working on getting a solid time every Tuesday to do the show, but we will post the VoD on Wednesday nights, so don't worry if you can't watch it live.
Update: Battle.net Desktop Closed Beta Participants Not Receiving Beta Keys
A number of players that were invited to beta test the Battle.net Desktop Application were told they would receive a gift in the future. This gift was announced last week to be a Hearthstone beta key! Blizzard originally stated that everyone received their keys, but have since retracted that statement after discovering an error. Those who did not receive their gift for being in the Closed Beta test of the Battle.net Desktop Application, will be receiving it in the next week.
Just remember, these keys are only for people who installed and logged in to the Battle.net Desktop Application during its own Closed Beta. If you did not get into the closed beta for the BDA, you will have to wait for an opt-in invite, winning a beta key giveaway, or the open beta.
Recently, we rewarded players that were invited to and participated in our Battle.net desktop app closed beta test with a Hearthstone closed beta test key as per this announcement. We have since discovered that a number of these participants were not properly sent a Hearthstone beta key; the impacted players have now been identified and their beta key reward should be sent out within the next week.
I would also like to take this moment to remind everyone to always remember to check your spam folders and Promotions tabs when checking for the Hearthstone closed beta invite, as our emails have a tendency to get caught there.
Hearthstone Beta Waves in NA
Blizzard sent out a wave of beta invites in the NA region after a week of no opt-in invites. No news for all the patient EU beta testers. To help get more of you access to the closed beta, we're reaching into our mysterious stash and holding another giveaway of our own. See below!
We are sending out a wave of Hearthstone beta opt-in invites for the North American region right now, which should conclude within an hour.
Hearthstone Beta Key Giveaway
There wasn't any news last night, but we're back with another beta key giveaway! With the news of OGN hosting Hearthstone content in the future, what kind of competitive content would you like to see more of out of the Hearthstone community? Let us know in the comments of this news post for a chance to win a Hearthstone beta key!
How To Enter
- Reply to this news post with your answer to the following question: What kind of competitive content would you like to see more of out of the Hearthstone community?
How To Win
- Contest closes on November 21st at 10 PM EST.
- Winners will be chosen randomly and sent private messages on HearthPwn.
- You are allowed one entry into this contest. If you are found to have entered more than once, you will be disqualified and your accounts will be banned.
- Winners will have 48 hours to respond to their private messages before their keys will be given out to someone else.
I'd like to see some kind of competitive draft tourney. Sort of like Arena mode, but with numerous players drafting from the same card pool.
Same Hero same deck tournaments
I think it would be cool if you could set up arena tournaments, or even the old school draft set ups. It would be especially cool if they implemented a spectator system to a draft, so commentators could talk about the draft as it's happening, and what kind of decks are getting put together.
Online tournaments for sure. Ones that allow everyone to participate in not just the specific people who receive invitations. Hopefully when the new ranking system is implemented then that will make it easier. Course I still need a beta key to be a part of all this ;)
I'd like a huge scale tournament, the kind that you can have a number of entries in the thousands and whittle it down.
Any type of tourney setup, as long as it's well commentated.
double elimination tournaments, or large bracket based tournaments
More Deck analysis and analysis of cards ( like which card fits in which deck the best).
Also more starter tips for begginers kind of like a hearthstone 101.
Double elim
I would like to see more tournaments but I also like the idea of a previous poster about players creating the worst possible deck for eachother and seeing who wins it would add another set of interesting play to the game.
Is there currently a 2 v 2 set-up offered in the game? If not, that's what I'd like to see. I used to play Magic 2 v 2 all the time and it's great fun synergizing decks.
I would lille somekind of arena tournament where every player would get to pick from the same selection of cards.
a same hero tourney could be pretty cool!
More of a feature request than a content request; What I'd really like to see is some of the higher up streamers play each other. JMacc vs Mickin, Total Biscuit vs Hafu, etc, complete with commentary from both sides would be really fun to watch.
Perhaps a competitive event similar to atoD? Players draft the worst deck possible for each other and see who can win. I always enjoy it when pro players show their skill in alternative game modes.
Analysis of deck types (warlock murloc etc.)
Just more competitive tournaments in general and competitive drafts
I think that it would be fun to see some tournaments with Arena - drafted decks. Constructed gets a bit old to watch after a while.
Streamed strip Hearthstone.
Yeah I think they would be quite interesting to watch