Blizzard Entertainment announced the Hearthstone Championship Tour will come to an end this spring. In its stead is a new three-tiered system which will be implemented in place of the HCT.
According to Blizzard, the new competitive system will include qualifiers, live global tournaments, and an exclusive top tier. There will be more than $4 million in prizing for those who decide to compete.
For the qualifier tier, Blizzard along with a third-party platform partner will hold qualifier tournaments starting this spring. These tournaments will primarily be online and will not be region-locked; this means anyone from any country can compete. Those who do win a qualifier tournament will move to the next tier: live global tournaments.
Blizzard will be holding three invite-only tournaments in 2019 with more planned for 2020. Held all around the world, some of the best Hearthstone players will go head-to-head competing for $250,000 per event. Like the qualifier tier, winning the live global tournament will move those up to premier play.
Premier play is a seasonal round-robin online competition. Unlike the qualifier and live global tournament tiers, this top-tier is split into regional divisions. Premier play will begin after the HCT World Championship with more details coming soon.
According to Bizzard, their goals for Hearthstone esports is “to be sustainable, entertaining, and accessible.” As such, the Conquest format will be retired in 2019 and will be replaced with a new format which will be revealed “in the coming months.”
In other recent Hearthstone news, the new Ranked Play Season just started. For the December 2018 season, the Frostwolf card back can be earned if you win five ranked games. However, you’ll unlock it once you receive your Ranked Play reward chest at the end of the season.
If you think you have what it takes to compete in the reinvigorated competitive Hearthstone scene, you can play the game now for PC and mobile devices.
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