Professional ''Hearthstone'' competition

Blizzard Entertainment's online collectable card game Hearthstone became played professionally quickly after its release in March 2014. The game is played as an eSport, with high-level tournaments such as Blizzard's official World Championship featuring prize pool of up to $1 million[1], and livestreamers can make a living streaming gameplay on Twitch.tv.

History of Hearthstone competition

2014

The first Hearthstone tournament was held at Blizzcon on 2013-11-8, only a few months after the release of the game's closed beta and several months before the official release of the game on 2014-03-11. Blizzard selected eight prominent Hearthstone players to compete at what they titled the "Hearthstone Innkeeper's Invitational". The tournament was won by Artosis, who was subsequently crowned the "Grandmaster of the Hearth".[2][3] After the official release of the game, more Hearthstone tournaments followed, including events at EGX Rezzed and DreamHack Bucharest.[4][5] Blizzcon 2014 featured a Hearthstone tournament with a $250,000 USD prize pool, the largest up to that point, and players from the Americas, Europe, and Asia qualified for the event through winning regional tournaments.[6][7]

In June 2014, the organization of Assembly Summer 2014, a Finish qualifying tournament for the International e-Sports Federation's (IeSF) World Championship, sparked controversy when it was announced that tournament would be open for men only. The cause was that the World Championship was also slated to have an all-male line-up, and its qualifying events were subject to the same rules. According to the IeSF, rule was set in place in order to "secure traditional sports status" for esports. The forced gender division was abolished a few days after it was announced for Assembly Summer when the IeSF switched to an "open for all" format.[8][9]

June also saw a cheating scandal when Radu "Rdu" Dima won first prize and $10,000 USD at DreamHack Summer. During Rdu's final match against AmazHS, he got a Battle.net message stating the content of his AmazHS' hand. Though the information was no longer relevant in the game, Rdu was upset about the unsolicited help and tournament organizers called for a 20-minute break in which Rdu's "friend list" was deleted, though they decided the round was won fairly. Though AmazHS gave his support to Rdu afterwards, he stated that DreamHack should have been better at organizing the tournament and implored Blizzard to implement game modes in which such forms of cheating are not possible.[10][11]

In Hearthstone's first year, a total of 52 tournaments and series awarded $1,000 USD or more to individual players. Over the year, over $1,000,000 USD worth of prize money was awarded during 2014, large tournaments being the World Championships and the World Cyber Arena. James "Firebat" Kostesich was the most successful tournament player, winning a total of $105,650 USD. Fifteen players made above the United States federal minimum wage through tournaments alone in 2014, and many players make more through livestreaming their Hearthstone games.[12]

Hearthstone's inaugural World Championship concluded at BlizzCon 2014 and featured a total prize pool of $250,000 USD and the Last Hero Standing format[13][14]. James "Firebat" Kostesich defeated Wang "Tiddler Celestial" Xieyu in the finals, becoming the first World Champion and earning $100,000 USD.[13]

2015

In March 2015, Red Bull's Jon Partridge stated that Hearthstone was "emerging as one of the world's top eSports." Technology company Nvidia held a professional Hearthstone tournament series that spanned eight weeks, from the end of March to the middle of May, with a total prize pool of $25,000 USD. The tournament, which was split up in Professional Division of 16 high-level players and an open worldwide Amateur Division, was a qualifying event of the 2015 World Championship.[15][16][17]

Blizzard's official 2015 Hearthstone World Championship tournament concluded at Blizzcon 2015. Sixteen players qualified for the event by improving their rankings at Blizzard-sanctioned tournaments. Four players per region eventually qualified for the World Championship by improving their regional rankings in Europe, North and Latin America, China, and Asia-Pacific.[18][19] This World Championship was the first to be held with the Conquest format with a ban.[13][20] Swedish player Sebastian "Ostkaka" Engwall defeated Canadian player Dylan "Hotform" Mullins to earn $100,000 USD and the title of World Champion.[13]

2016

Hearthstone competition "Throne of Cards IV" in Vienna, Austria

In November 2015, Blizzard announced a change in the Hearthstone season structure, where the game's eSports calendar would be split into Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring seasons, each running for three months. Players have to earn enough HCT points in order to qualify for major tournaments at the end of each season which are held in three of the game's regions. Companies like Kyoto eSports, StriveWire, and Zotac host tournaments that give players points to qualify for the seasonal major tournaments. The winners of each tournaments qualifies automatically to the World Championship. Through this setup, 12 players qualify for the event, while Blizzard appoints four players from China in some other manner.[21] The 2016 Hearthstone World Tour featured over $1,900,000 USD in prize money.[22]

The third Hearthstone World Championship was held at BlizzCon 2016 on November 5 with the Conquest format and a prize pool of $1,000,000 USD, four times as much as in 2015.[13][21] It was played in a Swiss tournament format and one class could be banned from use by one's opponent. The winner was Russian Pavel "Pavel" Beltiukov, who defeated Artem "DrHippi" Karevets to earn the top prize of $250,000 USD.[13][23]

2017

Winner: Tom60229 (Taiwan)

The 2017 Hearthstone World Championship is the fourth year of the Hearthstone World Championship. Breaking from the tradition of previous years, the 2017 Hearthstone World Championship took place in January 2018, instead of during Blizzcon in the fall.

Date: January 18 - January 21, 2018 Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands Prize Pool: $1,000,000

Streaming

For many professional Hearthstone players, rather than tournament earnings, livestreaming is their main source of income.[12] In 2014, Kinguin project coordinator Giovanni Varriale stated that Hearthstone was one of the most popular games on Twitch.tv, with "thousands of people spend[ing] hours watching the best players in action."[24]

Game design

Hearthstone is a digital and online card game, comparable to traditional collectible card games such as Magic: The Gathering.

Expansions

The game features a large amount of inherent randomness as calculated through a random number generator (a property referred to as "RNG"). Some cards may have excessively random effects and may be able to completely sway a game through RNG. Various fans are worried about the future of the game's competitive scene due to unbalanced cards being introduced in new expansions. In an interview with Polygon, Hearthstone associate designer Dean Ayala stated that newly introduced cards can add to the strategy of the game, and that expanding Hearthstone is "all about finding the balance with what is ok and what isn't ok." Ayala explained that a large part of adding new cards to the game is trying to view each card through the lens of each possible type of player and how the card may be used.[25]

Culture

The practice of "win trading", where players forfeit games in order to help other players gain in ranking, can be used to reach Legend ranking with less effort. However, win trading is considered cheating, and Blizzard gives out permanent bans for people who indulge in the practice.[26]

In 2014, professional coaching services became popular, where high-level players discuss strategies with their clients and give tips for improvement. Nathan 'ThatsAdmirable' Zamora stated that the work is his main source of income, and that the service is useful for players that have plateaued and are unsure on how to change their play style.[27]

In August 2014, competitive Hearthstone player Ryan "Realz" Masterson was hired by Blizzard in order to help with the balancing of the game.[28][29]

References

  1. ↑ Changes Coming to Hearthstone Competitive Tour for 2017 Hearthpwn, Retrieved October 26, 2016
  2. ↑ Tach, Dave (2013-10-10). "Blizzard hosting a Hearthstone tournament at BlizzCon". Polygon.
  3. ↑ Warr, Philippa (2014-06-04). "Hearthstone Q&A: Kripparrian". Red Bull.
  4. ↑ Bramwell, Tom (2014-03-27). "Hearthstone tournament taking place at EGX Rezzed". Eurogamer.
  5. ↑ "Hearthstone Help: Interview with Dreamhack Bucharest winner". PC Gamer. 2014-05-21.
  6. ↑ Macy, Seth G. (2014-05-23). "Hearthstone Blizzcon Tournament Prize Pool is $250,000 USD". IGN.
  7. ↑ Tassi, Paul (2014-05-25). "Blizzard Throwing 'Hearthstone' World Championship With $100K First Prize". Forbes.
  8. ↑ Savage, Phil (2014-07-03). "IeSF removes male-only restriction from its e-sports tournaments". PC Gamer.
  9. ↑ Grubb, Jeff (2014-07-02). "E-sports league that prohibited women Hearthstone players reverses policy after talking with Blizzard". VentureBeat.
  10. ↑ Peel, Jeremy (2014-06-17). "Most lucrative Hearthstone win marred by controversy; "Rdu is not cheating," says Amaz". PCGamesN.
  11. ↑ Schreier, Jason (2014-06-17). "'Cheating' Scandal Hits $10,000 Hearthstone Tournament". Kotaku.
  12. 1 2 Leslie, Callum (2014-12-31). "Hearthstone players won more than $1 million in the game's first year". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 9 May 2016.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Hearthstone World Championship". Hearthstone Wiki. Retrieved 2018-01-20.
  14. ↑ "Tournaments". Hearthstone Wiki. Retrieved 2018-01-20.
  15. ↑ Chalk, Andy (2015-02-16). "Nvidia announces Pro/Am Hearthstone Tournament with $25k prize pool". PC Gamer.
  16. ↑ Parfitt, Ben (2015-02-26). "Nvidia is hosting its own Hearthstone tournament". Market for Computer and Video Games.
  17. ↑ Partridge, Jon (2015-05-11). "Nvidia Hearthstone comp pits you against the pros". Red Bull.
  18. ↑ Bogos, Steven (2015-01-31). "2015 Hearthstone World Championship Announced". The Escapist.
  19. ↑ Nunnely, Stephany (2015-01-16). "Here's how you earn a spot in the 2015 Hearthstone World Championship". VG247.
  20. ↑ "Tournaments". Hearthstone Wiki. Retrieved 2018-01-20.
  21. 1 2 Mamiit, Aaron (2015-11-27). "Blizzard Getting Serious On eSports: 'Hearthstone' World Championship Prize Money Quadrupled To $1M, Structure Changed". Tech Times.
  22. ↑ Lingle, Samuel (2015-11-25). "The 2016 Hearthstone World Tour will feature over $1.9 million in prizes". The Daily Dot.
  23. ↑ Tassi, Paul. "Russia's Pavel Wins BlizzCon's 2016 'Hearthstone' World Championship".
  24. ↑ Higgins, Chris (2014-12-11). "eSports tournaments trading cards for charity". Red Bull.
  25. ↑ Kollar, Phillip (2016-08-26). "Hearthstone devs are not worried about randomness ruining the game". Polygon.
  26. ↑ Benson, Julian (2014-10-31). "Hearthstone win trading results in permanent bans and tournament disqualification". PCGamesN.
  27. ↑ Clark, Tim (2014-08-20). "What I learned from playing with a professional Hearthstone coach". PC Gamer.
  28. ↑ Blanchard, Ryan (2014-08-30). "Professional 'Hearthstone' Player Hired By Blizzard". Game Rant.
  29. ↑ 2014-08-28. "Blizzard Hires Hearthstone Pro as Associate Game Designer". IGN.
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