For the past couple of months, it felt like Hearthstone has been dry on their competitive scene - Blizzard has been making some unprecedented changes which resulted in poor competitive activities on tournaments especially with the latest points system for the upcoming BlizzCon. A lot of competitive players are scrambling their way just to bag scanty awards from small tournaments as the eSport scene became scarcer for the community.
For a while now, it would appear that Hearthstone is slowly vanishing from the competitive scene as the only big event that's coming its way is the upcoming conclusion of 2016 Hearthstone Championship Tour which will be held at BlizzCon. When things seem to get even direr, Blizzard has officially stated that 2017 will be the year for the comeback of Heartstone in the competitive scene.
Hearthstone Championship Tour 2017
Just today, Blizzard has announced the major revamp of the HCT for the following year. The company pointed out that they are fully aware of the lack of Hearthstone tournaments across the globe and thus, they have now prepared to take the Hearthstone eSport to a whole new level. Here are all the major changes to the Hearthstone Championship Tour 2017:
Global Season Championship
One of the major changes to the HCT is the Global Season Championship which is like a seasonal tournament which will be held in a specific place around the globe. Each season will have one Global Season Championship. Details regarding the venue of each tournament are yet to be disclosed. This works like that of Dota 2 Major Tournaments where each season is met with a major tournament sponsored by Valve which in this case, by Blizzard.
Tournament Prizes
Another big change to the HCT is the boost of prize pools. It is said that the total prize pool for HCT tournaments for next year will amount to $2 million, where the World Championship will have a $1 million allocated budget. The remaining $1 million will be divided to each Global Season Championships. Also, there will be at least $20,000 prize reward for each Season Playoffs.
Points and Cups System
Blizzard stated that there will be no revamp on the points and cups system. Instead, they're going to adjust the required points from tournaments in order to get more participants into the competitive scene. This will certainly mean that a lot of players can now participate in various tournaments including major events.
It appears that Blizzard has made compelling measures to revive the drying Hearthstone competitive scene. It's great that starting 2017, Hearthstone will become even livelier than ever. Personally, I'd like to see some of the pro players competing in our region as they battle it out to the championships.
Blizzard is making major changes for the 2017 Hearthstone Championship Tour. https://t.co/hbApvkOjlM pic.twitter.com/AatGRxBM3V
— PC Gamer (@pcgamer) October 27, 2016
What do you think of the major HCT changes? Do you think it'll improve the competitive scene for the Hearthstone community? Share your thoughts in the comment section down below!
