by JR Cook - 8 years ago     show comments

We’re a few weeks removed from the 2015 Hearthstone World Championship finale and we now have details for what 2016 has for store, and the first points will be awarded this weekend at Dreamhack.

There are several big and positive changes for this year. The biggest one in my opinion is that tournaments that award points can no longer invite certain players and give them clear advantages in tournaments with automatic byes. While players can be invited, no longer will we see an open tournament of 128+ players competing for 8 open spots in a top 16 while 8 invited players already get to the advantage of making it to the top 8 just be being invited. This puts everyone on a more even playing ground instead of giving some players advantage just based on their popularity or live stream numbers.

The next change I feel was important is allowing tournaments to be able to choose from a few different formats to run their tournament instead of being held to one. This past year everyone had to run Conquest format to reward points. Now they can choose between Conquest, last man standing, 4 deck Conquest with 1 ban, or a blind pick best of 5.

The third change that I feel is important is allowing more local winners to participate. This is done through allowing more Fireside Gatherings to award points, but also that more ranked players can gain points. Points are gained by being in the top 100, and if you hit legend in a season you will also get 1 point for doing so.

Finally, the last change I feel is important is the road to the championship will now have a more of a storyline attached to it. Before, you had a bunch of random tournaments, but no way to really follow the scene up until the final couple weeks before BlizzCon. This year, the seasons have been divided up so there will be 3 seasonal championships that will then finish off with the World Championship around November 2016. This means for the year we will be following players as they start competing for the World Championship and they will be put in front of a wider audience much sooner and we get to learn more about them throughout the year instead of just learning who they are a month before the big show. I think this is a big way in allowing the eSport to grow in Hearthstone.

To find out more about the proposed changes to 2016, check out the full details here.