Blizzard has revealed details of its upcoming Hearthstone Global Games tournament, which will allow top players to represent their country.
The top ranked player from each of the 48 eligible countries (based on Hearthstone’s Global Standings) will be invited to join their national team. Three other players will join that country’s national team via a community vote.
Blizzard says that players will be nominated for voting based on their Hearthstone Competitive points, previous tournament results and their standing in the community.
For a long time the UK Hearthstone scene has been overshadowed by some of the bigger global tournaments, and some talented players here haven’t always been given the opportunity to reach the next level.
This new tournament could go some way in helping to put UK talent on the map.
The Hearthstone Global Games will consist of three phases. Firstly, 48 teams will be placed into one of eight groups, with the top three teams from each group advancing.
Phase two will feature 24 remaining teams, again placed into six groups, while phase three will contain 16 teams who will be seeded into a single elimination bracket. The top four teams will then advance to the live Global Games Finals.
Phases one and two will adopt a round robin tournament format.
The prize pool breakdown is as follows:
The eligible countries are:
- Austria
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Israel
- Italy
- Kazakhstan
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Russia
- Spain
- Slovakia
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Turkey
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
- Australia
- China
- Hong Kong
- Indonesia
- Japan
- South Korea
- Malaysia
- New Zealand
- Philippines
- Singapore
- Taiwan
- Thailand
- Vietnam
- Argentina
- Brazil
- Canada
- Chile
- Mexico
- Peru
- United States of America
More details can be found in this Hearthstone post and in the official rules document.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
