Last weekend, between April 25th and April 28th the big finale of the Hearthstone Championship Tour took place in Taipei, Taiwan. After an (almost) full season of fun matches, exciting competitions and epic battles between talented players.
Paving the way for the newly established Hearthstone Masters program that Blizzard announced a while ago, the HCT World Championship also brings an end to the Hearthstone Year of the Raven. Taking place in the Taipei Heping Basketball Stadium in the middle of downtown Taipei. It was a pretty good international location for the final stop of the World Championship to take place in!
© Helena Kristiansson | Blizzard Entertainment
Of course, a little bit more exciting than the location was the $1000000 USD prize pool. A million dollars isn’t exactly pocket change and so the finalists knew that there was a lot at stake here. The winning share of this prize pool was a staggering $250000… and it went to one talented player! Hunterace was the lucky, or rather skilled, player that won it all.
In a riveting match against fan favourite Viper, he won big – not that the $150.000 that Viper got for his second place weren’t also incredibly impressive. The third and fourth placed competitors got $100000 each. In fact – every single one of the 16 competitors at this event won pretty big – the lowest prize money that anyone went home with was $25000… that’s still more than a lot of people make per year!
Now the season isn’t entirely over just yet – next in line are the Grandmaster events. Hunterace, the winner of the HCT, is going to join a few other players as they take Hearthstone competitions to the next level. He also joins the ranks of previous winners that did just as fantastic a job as he did – among them, Firebat who won in 2014, Ostaka, a Swedish champion, Pavel who won in 2016 and Tom60229 who won in 2017.
© Helena Kristiansson | Blizzard Entertainment
As for the Grandmasters events – this new tour debts on May 17th and it will see 16 matches played in each of the three regions (Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific) that will be held in eight-week sessions. At the tail end of that, eight players, made up of the top competitors from each season in each region along with the top two players from yet another competition – that is to say, China’s Gold Series – will be battling it out for their share of a $500000 prize pool at the Hearthstone Global Finals at BlizzCon this November.
Hunterace, Viper and third-placed player BunnyHoppor all belong to the European division of this new competitive circuit, but that doesn’t mean that the Americas or Asian-Pacific regions aren’t just as exciting and have just as many talented players – former champ Firebat plays in the Americas, and top60229 plays in the Asia-Pacific region after all.
Be sure to tune in on May 17th when it all kicks off for the new Grandmaster series, no matter which region you are most interested in!
Read also our Hearthstone Betting Guide
