The huge Yellow Dragon Stadium in Hangzhou, China, will welcome the WEC grand finalists
Less than an hour ago, 2p.com announced they'll be hosting the European and American qualifiers for the $62,000 WEC Hearthstone competition and the player line-up looks nothing short of impressive.
WEC was announced in late June with a multi-discipline portfolio and a whopping prize pool bank. The official post boasted a massive $800,000 spread between four games - SC2, WC3, Hearthstone and Dota 2. For some games, this was a particularly lavish opportunity.
One such discipline is Blizzard's card game Hearthstone. Released just this year, the games has been gaining popularity and the prize pools have been getting bigger by the day. In June, $25,000 were given away at DreamHack Summer in what was the biggest Hearthstone event to date. Just a week later, OGN's CN vs Korea masters began, featuring more than double that amount at $54,000. This too was surpassed quickly by WEC's announcement in question which spoke of the record-breaking $62,000.
The WEC global finals are scheduled for September 6-8 and for Hearthstone they will be in the form of an eight-man tournament with players from the four major regions - Europe, North America, Korea and China, two coming from each scene. Today, 2p.com, the organization responsible for handling the qualifiers for the former two regions have announced the list of sixteen players to take part in the preliminaries starting July 25th.
European qualifiers (July 25-27) | NA qualifiers (August 1-3) |
Gnimsh Rdu Ek0p Savjz ThijsNL Kolento Darkwonyx Semijew | Amaz StrifeCro Realz TidesofTime Alchemixt Reynad Brad Firebat |
Each of the invited players will be thrown into a 8-man double elimination Bo5 bracket with Bo7 WB-, LB- and grand-finals. Every playday, the participants will submit a different set of four decks, allowing for a more unpredictable competition. Vetoes will also be allowed, one class-ban per opponent.
Artosis and Frodan will be casting the events on 2p's Twitch channel. The winners will proceed to the WEC grand finals in Hangzhou, China.