Photo: Stephanie Lindgren / DreamHack
The crown event of the European circuit will heed the feedback from professional players and bring back the standard format from last year.
Conquest has been the focus of pro player discontent for some time. While the competitive community warmly welcomed it at first, glad to see change to the good but overused Last Hero Standing, it eventually turned on Conquest, seeing the format as limiting. To avoid having any weak link in their line-up that can be punished repeatedly into a loss, Hearthstone competitors essentially resorted to the three most dominant decks of any meta, a phenomenon which – as FollowEsports member Brian “Th3Rat” Courtade put in an article – “disincentivizes players to be creative and innovative, which ultimately undermines Conquest’s goal of diversity.”
As the end of the HWC 2015 campaign approached, tournament organizers started considering a change of format to cater to pro players’ wishes. The HS Arena Grand Opening, a $5,000 online tournament held just before the opening weekend of Blizzcon, drew significant attention mostly because of the change in scenery. Other events followed suit and the $20,000 SeatStory Cup 4, currently ongoing at press time, also employed the format switch.
These will not be isolated incidents and from the looks of it, Last Hero Standing is here to stay for potentially the rest of the year. WePlay’s inaugural $5,000 season beginning this Monday has chosen one-ban LHS as its format. Additionally, no-ban LHS will be present at the closing DreamHack event as well, where upwards of 200 players are expected to show up for the $40,000 swiss tournament, as well as the first World Championship points for the 2016 season.
It remains to be seen how long this tendency will persist. There are more major events yet to be held this year, for example the new edition of World Cyber Arena in Yinchuan, China, this December, which will have to decide whether they want to stick to the traditional Conquest or choose to switch formats.
