The Curse Trials – a 16-player invitation coming February 17-19 - is the first attempt at block rotation in Hearthstone.
Archon and Curse are teaming up next month to bring an interesting new iteration on Hearthstone formats. Taking a page off of Magic: The Gathering tournaments where block rotation is a common thing, the “Curse Trials” offers $30,000 to sixteen players. The catch: no classic cards allowed.
This is a format like nothing before in the game. While certain tournaments like Challengestone also imposed deckbuilding restrictions to its players, the banning of a whole block of cards is a step further. The classic set includes 245 cards, including many staples still seen today. Players will still be allowed to use basic cards, however, so Mages will still have access to their [card]Fireball[/card]s, Paladins to their [card]Truesilver Champion[/card]s, etc. At the same time, Druids will have to come up with decks without their [card]Force of Nature[/card] combo, aggro decks will have to find replacement for [card]Knife Juggler[/card] and so on.
Beyond the first batch of invited players and the date, little is known about the tournament. The former includes Dima “Rdu” Radu, James “Firebat” Kostesich, Cong “StrifeCro” Shu and reigning world champion Sebastian “Ostkaka” Engwall.
