Hearthstone in esports
overview about Hearthstone in esports
Blizzard Entertainment's online collectible card game Hearthstone became played professionally quickly after its release in March 2014. The game is played as an esport, with high-level tournaments such as Blizzard's official World Championship featuring prize pool of up to $1 million, and livestreamers can earn money streaming gameplay on Twitch.
History of Hearthstone competition
2013
The first Hearthstone tournament was held at BlizzCon on November 11, 2013, only a few months after the release of the game's closed beta and several months before the official release of the game in March 2014. Blizzard selected eight prominent Hearthstone players to compete at what they titled the "Hearthstone Innkeeper's Invitational". The tournament was won by Artosis, who was subsequently crowned the "Grandmaster of the Hearth".
2014
After the official release of the game in early 2014, more Hearthstone tournaments followed, including events at EGX Rezzed and DreamHack Bucharest. BlizzCon 2014 featured a Hearthstone tournament with a $250,000 USD prize pool, the largest up to that point, and players from the Americas, Europe, and Asia qualified for the event through winning regional tournaments.
In June 2014, the organization of Assembly Summer 2014, a Finnish qualifying tournament for the International e-Sports Federation's (IeSF) World Championship, sparked controversy when it was announced that tournament would be open for men only. The cause was that the World Championship was also slated to have an all-male line-up, and its qualifying events were subject to the same rules. According to the IeSF, the rule was set in place in order to "secure traditional sports status" for esports.
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