Blizzard’s overhaul of the 2017 Hearthstone Championship Tour continued Wednesday with the announcement of major changes to different aspects of the circuit including prize pools, points and prize distribution and seasonal format, to name a few.
 

PRIZE POOLS

First and foremost, Blizzard is doubling its annual prize pool from $1 million to $2 million. The division of the pool includes $250,000 for season championships and $1 million for the World Championship.
 

HEARTHSTONE GLOBAL GAMES

Much like Blizzard did for Overwatch, the company is creating an international competition where players represent their home countries in a World Cup-style tournament. Aptly named the Hearthstone Global Games, the weekly league will see teams of players from different countries battle it out for cross-border bragging rights.
 

SEASONAL FORMAT

Blizzard has decided to move away from seasonal championships for each region and instead will have regional representatives at seasonal championships throughout the year. The four regions (Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and China) will hold their own tournaments ahead of the seasonal championship to determine who the four representatives for the event.
 

ALIGNMENT

As of right now, Blizzard holds its Hearthstone events on a different schedule from its new content releases and that can mess with professional play as different decks and cards overlap with tournaments. This means that next year’s World Championship won’t take place at BlizzCon in 2017. Instead, in order to align with the Standard year, the marquee event will be at the beginning of 2018 and the seasonal championships will be strategically placed on the calendar to compliment, not interfere with, content releases.
 

EVEN DISTRIBUTION OF POINTS AND PRIZES

The Hearthstone point system has its flaws in its current form and rewards quantity over quality. Blizzard’s solution is to even out the distribution of points so professionals who are consistently competitive and producing strong results in tournament and ranked play can be properly awarded along with players who accumulate a large amount of points due to frequency of play. 
 

HEARTHSTONE INN-VITATIONALS

This is Blizzard’s way of reminding us all that this is a game and it’s supposed to be fun. The idea is to have light-hearted tournaments that feature some of Hearthstone’s best personalities - pros, streamers, celebrities. It’s fun for the players and even more fun for the fans.