Starting on October 2nd, top teams and players from around the world will once more assemble in China to compete for over $600,000 in Dota 2 and Hearthstone combined. Today, the organizers announced the match-ups and grups for both titles.
The organizers of the World Cyber Arena, which is set to take place from October 2nd to October 5th, have announced the match-ups and groups for Dota 2 and Hearthstone today. The tournament will see international competition travel to China to fight it out for a combined prizepool of about $660,000.
Hearthstone:
36 players have been invited to the tournament and will be placed in four groups of four and four groups of five. The groupstage will see a bo2, round-robin format. A win will award a player three points, with a draw giving each player one point and a loss obviously yields no points at all. The top two of each group will advance to the playoffs.
Before the groupstage, each player selects two classes he wishes to play and has to determine in which order he plays them in, both of which cannot be changed until the end of the groupstage. In the single-elimination playoffs, each player will be able to select three classes for the first two stages (bo3) and will be able to ban two classes against his opponent. Classes and decks may be changed after each series. The semi-finals and the finals will be a bo7 with the same rules: You ban two classes and create four decks from your remaining seven classes.
After the announcement, both Western as well as Eastern communities voiced their displeasure with the groups. No seeding took place before the group drawing, creating groups such as group D, with the currently top three GosuRanked players TidesofTime, Strifecro and RDU competing against each other. Then there's also group H which consists of four Chinese players. It is apparent, that the organizers did not seed the players by strength/form or region, leaving a lot of the Western/Eastern clashes for the playoffs.
The games will be commentated by Trump and Kripparian.
Dota 2
The Dota 2 tournament will offer a simple bo3 double elimination playoff bracket. With only eight teams around, there are bound to be some explosive start-up matches, seeing the likes of Vici and iG clashing in the first round or Na'Vi facing off against TI4 champions Newbee.
No official statements have been made yet as to who will cover and broadcast these games.