Prismata Cup 2 LCQ brackets are live

IMPORTANT: Only players who finished Top 100 in the EU/NA legend ladder during the August 2014 or are qualified for BlizzCon final qualifiers phase 1 (list) or have at least two top 8 finishes in 64+ tournaments in the last three months are eligible for participations.

The second Prismata Cup is less than two weeks away. GosuGamers and Prismata are now giving you the chance to become part of the largest merit-based tournament in the Hearthstone scene.

The first Prismata Cup was held in the last days of July and received galant praises from players and viewers alike. Aimed to provide a true competitive experience, the debut edition started with a Bo5 swiss - a format rarely used in Hearthstone but a staple in traditional competitive TCGs like Magic: The Gathering - and tested the 32 players through five rounds of games before declaring the top six. The finalists were then advanced to a Bo5 single elimination bracket with a Bo7 grand final, where the top two seeds were automatically seeded into the semi finals.

The player pool itself was based on competitors' merit, of all sorts. Invited were top ladder players, offline tournament champions and weekly cup winners, which provided a diverse list of strong names, unique to what Hearthstone fans were used to seeing in regular invitationals.

After a slew of matches, a champion was crowned in Tempo Storm's Petar "Gaara" Stevanovic who triumphed after hectic games against team-mate Drew "TidesofTime" Biessener in the semis and Brad "Brad" Christensen in the grand finals. The viewers were left content having witnessed, to quote Gaara, "the best matches ever recorded in Hearthstone history" and for the organizers it was about planning the inevitable second edition.

Said Prismata Cup 2 is now upon us. Starting on September 20th, the tournament will once again use different yardsticks to judge players' merit and extend them an invitational to the tournament. Ladder conquerors, tournament winners and GosuRankings leaders will be brawling once again... but this time, it will not be a strictly invite system.

GosuGamers and Prismata thus welcome you to the last chance qualifier for Prismata Cup 2. The tournament will be held on September 12th, starting 16:00 EST (22:00 CET) on the North American server. The format is Bo5 double elimination "class elimination", where players are required to pre-submit three decks of three different classes and stick to them for the rest of the tournament. The top 4 players will be awarded spots in the Prismata Cup 2 main event.

An important addendum we have to mention is that only players who finished Top 100 in the EU/NA legend ladder during the August 2014 or are qualified for BlizzCon final qualifiers phase 1 (list) or have at least two top 8 finishes in 64+ tournaments in the last three months are eligible for participations. Since Prismata Cup aims to collect the best of the best, the last call qualifiers hosted by GosuGamers will thus NOT be open to all and registrations will be reviewed thoroughly before the tournament starts. The players eligible through top 8 finishes will be prompted to provide links to their achievements. Players who do not provide eligibility for their participation will be de-registered.

Additionally, due to BlizzCon qualifiers happening on the same day, players are allowed to postpone their matche after 4 rounds, if one person wants to, to 16:00 EST / 22:00 CET on the next day, September 13th.

Full rules of the tournament can be found below:

Player requirements

(i) IMPORTANT: Only players who've finished Top 100 in EU/NA during the August 2014 season or are World Championship phase one qualifier players are eligible for participation. A list of said players can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Kl_ui9ionWjmUvh3RbUfRCWg-cz_04JKfdXvYKCwffk/edit#gid=0

Additionally, players with at least two top 8 finishes in 64+ tournaments in the last three months are also eligible for participations. Those will be asked to provide links of their achievements upon registration.

(ii) All players must have an eligible GosuGamers.net account and an eligible Battle.net North American account to participate

(iii) All players are responsible for resulting the games themselves through the ENTER RESULT button on the respective match pages

(iv) All players are required to take and keep screenshots of their victory and readily present them to admins in case of conflict

(v) All players are require to presubmit their decks to tournament's admins via a PM to Nydra on GosuGamers.net

(vi) Since there is no observer mode currently in the game, we implore players to keep to the spirit of fair play and to police themselves. In case of a conflict which can't decisively be judged in one player's favor or another's (i.e. screenshots are missing), an admin will have the final word.

(vii) NOTE: Due to BlizzCon qualifiers happening on the same day, players are allowed to postpone their matche after 4 rounds, if one person wants to, to 16:00 EST / 22:00 CET on the next day, September 13th.

Format

(i) Matches are played in a Best of 5, "Last Hero Standing" format - each player prepares 3 decks of 3 different, chooses one for the start of the match and keeps it until the class loses.

(ii) A participant who loses with a class cannot choose it for the rest of the match and must swtich to another

(iii) The first player to win three (3) games is declared the winner of the match

(iv) In case of a Draw, no player scores a point and the game is re-made with the same classes and same decks.

(v) Sideboarding is NOT allowed, meaning each player must pre-submit their decks and stick with them for the rest of the tournament. Switching from, for example, Zoo to Handlock is not allowed.

Penalization

(i) Any evidence of wintrading will disqualify the player from the Tournament. “Wintrading,” is defined as intentionally losing a match with another player to
advance one or the other’s rank;

(ii) after the first game in the match begins, if a player leaves the match lobby, or cancels the “game challenge”, or leaves the Hearthstone game client for any reason, it is considered a match forfeiture and the opposing Eligible Participant will win the match;

(iii) additionally, once the starting hands are provided by the Hearthstone game client, if a player leaves the game for any reason, the player is considered to have forfeited the game, awarding his or her opponent one game point;

(iv) if a player selects a deck with a class that his or her opponent already eliminated, that game is considered a loss; and

(v) if a player won the previous game in a match, but choses a deck with a different class in the next game, he or she forfeits that game, but the newly selected class is not considered eliminated;

(vi) if a player acts in collusion with another player to affect any results of the Tournament, or any matches that are part of the Qualification events for the Tournament, he or she may be disqualified from the Tournament;

(vii) if a player commits violent acts, or threatens to commit violent acts, against any other player in the Tournament, any admin, or any spectators of the Tournament, he or she may be disqualified from the Tournament;

(viii) if a player attempts to interfere with another player’s connection to the game service through Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) or any other means, he or she may be disqualified from the Tournament;

(ix) if any individual who is not the player plays on said person's Battle.net account in a Tournament game, the player may be disqualified from the Tournament;

(x) if an admin deems player to have engaged in any unsportsmanlike behavior, the player may be disqualified from the Tournament.

(xi) if an admin spots evidences of deck changing or sideboarding, the player in fault will be disqualified

(xii) walkovers are due 15 mins after the start of each round. Rounds start every full hour

To sum it all up:

Server: Battle.net NA
Start date: September 12, 16:00 EST (22:00 CET)
Registrations open: Now!
Registrations close: 30 minutes before the tournament (15:30 EST / 21:30 CET)
Check in starts: 120 minutes before the tournament (14:00 EST / 20:00 CET)
Format: Double elimination Bo5, pre-submitted decks, class elimination style, top 4 advance
Eligibility: Only players who finished Top 100 in the EU/NA legend ladder during the August 2014 or are qualified for BlizzCon final qualifiers phase 1 are eligible for participation. Full list can be seen here. Additionally, players with at least two top 8 finishes in 64+ tournaments in the last three months are also eligible for participations. Those will be asked to provide links of their achievements upon registration.
Additional requirements
- ?Players must take and keep screenshots of game results/conflicts and provide them to admins if proof is needed for resulting a game/solving a conflict
- Players must presubmit their 3 decks by sending them to Nydra and AWice upon registration
If a tournament participant without existing GosuGamers account spots he's already ranked on the GosuRankings ladder, he should alert an admin for account merging before the start of the tournament.

Author

Radoslav "Nydra" Kolev