TiddlerCelestial (right) playing AKAWonder on his way to DH Summer championship. Photo: DreamHack
The esports mastodon is ready to get even bigger Hearthstone-wise, bringing Blizzard’s card game to new venues such as Austin, Texas.
In 2015, DreamHack was a frontrunner on the competitive Hearthstone scene. Not afraid of making big moves, the company set up the first big swiss LAN event in the game, getting 128 players to DreamHack Summer and repeating this practice with the 200-man DreamHack Winter towards the end of the year. These two main events gave away $40,000 each with $13,000 more spread between the smaller, local evets in Tours and Valencia.
This year, DreamHack look determined to make every circuit stop count, evening out the prize pool. The DH Hearthstone Grand Prix circuit will start in Austin, Texas and pass through Jönkoping and Valencia before returning to Jönkoping once again for the Winter event. Each stop will offer a total of $27,500 and will be played in massive swiss rounds with 200 players into a top 16 cut off. Multiple side events with purses of $2,500 will be offered at each stop for those players unable to make it to the main event playoffs. In total, $130,000 will be awarded to the best card slingers between May and November.
While this comes as good news for all aspiring Hearthstone competitors, it will be especially welcomed by the North American population. The region has been notoriously lacking big LAN events compared to Europe and even China, which has left its negative mark on the depth of the competitive population. This is the first official confirmation that DreamHack Austin will feature Hearthstone as one of its disciplines, even though the event itself was announced in July last year.
DreamHack Grand Prix:
May 6-8: DH Austin
June 18-20: DH Summer, Jonkoping
July 14-16: DH Valencia
November 24-27: DH Winter, Jonkoping
