Blizzard announced Thursday the inaugural Hearthstone Global Games, a tournament featuring players from around the globe competing for their country for a prize pool of $300,000.
Forty-eight different countries will compete in the tournament, each represented by a four-player team. The first member of each team will be the top ranked player from that country, while the other three will be picked from a pool of eight by the community through a popular vote. These eight players will be picked by Blizzard using a criteria of their current Hearthstone competitive points total, previous results in tournaments, majors and World Championship qualifications, and their "standing in the community."
The tournament structure will use a best-of-five, class vs. class format, where each player of the team will represent two classes, with the ninth class designated as an "Ace Deck." Each of the 48 countries will be seeded and placed into groups determined by their country's total Hearthstone competitive points for the Winter season.
Current top candidates for spots include Edwin "HotMEOWTH" Cook in the US, who surprised many with a 5th/8th place finish at the 2016 Hearthstone World Championships and his unusual Zoolock deck. Artem "DrHippi" Kravets, a Virtus.Pro player from Ukraine, currently tops the European Hearthstone ladder, while current World Champion ArmaTeam's Pavel Beltukov trails in second. Though it's a heated contest for top ranking on the ladder, the important factor is being highest within your region to make the cut.
No dates have been announced yet for the Hearthstone Global Games.