With the Kobolds and Catacombs expansion set to release this December, Blizzard ANZ is hosting Australia’s very first ‘Innvitational’ Hearthstone event December 10-11th right here in Sydney.
As seen at Blizzcon recently, the format for these events is quite different to the usual HCT way of doing things. This time around, four of Australia and New Zealand’s best – NaviOOT, Jowen, CitizenNappa and Mage – will be paired up with international stars J4CKIECHAN, Eloise, DDaHyoNi and Ant to compete for bragging rights and a cool AU$10,000 prize pool. The new card set will be allowed in play, so it’ll be interesting to see just how fast these pros can get some new decks and card combos going for this tournament.
Played as a single elimination bracket, each match will be a best of five, with one ban. It’ll all kick off at 12PM AEDT both Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th December, available for streaming at twitch.tv/PlayHearthstone.
On top of all the esports action, Blizzard is teasing a community part event to take place on Friday 9th December at the Intercontinental hotel. We’re yet to hear more on this one, but ticketing has been mentioned, with more to be announced via the Blizzard ANZ Esports twitter page.
It’s fantastic to see more Hearthstone events popping up in the ANZ region. With some great talent here already, events like this help make sure the growing community and its pro players are more visible. What a way to close off a fine year of Blizzard esports down under!