Hearthstone World Championship

The Hearthstone World Championship is the official Hearthstone world championship and the finale for the Hearthstone Grandmasters system. Each year, the Championship gathers the best 8 players in the world to compete, 2 players each from the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and China regions.

Being the annual competition finale for Hearthstone esports, the World Championship awards an enormous amount of cash prizes to the players competing in the event, and the winner of the Championship is awarded the prestigious title of Hearthstone World Champion.

Matches are streamed live on the official Hearthstone Esports YouTube channel.

2020 Hearthstone World Championship
Winner: Glory (Japan)

The 2020 Hearthstone World Championship will be the seventh year of the Hearthstone World Championship. This Championship will take place online in the fall of 2020. For this tournament, the Conquest match format is used, instead of the Shield-Phase Conquest format used in the previous year.


 * Date: December 12 - December 13, 2020
 * Location: Online
 * Prize Pool: $500,000

The moniker "Hearthstone Global Finals" is no longer used, and the term "Hearthstone World Championship" is reused.


 * Links
 * Official 2020 Hearthstone World Championship tournament page
 * Initial World Championship info announcement

2019 Hearthstone Global Finals
Winner: VKLiooon (China)

The 2019 Hearthstone Global Finals was the sixth year of the Hearthstone World Championship. This Championship took place during BlizzCon in the fall of 2019. For this tournament, the Shield-Phase Conquest match format was used.


 * Date: November 1 - November 2, 2019
 * Location: Anaheim, United States
 * Prize Pool: $500,000


 * Links
 * Official 2019 Hearthstone Global Finals tournament page
 * Official viewer's guide
 * Official conclusion blog post
 * 2019 Hearthstone Global Finals - YouTube playlist
 * 2019 Hearthstone Global Finals - Liquipedia

The year 2019 ushered in a brand new competitive tournament scene. The Hearthstone esports team stated that the old structure of Hearthstone Championship Tours was challenging to follow and not very accessible to new players. To fix this, Hearthstone esports underwent an entire revamp of their tournament structure in early 2019, replacing the HCT with the brand new Hearthstone Masters system consisting of three simple levels of competitive play:
 * Notes
 * (1) Hearthstone Masters Qualifiers - entry-level qualifiers
 * (2) Hearthstone Masters Tours - live global tournaments
 * (3) Hearthstone Grandmasters - exclusive top tier

For more information about the complete redesign of the Hearthstone Esports scene in 2019, please check out the official blog post.

2018/2019 Hearthstone World Championship
Winner: Hunterace (Norway)

The 2018/2019 Hearthstone World Championship was the fifth year of the Hearthstone World Championship. This Championship took place in April 2019, instead of during in the fall of 2018.


 * Date: April 24 - April 28, 2019
 * Location: Taipei, Taiwan
 * Prize Pool: $1,000,000


 * Links
 * Official 2018/2019 World Championship tournament page
 * Official conclusion blog post
 * 2018/2019 HCT Tournament Rules
 * 2018/2019 Hearthstone Tournament Handbook

2017 Hearthstone World Championship
Winner: Tom60229 (Taiwan)

The 2017 Hearthstone World Championship was the fourth year of the Hearthstone World Championship. Breaking from the tradition of previous years, the 2017 Hearthstone World Championship took place in January 2018, instead of during in the fall.


 * Date: January 18 - January 21, 2018
 * Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
 * Prize Pool: $1,000,000


 * Links
 * Official conclusion blog post
 * 2017 Esports Preview - Battle.net
 * 2017 Hearthstone World Championship Tour official rules

2016 Hearthstone World Championship
Winner: Pavel (Russia)

The 2016 Hearthstone World Championship saw 16 exceptional players, four apiece from Europe, China, Asia-Pacific, and the Americas, come together to duel for their share of a $1,000,000 prize pool and the title of Hearthstone World Champion. Four groups of four players (one from each region) competed against each other in a double-elimination tournament format until only eight players remained, at which point the competition shifted to a single-elimination bracket. All matches were played in a Conquest format with a ban.


 * Date: October 26 - November 5, 2016
 * Location: Anaheim, CA
 * Prize Pool: $1,000,000


 * Links
 * Official conclusion blog post
 * 2016 Hearthstone World Championship viewing guide - Battle.net
 * Hearthstone World Championship - Week #1 - Reddit
 * Hearthstone World Championship - Week #2 - Reddit
 * Top 8 decklists - Hearthpwn
 * Top 16 brackets - Battle.net
 * 2016 Hearthstone World Championship Tour overview - Battle.net


 * Video
 * 2016 Hearthstone World Championship Playlist - YouTube
 * 2016 Hearthstone World Championship - Day Two - YouTube

2015 Hearthstone World Championship
Winner: Ostkaka (Sweden)

The 2015 Hearthstone World Championship was the second year of the Hearthstone World Championship. It took place at the end of fall 2015, at. It was the first Hearthstone World Championship to begin using the Conquest tournament format.


 * Date: October 28 - November 7, 2015
 * Location: Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, CA
 * Prize Pool: $250,000

On November 7, 2015, Ostkaka defeated Hotform to become the 2015 Hearthstone World Champion, claiming $100,000 in prize money.


 * Official conclusion blog post
 * 2015 Hearthstone World Championship - Reddit
 * Top 8 players - Battle.net
 * Top 16 decklists - Battle.net
 * 2015 Hearthstone World Championship year overview - Battle.net
 * 2015 Hearthstone World Championship official rules

2014 Hearthstone World Championship


Winner: Firebat (USA)

The 2014 Hearthstone World Championship was the first year of the Hearthstone World Championship. The Championship featured $250,000 USD in total prize money. It was played in a best-of-five "Last Hero Standing" tournament format with 3 classes allowed per player for each match.

Following the regional playoffs in which players were selected, the Hearthstone World Championship began on November 2-3, and concluded at on November 7-8. Matches were streamed live on the official Hearthstone Twitch channel.

On November 8th, 2014, Firebat became the first Hearthstone World Champion, defeating Tiddler Celestial in the finals to claim $100,000 in prize money.


 * Official conclusion blog post
 * 2014 Hearthstone World Championship overview - Battle.net
 * Top 16 decklists - LiquidHearth
 * 2014 Hearthstone World Championship video playlist - YouTube
 * 2014 Hearthstone World Championship official rules


 * Top 16


 * Finals

The quarter finals saw Kolento, the widely-held favourite to win the Championship, knocked out in a tight set by Kranich. StrifeCro, another strong contender, was also eliminated by the lesser-known DTwo. The other series saw Kaor narrowly defeated by the nascent Firebat, and Tarei knocked out by the feted Tiddler Celestial.

Firebat narrowly survived some stiff competition from DTwo in the semi-finals to make it the final series, with some memorable plays including some extreme double-Gadgetzan Auctioneer Miracle Rogue card-drawing action. Tiddler Celestial made a clean sweep against Kranich to join Firebat.

The finals saw Firebat and Tiddler Celestial opening with a druid mirror, which Firebat was able to win. Tiddler Celestial's attempts to counter Firebat's druid deck with both priest and Handlock ultimately proved in vain, and Firebat stomped to victory in a straight-through 3-0 series.


 * Placings and prizes

Changes to the Championship

 * 2020
 * Hearthstone Esports matches are now streamed live on the official Hearthstone Esports YouTube channel. Prior to 2020, all Hearthstone Esports matches were streamed on the official PlayHearthstone Twitch channel.

The Hearthstone Championship Tour was to be phased out and discontinued this year, following the conclusion of the 2018/2019 Championship Tour in April. A new simplified three-tiered system called Hearthstone Masters replaced the growingly convoluted tournament structure of the Hearthstone Championship Tour.
 * 2019
 * In the old tournament system, the Championship Tour gathered the best 16 players in the world, 4 from each region, to compete in the Hearthstone World Championship. Players went through a system of gathering HCT points from activities ranging from participation in selected tournament events to performing well on Ranked Legend ladder. Final qualification into the Championship was mainly achieved through winning the penultimate Season Championships.
 * The new Hearthstone Masters tournament system replaced the HCT and introduced three simple tiers of competitive play: Masters Qualifiers, Masters Tours, and the pinnacle, Hearthstone Grandmasters. The revamped Hearthstone World Championship now gathers the best 8 players from the Hearthstone Grandmasters program, 2 from each region.

A large amount of changes were made to the Hearthstone World Championship Tour in 2018. This included the addition of point targets for each HCT season for qualification into seasonal playoffs, and much more.
 * 2018

The full list of changes, rules, and new tournament side events are listed here:
 * 2018 Hearthstone Esports - Official blog post announcement
 * 2018 Hearthstone Esports - Visual guide (PDF)

Based on feedback from last year's tournaments, the following changes were implemented for the 2017 Hearthstone World Championship Tour:
 * 2017
 * Season Championships are no longer regional and are now condensed from nine Championships into three global Season Championships, seeing players battling against each other across different regions in each Season Championship. These three Season Championships are titled the Winter, Spring, and Summer Championships, named similarly to those of the previous year. Each Season Championship will take place at a select host region, and will be held in public spectator venues.
 * "Season Preliminaries" from the previous year have been retitled as "Season Playoffs" and remain region-based. Each of the 4 regions (Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and China) will send 4 representatives to the Season Championships each season. Each Season Playoff will use the Swiss Tournament format and continue to include local Tavern Heroes, but will be more competitive to qualify for and will include deeper prizing to reward more participants.
 * HCT tournaments are now synced with the Standard year and each global Season Championship will take place during its own content cycle and expansion release. The World Championship will take place at the end of each Standard year.
 * The amount of points earned from tournaments and Ranked Play mode have been adjusted to be more evenly distributed to include more players. Changes to the Cup system were also made. Cup events on the Hearthstone Championship Tour are the most numerous and offer the greatest number of chances for the greatest number of players to join the HCT tournament system. Points can only be earned from one Cup event per month and a player's best Cup result for the month will be the only result used to grant Hearthstone Competitive points. HC points from Ranked Play began with the November 2016 Standard Ranked Play season.
 * The total HCT prize pool will be over $2 million USD. The World Championship will continue to have a $1 million USD prize pool, each Season Championship will have a prize pool of a quarter million USD, and each Season Playoff will have at least $20,000 USD in prizing.
 * Asia-Pacific Playoffs now have the same structure as the Europe and Americas Playoffs and include a Tavern Hero Tournament.

Based on feedback from last year's tournaments, the following changes were implemented for the 2016 Hearthstone World Championship Tour:
 * 2016
 * More local champions. Four tournaments (three Season Championships and one Last Call Invitational per region) across the year will help determine the Hearthstone World Championship invitees.
 * No instant byes in Hearthstone Majors. Invited players may have their spots reserved, but they will start in the same round as all open players to ensure a more even playing field.
 * More money! We’ve increased the prize pool of the Hearthstone World Championship to a cool $1 million, with a $100,000 prize pool for the each of the nine Season Championships in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
 * More onsite events. With multiple Fireside Gatherings serving as the setting for the Season Preliminaries that lead into the Season Championships, there are more opportunities for you to attend a local event to either compete or cheer on your favorite players.
 * Points matter more than ever. With the points decaying after each Championship Season, and the Last Call Invitational qualification relying on total accumulated points, collecting points will give you more opportunities to join the competition at any time.
 * Point distribution has been rebalanced. The top placing players in a given event will receive fewer points, and the lower placing players will receive more points. For Ranked Play, this also includes providing points to every player that achieves the Legend Rank in an eligible season.
 * More flexible match and tournament formats. We will take the opportunity with this year’s new structure to iterate and improve on the match format from each Championship Season to the next, and encourage other event organizers to be creative with their match and tournament formats as long as they encourage fair competition.

After the first Hearthstone World Championship in 2014, some changes were made for 2015:
 * 2015
 * Eligibility for Regional Qualifiers is now through a new qualification points system.
 * Australia and New Zealand will now be included in the new Asia-Pacific region, rather than the Americas region. This does not affect live play, in which players from Australia and New Zealand are still by default assigned to the Americas region.
 * Additional sub-regions now have a set number of players to qualify for their Regional Championships: The Americas region is split between US/Canada (6) and Latin America (2); and the new Asia-Pacific region is split between Korea (2), Taiwan (2), Japan (1), Southeast Asia (1), and Australia/New Zealand (2).
 * Participation in a Regional Championship, Regional Qualifier, or Fireside Gathering is now dependent on proof of residency or citizenship within the given eligible region.

Viewer numbers
While the 2014 Regional Qualifiers saw a maximum of around concurrent 90,000 viewers, the Round of 16 games at Burbank Studio hit a new high point for World Championship (and possibly any Hearthstone tournament) so far, with more than 132,000 concurrent viewers watching the games on November 4th, 2014.

The Championship's final series peaked at more than 135,000 viewers. However, given that it took place at precisely the same time as similar tournaments for both  and World of Warcraft, it is possible the figure could have been far higher.

With the ongoing growth of the game and its playerbase, viewer numbers for the 2015 Championship were expected to exceed those of the previous year.