Hearthstone Collegiate National Championship



The Hearthstone Collegiate National Championship is the official title for the annual Blizzard-sanctioned collegiate Hearthstone tournament series hosted by TeSPA.

The Hearthstone Collegiate National Championship is a collegiate team event tournament where three-player college teams from across the United States and Canada work together to compete in Hearthstone and win scholarship money. The top team from each of four national regions (West, South, North, and East) move on to compete for ultimate victory at a live finals event.

Thanks to a partnership with Twitch and Blizzard, select matches are livestreamed on the official Hearthstone Twitch stream.

Fall

 * Official Tespa tournament page

Spring

 * Official Tespa tournament page
 * Official Reddit post

Varsity

 * Official Tespa tournament page
 * Official blog post

Fall

 * Official Tespa tournament page
 * Official blog post

Spring

 * Official Tespa tournament page

Varsity

 * Official Tespa tournament page

2017 Hearthstone Collegiate National Championship
The 2017 Hearthstone Collegiate National Championship is the fourth Hearthstone Collegiate National Championship hosted by TeSPA. The tournament will reward over $160,000 in scholarship prizing and offers opportunities to support local Fireside Gatherings at colleges around North America.


 * Tournament Brackets - TeSPA Compete Tournament Portal
 * Top 8 Brackets & Decklists - Hearthpwn
 * 2017 Hearthstone Collegiate National Championship - Battle.net
 * 2017 Hearthstone Collegiate National Championship - Official tournament rules

College students were eligible for the tournament according to the following rules:
 * College students were from the United States or Canada.
 * Community college students were eligible.
 * Students had to be enrolled part-time or full-time, as of January 24, 2017.
 * Players had to be considered legal residents of the United States or Canada.
 * Players had to be of age of majority in their country of residence, or, if under the age of majority but over 13 (a minor), must have parental consent to participate.
 * Players must have registered an account at Compete (TeSPA's tournament portal website) and have a full Blizzard account.
 * Eligible teams consist of 3 players.
 * There is no limitation on the number of teams per school.
 * All players must attend the same school.
 * Players must verify their school enrollment during registration by attaching a valid school email to their profile.

Key dates:


 * Registration: Dec 16 - Jan 24, 2017
 * Tournament: Jan 25 - Apr 30, 2017

For the tournament, colleges could field as many teams of 3 as they wanted to participate in the tournament. Teams competed in one match per week during the regular season. The tournament game format used the newly-released Standard rotation format with Journey to Un'Goro in play.

For the Top 8 live finals, the tournament match format is to be a “3v3 Class Match”, in which each player of the team plays one best-of-three series, for a total of nine games between all nine classes. Teams will alternate assigning each of their nine Standard decks to a player.

The following Top 8 teams will compete in the live finals:
 * Shawnee State University
 * Colorado State University
 * École Polytechnique de Montréal
 * Rutgers University
 * The University of Texas at San Antonio
 * University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
 * University of California – Riverside
 * University of California – Berkeley

The live finals will take place April 22–23 at the Esports Arena in Santa Ana, CA. The broadcast is expected to kick off at 9:45 a.m. PDT.

The breakdown of prizes amounts to a total of $160,800 and is listed as follows:


 * 1st - $10,000 USD in scholarships per player / $30,000 team
 * 2nd - $6,000 USD in scholarships per player / $18,000 team
 * 3rd – 4th: $3,000 USD in scholarships per player / $9,000 team
 * 5th- 8th: $1,600 USD in scholarships per player / $4,800 team
 * 9th – 16th: $750 USD in scholarships per player / $2,250 team
 * 17th – 64th: $400 USD in scholarships per player / $1,200 team

The following is a list of additional prizes and promotions associated with the 2017 Hearthstone Collegiate National Championship.
 * Regular Hearthstone players were offered a "Choose Your Champion" for the Collegiate National Finals. Up to three Mean Streets of Gadgetzan packs were awarded for choosing a team to root for — one for voting, and one for each round that a player's chosen team advanced (i.e. quarterfinals to semifinals, and semifinals to finals). Voting ends on April 20, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. PDT.
 * Each ticket to the live finals at the Esports Arena in Santa Ana includes the reward of a Dalaran Flame card back and a $10 coupon usable at the on-site Blizzard Gear store.
 * Duel-a-Developer – People attending the live finals can go head-to-head with a Hearthstone developer in Hearthstone. The development team will host a Duel-a-Developer station from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PDT each day.
 * Gear Store – Fans looking for the latest Hearthstone and TeSPA merchandise can browse the on-site Blizzard Gear store, featuring exclusive event shirts.
 * Everyone that plays in all of the first four rounds of the Top 8 tournament finals will have the Tespa Dalaran Flame card back automatically added to their collection. Players must be part of a complete team of three players and must be ready to play on time for the first four matches to be eligible for the card back. Tardy teams will be dropped from the tournament and will not be eligible for the card back.

2016 Collegiate Hearthstone Championship
In August 2015, a new inaugural collegiate Hearthstone championship tournament was announced by Blizzard to be hosted, similar to the collegiate tournaments held in 2014. This tournament was titled the "TeSPA Collegiate Hearthstone Championship", and was termed as the third annual Collegiate Hearthstone Championship.


 * Official Tespa tournament page
 * Initial announcement blog - Battle.net

Following the success of April's Heroes of the Dorm, Blizzard and TeSPA returned to the collegiate scene with Hearthstone. The Collegiate Hearthstone Championship awarded $100,000 in scholarship prizes and featured a unique team-based tournament format. Students from colleges across North America could enter the competition in teams of three, and decks were played and decisions were made as a team rather than as individuals. This was designed to help foster school affinity, encourage teamwork, and support the growth of local competitive gaming communities. The Blizzard tournament format standard of best-of-five three-deck Conquest still applied.

Students were able to register starting on Friday, September 25 at the TeSPA Tournaments Portal website, which also contained pertinent information about team requirements, season play, playoffs, and the championship.

The tournament consisted of the following rules:
 * Teams were to consist of three players currently enrolled in the same college.
 * Each team member had to be a part-time or full-time student of a four-year college.
 * Teams of three worked together to play a single deck.
 * Teams played one deck at a time, but accounts could be switched between games.
 * One best-of-five match was to be played per week for seven weeks, followed by the playoffs.

The tournament began on September 28, 2016, with a seven-round Swiss tournament format stage running until mid-November. After another eight rounds of playoffs, the top teams from the North, South, East, and West regions advanced to a live finals. The top team from each of the four regions (North, South, East, and West) were flown out to the live finals. The competition was broadcast biweekly on Twitch, with the finals being broadcasted live on ESPN2.

Key dates:
 * Registration: Monday, August 31 - Friday, September 25
 * Season Play: Monday, September 28 - Tuesday, November 10
 * Playoffs: Saturday, November 14 - Sunday, November 22
 * Championship: January 2016

After 7 weeks of playoffs and the regional finals, the final teams that emerged victorious to represent the North, South, East, and West of the Americas in the grand finals were: Ohio State University (BrOSU), University of Texas, Arlington (Stargate), Laval University (Circle), and University of California, Santa Barbara (3Migos), respectively.

The live finals took place at Pax South 2016 using the same best-out-of-five tournament format of Conquest. The grand finals pitted the team from Ohio State University (BrOSU) against the team of University of California, Santa Barbara (3Migos). BrOSU took the Championship 3-2, ending the last battle with their Tempo Mage deck. The three decks the winners played in the final were: Secret Paladin, Midrange Druid, and Tempo Mage.

The winners from Ohio State University, with the nicknames Uncle, GEG, and tehGEG, each received $12,000 to fund their tuition. The Championship had a total prize pool of $105,000 for the first eight teams.


 * 1st Place: $12,000 USD in scholarships. (Per Player)
 * 2nd Place: $7,000 USD in scholarships. (Per Player)
 * 3rd - 4th Place: $4,000 USD in scholarships. (Per Player)
 * 5th - 8th Place: $2,000 USD in scholarships. (Per Player)


 * Video
 * Grand finals video - Ohio State (BrOSU) vs. UC Santa Barbara (3Migos) - TeSPA YouTube
 * Quarterfinals at PAX South 2016 video - Twitch.tv
 * Regional finals video playlist - TeSPA YouTube

2014 North American Collegiate Hearthstone Open 2


The 2nd North American Collegiate Hearthstone Open was open for registration for North American college students from July 29 - August 8, 2014, and was hosted from August 9-17, 2014. The tournament boasted $5,000 in scholarships, culminating in an epic grand finals showdown in Seattle at PAX Prime 2014.

All registrants battled online using the TeSPA Compete Portal in a double-elimination bracket until only 8 finalists remained. The 8 finalists were flown out to PAX Prime to face off in a single-elimination 8-player bracket on the Twitch Stage. The exhibition was casted by Realz and Trump, and awarded $5,000 in scholarship prizes and three spots in the 2014 Hearthstone World Championships BlizzCon Qualifier. Dominus from the University of Western Ontario ended up claiming victory after losing the first game as hunter and coming back to take three in a row playing his shaman deck. Nostam (State University of New York System), and Teechu (University of Waterloo) would claim 2nd and 3rd place, respectively. The top three players secured their spots at the 2014 World Championship American qualifiers.

The TeSPA tournament portal website (here) was founded with the announcement and creation of the 2016 Collegiate Hearthstone Championship.


 * Video
 * Round of 8 to Grand Finals video playlist - TeSPA YouTube

2014 Collegiate Hearthstone Open
The Collegiate Hearthstone Open was the first collegiate Hearthstone tournament run by The eSports Association (TeSPA) and was hosted in early 2014. The tournament was open to all North American college students and was entirely free to enter. The tournament brought nearly 2000 players from over 750 universities across North America to compete for $5,000 of scholarship prizes.

Prizes came in the form of $5000 USD in scholarships, card packs, and the title of "College Hearthstone Champion". The tournament was in association with Twitch and, and was featured through blogs on the official website.


 * Players competed in a 2048-person single elimination bracket.
 * Each series was a "Best of 3". Once a player loses with a deck, a new deck of a different class must be played for the following game and the losing deck cannot be used for the remainder of the Best of 3 series. The winner must continue to play a deck until it has been defeated.


 * Video
 * 2014 Collegiate Hearthstone Open Tournament video playlist - TeSPA YouTube

Finalists
The four players that advanced to the semifinals were flown to PAX East 2014. The four finalists were:


 * Johnny “RisingVirtue” On (University of California, Berkeley)
 * Spencer “Zeph” Huynh (University of Oklahoma)
 * Dylan “DarkAngel” Bryan (Rutgers University)
 * Tommy “ZRusheR” Zhang (Broward College)

The finalists were interviewed in the official Player Spotlight blog.


 * Results


 * Bracket