If you’re looking for some instant-rivalries and top-tier Hearthstone competition, we’ve got good news for you. The World Showdown of Esports -- curators of many large-scale multi-genre competitive gaming events -- recently announced that WSOE5 would feature Hearthstone star Jia defend her championship against some of the best Blizzard card-slingers out there.
Rivals in the Tavern
With invites going out to previous Hearthstone contenders from WSOE2, the tournament coordinators look to fuel rivalries on the tabletop early on in their history of competitive events.
The WSOE5 Hearthstone event card has some pretty special additions to the schedule as well. These include a unique preliminary card on championship Sunday that will see the tournaments contenders battle against invited special guests in a one versus one matchup. Each of these best-of-five head-to-heads will have a $2,500 prize riding on it.
After Saturday's double-elimination bracket, and the stand-alone battle preliminaries on Sunday, the top contender from the weekend’s play will have a chance to take on the defending WSOE Hearthstone champion in Jia. Who, just three months ago, won the WSOE2: Hearthstone Showdown.
Announcing #WSOE 5: Hearthstone - The Return of Jia!
— WSOE (@WSOE) March 22, 2019
Watch @jiadee_ attempt to defend her Champion title from returning challengers and see the debut of our fight card match-ups! ??
Click for info: https://t.co/Of73dsuRv1
Watch LIVE March 30 & 31: https://t.co/v9f2znzoO9 pic.twitter.com/GkANMZ4cIP
The Flex of Decks
In WSOE5: Hearthstone - The Return of Jia, many of the same faces from December’s showdown will get a chance at redemption, and a shot at the champion Jia. They will also go up against an interesting twist on the deck building and submission side. Here’s a breakdown of the WSOE5: Hearthstone formatting from the announcement.
“Hearthstone’s Standard card pool will be changing drastically soon after WSOE 5 with the launch of the Year of the Dragon, so we have modified our rules a bit to give a unique challenge to our competitors. All decklist submissions must not include this year’s Hall of Fame entries:
Naturalize
Doomguard
Divine Favor
Baku the Mooneater
Genn Greymane
Gloom Stag
Black Cat
Glitter Moth
Murkspark Eel
This change will motivate our players to flex their deck-building skills a bit more than usual and give viewers something a little different to watch in anticipation of the coming Standard changes.“
As WSOE5 approaches, and players consider what to build-out for the super hyped-up competition in just 6 days time, defending champion Jia is getting excited for the unique formatting of the event.
We really do get the coolest formats!
— Jia (@jiadee_) March 24, 2019
- 7 decks
- blind ban/pick phases like WSOE 2
- Bo5 LHS
- Future HOF cards (Baku, Genn et al.) banned https://t.co/o545J64sl6
With a total prize pool of $38,000, which includes “bounties” awarded to players with the most consecutive victories, most reverse sweeps engineered, and the most game 1 wins, there will be a lot of money on the line next weekend.
The WSOE5: Hearthstone - Return of Jia event will be streamed live on Twitch, and kicks off at 9:30 AM PST on both Saturday, March 30 and Sunday, Match 31.
