In 2021, Hearthstone esports has had quite a lot of incredible moments in both Grandmasters and Masters tournaments. However, we all know that the best time of the year is when the World Championship is upon us, which happens to be this month! On December 18-19, eight best Hearthstone players that have managed to climb their way to qualify for the World Championship are going to fight for the title.
© Blizzard Entertainment
There are two main options to watch the Hearthstone World Championship 2021 through Blizzard streams. One of them would be through Youtube, while the other one is through Twitch. Of course, there might be other methods to watch the tournament via betting websites provided by streamers.
Hearthstone was officially released in 2014, which is also the year when the first World Championship was announced, and since then it has been an annual event. The winners of the World Championship are not only crowned the best player of the year, but they also receive a hefty monetary prize. Here is the list of previous winners and their prize pools:
The best part about the World Champion is that it brings the best players from different regions, to compete for the title of the best Hearthstone player, accompanied by the glorious trophy that many of us would probably want to have in our rooms on display.
No matter which region these players are coming from, the road to qualify for this event certainly required a lot of blood, sweat, and tears from all players, and every single one of them deserves to be here and prove themselves even further.
From the Americas region, we have Facundo “Nalguidan” Nahuel Pruzzo, the winner of the Grandmasters 2021 Season 1, and Kyle “McBanterFace“ Spigelman who won Grandmasters 2021 Season 2. Both of these players displayed tremendous skill during their journey in their region.
© Blizzard Entertainment
Asia-Pacific is a region where you could have found some of the best games, and it brings us Wataru “Posesi” Ishibashi, the winner of Grandmasters 2021 Season 1, as well as returning World Champion Kenta “glory” Sato who qualified by winning Grandmasters 2021 Season 2.
In Europe, there have been quite a lot of familiar players that tried to qualify during both Grandmaster seasons. However, in the end, only David “Frenetic” Neila Quiñones, the winner of Grandmasters 2021 Season 1, and Gabriel “Gaby” Jeanne, the winner of Grandmasters 2021 Season 2 managed to deliver a coup de grace on their opponents in the finals and qualify for the World Championship 2021.
The last two qualified players are Huang “KZGXiaobai” Dehui and Zhu “Tianming” Xinyuwho fought their way to victory in the Gold Series in China. Like the previously qualified players, each player was respectfully the winner of each season that was held earlier throughout the year.
The bracket is quite interesting as it is a dual-tournament format. This means that there are two different groups, and from each group, only two people can advance to the Top 4 part of the tournament. Of course, since it’s a double-elimination bracket, even if your favorite loses a match, they can still get another shot to enter the Top 4.
Group A starts off with:
Group B starts off with:
There have been quite a lot of interesting formats in Hearthstone’s history, but for the World Championship 2021, the format is going to be Standard + Conquest.
Conquest is a format where each player brings four decks, and each deck must be from a different class. Then, when players play, they each ban out a certain class from their opponent.
© Blizzard Entertainment
Each round then begins with a player picking out a deck, and the one whose deck wins cannot be used anymore, while the loser can use the same deck again in the following rounds until they win.
The winner in the Conquest format is the one who wins with all three remaining decks in the best-of-5 series.
With the release of the new expansion, Fractured In Alterac Valley, the meta on the ladder has spiced up quite a lot, and there are some very strong decks on the horizon which we will definitely be looking forward to during the World Championship 2021.
One of the most dominant classes throughout the year has been the Warlock, especially with the release of the quest card. With FIAV, the class gained so many new tools that allow them to control the board and eventually win with either their quest, swarming the board, or something that we all want to see, even if we hate playing against it on the ladder, the OWL-Turn-Kill.
It should come as no surprise that Paladin is one of the strongest classes in Hearthstone at the moment with the release of a new hero card, Lightforged Cariel. However, that is surprisingly not the part that makes the Hearthstone deck as powerful as it is.
The key card in this deck is actually Irondeep Trogg, the rare neutral card that summons a copy of itself when an enemy casts a spell. With the new options that give units buffs while they are in hand, troggs can get very huge, and unless they are instantly killed or frozen, there is no stopping them.
The class that always had some interesting gimmicks and mechanics is none other than Rogue. While the most popular version of Rogue is more or less the same as it was in the last expansion, with the addition of the hero card Shadowcrafter Scabbs, pulling off the incredible one-turn kill combo with Garrote is easier than before.
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