First weekly Hearthstone league to launch with $25K in prizes

The year has just barely begun, but Hearthstone has already seen some big tournament news. There’s the new and improved Heroes of Cards tournament, the game’s inclusion at IEM World Championship in Katowice, and even the CN vs. EU Masters tournament that boasts a Ferrari as the grand prize. But one thing Hearthstone hasn’t had is a consistent league featuring the biggest names in the game.

Until now. 

Kinguin, an online retailer responsible for several Hearthstone charity events in the past year, is planning a major league featuring 20 of the game’s best players. The prize pool? $25,000.

This is an invite-only league, and as such probably won’t be a part of Blizzard’s Hearthstone World Championships structure. But even without that, the Kinguin league will be one of the biggest tournaments out there, and promises interesting matches and stability that Hearthstone fans have been craving, especially with the type of  talent at hand. Here’s the invited player list:

• Jason “Amaz” Chan (Archon)
• James “Firebat” Kostesich (Archon)
• Sebastian “Xixo” Bentert (Archon)
• Cong “StrifeCro” Shu (Cloud9)
• Aleksandr “Kolento” Malsh (Cloud9)
• Thijs Molendijk (Nihilum)
• Dima “RDU” Radu (Nihilum)
• Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy (Nihilum)
• Jeffrey “Trump” Shih (TSM)
• Harry”MaSsan” Cheong (TSM)
• Andrey “Reynad” Yanyuk (TempoStorm)
• George “Hyped” Maganzini (TempoStorm)
• Petar “Gaara” Stevanovic (TempoStorm)
• Jeffrey “SjoW” Brusi (CompLexity) 
• David “Dog” Caero (CompLexity)
• Janne “Savjz” Mikkonen (LiquidHearth)
• Eugene “Neirea” Shumilin (LiquidHearth)
• Bertil “Frezzar” Fall (Fnatic)
• Jökull “Kaldi” Jóhannsson (Fnatic)
• Brian Kibler

Kinguin will also produce a “State of the League”-style talk show where commentators and players will talk about their matches and decks. 

The league will be divided into two separate divisions that will play against each other for 10 weeks, starting on March 3 with five matches played on Tuesday and five more on Thursday. Then, the top three players in each division will advance to a playoff where they get a shot at that $25,000. 

Image via Kinguin