One of Hearthstone’s most special tournaments is about to get even more so.
According to Blizzard China in a post on its official site, the third edition of the Viagame House Cup will run May 29-31.
The event will also be moving from the three story house in Sweden that has hosted the past two events. Replacing it? An actual castle, according to the site: Bran Castle in Romania, to be specific. The 13th-century castle is often referred to as “Dracula’s Castle,” but today is open to the public as a museum featuring antique furniture and art collections. Viagame declined to confirm the venue, however, saying only that an announcement about it would be coming on Monday.
Viagame did confirm, however, they it would follow DreamHack Summer’s lead for qualification formats. The two qualifiers on May 2 to 3 and 9 to 10 will be 512 person Swiss tournaments, leading to a 16 person double elimination bracket. Three people will advance from each qualifier, with two others coming through the Chinese qualifier.
The tournament’s second edition ran four weeks ago, with open qualifier Frederik “Hoej” Nielsen taking home the $10,000 first place prize and 100 Hearthstone World Championship points.
The Viagame tournaments are highly regarded by players and fans alike, due to the unconventional nine-deck format and unique atmosphere.
The post also indicates that there will be some way of qualifying for the tournament for Chinese players through the Gold Open tournament series, the LAN stage of which takes place this weekend.
Though Viagame wouldn’t confirm the new venue and date, its head of content, Simon Sunden, tweeted two days ago that the next House Cup would be “even more crazier than the last two.”
Image via Coagulans/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 ro)
