Blizzard Entertainment has announced a major change to Hearthstone competitive play with the brand new Specialist Format. It might be a good idea to familiarize yourself with the new rule set as well, because, after the 2019 Hearthstone World Championship, Specialist will officially replace Conquest as the sole competitive format.
The new Specialist Format will require players to build three 30 card decks. All of which must be of the same class. Players will submit a primary deck, a secondary deck, and a tertiary deck. Both the secondary and tertiary deck may have up to five different cards from those included in the primary one, but the other 25 card slots must remain the same.
Competitve rounds will consist of three matches. During the first match, both players are required to use their primary deck. However, after the first game, competitors are able to choose which of their three decks to continue the round with. It does not have to be announced that the player is switching decks and players don’t have to switch decks if they do not choose to.
It is a fairly straightforward set of rules, but overall it should be a much-welcomed addition to competitive play. This new format allows players to counter the Hearthstone metagame and help keep themselves from completely getting wrecked by any of their weaknesses. That’s something that can be quite frustrating in any competitive card game.
The format change should prove to make Hearthstone competitive play even more accessible. Which seems to be the goal given that Blizzard has introduced it’s new Hearthstone Masters Program recently as well.
Hearthstone Masters aims to give more players the chance to earn a spot in the competitive scene according to Blizzard. The goal is to hold weekly qualifying tournaments arranged through Battlefly. Players can compete from the comfort of their homes and even schedule a match time that works with their daily schedule.
Those qualified at the top will earn themselves a spot on the Hearthstone Masters Tour where they can compete to become a Hearthstone Grandmaster and win large cash prizes. A relevant detail is that players are not restricted by travel limitations. Anyone could become a Hearthstone Pro just by playing the game from home.
This should make Hearthstone a much more competitive eSport. It will be exciting to see who will climb the ladder themselves a spot in pro level play. But for now, we will have to wait patiently until April 25th for all the new competitive changes to go live. Until then you can freshen up on the new rules over on Blizzard’s website.
You can play Hearthstone for free now on PC, IOS, and Android.
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