Everything you need to know about this weekend's HCT event.
Our Hearthstone HCT 2018 Americas Playoffs guide contains a schedule for the tournament, format details and a breakdown of the prizes available.
With last weekend’s European Playoffs of the Hearthstone HCT 2018 now behind us, it’s time to look ahead to this coming weekend’s tournament.
Here, the top qualifying players from the Americas region will compete for a chance to earn one of two places at the HCT Winter Championship finals. For the rest, there’s a bundle of points and prize money to be battled over across the weekend.
To help you get prepared for the next round of the tournament, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide which contains the schedule of play, how you can watch the tournament live as it happens, and what the competitors are fighting over in terms of prizes.
Schedule
The HCT Playoff matches for the Americas region will take place on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th January 2019.
The first matches on each day will begin at 8:00am PT, and the day’s play will wrap up twelve hours later at 8:00pm PT.
If you’re watching on the east coast, those times are 11:00am ET and 11:00pm ET.
For the rest of us on the other side of the pond, note that the start times are 4:00pm in the UK and 5:00pm in mainland Europe. Expect a late night if you want to follow the final stage of play each day, in other words.
Stream
The tournament will be broadcast on the official Hearthstone Twitch channel. We’ve dropped an embed in here so you can jump straight into what’s happening:
Format
The HCT Winter Playoffs make use of the Conquest format. This means that once a player has won with their deck in any given match, they can’t use it again for the rest of the encounter.
The loser may, however, choose to continue using the deck they just lost with. Once a player has won with a deck though, they can’t use it again in the same match.
The Swiss format is in place for this weekend’s Hearthstone tournament. Players will compete in seven rounds of Swiss in order to make it through to the dual tournament top eight playoff bracket.
The top two players from each of those groups will then make it through to the Seasonal Championship.
All matches are played as best-of-five, with each player having the option to pick one ban during a match. Note that only cards that are currently in the Standard rotation can be played.
Prizes
The top two player will receive flights and accommodation to participate in the finals of the HCT Winter Championship.
Here’s the other confirmed prize information we have for the rest of the competitors:
| Position | Points | Prize Money |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | – |
| 2 | 0 | – |
| 3 | 0 | – |
| 4 | 0 | – |
| 5 | 11 | $6,000 |
| 6 | 10 | $5,500 |
| 7 | 9 | $5,000 |
| 8 | 8 | £4,500 |
| 9 | 7 | $4,250 |
| 10 | 7 | $4,000 |
| 11 | 7 | $3,750 |
| 12 | 7 | $3,500 |
| 13 | 7 | $3,250 |
| 14 | 7 | $3,000 |
| 15 | 7 | $2,750 |
| 16 | 7 | $2,500 |
| 17-24 | 6 | $1,500 |
| 25-32 | 6 | $1,250 |
| 33-72 | – | $1,000 |
