How and when to watch this weekend's HCT 2018 Winter Playoffs
Our Hearthstone HCT 2018 Winter Playoffs Europe guide contains a schedule of matches, stream and format details, and a prize breakdown.
The European leg of the Hearthstone Championship Tour Winter Playoffs gets under way this weekend, with some of the region’s best players coming together to compete for their share of the prize money on offer.
Not only that, but those finishing in the Top 4 will also receive accommodation and travel so that they can participate in the Winter Season Championship.
In this article we’ve pulled together all of the information you need to follow the Winter Playoffs this weekend, from details of the format in play, to where it’s being streamed, and when you should tune in.
Schedule
Matches will be played on Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th January.
The first round of matches for each day’s play will commence at 9:45am CET, which is 8:45am GMT and 2:45am PST. Suffice to say it’ll be a late night – or a very early morning – for anyone wanting to follow the action from the United States!
Stream
If you want to follow the action there’ll be a curated stream on the official Hearthstone Twitch channel.
We’ve embedded it here so you can dive straight in if you’ve just found this page:
Format
The HCT Winter Playoffs will use 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 you’ve won with a deck though, you 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
It’s not yet clear how much prize money – if any – the top four players from this weekend’s competition will receive.
We do know, however, that as part of their prize they’ll be given flights and accommodation to attend the next stage of the Seasonal Championship.
Here’s the other confirmed prize information we have:
| 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 |
