After three months of point gathering, we got to know the 16 players who qualified for the first Hearthstone Esports seasonal event for 2023.

The first Hearthstone Esports season for 2023 ended hours ago. Despite the incredible 70% prize reduction for this year, some players are still grinding the system. Let's go over who made it to the first Masters Tour Championship and Battlegrounds Lobby Legends events.

Hearthstone Esports qualification system

The Hearthstone Esports 2023 announcement established a unified qualification system for both Standard and Battlegrounds. Players would accumulate points each season depending on their monthly ladder finish.

Hearthstone Esports Point system for 2023 - Image via Blizzard
Hearthstone Esports Point system for 2023 - Image via Blizzard

Only 16 players would make it to the Hearthstone Esports seasonal events -16 for Standard and 16 for Battlegrounds- each season. Hearthstone Esports granted invites with the following criteria:

  • Top four Points earners in each region (Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific)
  • Top four Point earners globally that had not yet received an invite.

Spring Season results

While Hearthstone Esports hasn't yet made an official announcement on who the players invited, we have reliable info on who made it. Since ladder finishes are public information, D0nkey created a tracking page for players and fans to follow. Given D0nkey's history and reputation within the Hearthstone esports community, I'd say that everyone can trust his info.

Standard

These are the players who qualified for the upcoming Hearthstone Esports Spring Masters Tour Championship:

Europe still claims the belt for being the strongest Hearthstone esports region, taking the four wildcard spots. Out of the first eleven spots in the Points world ranking, nine were taken by European players.

D0nkey's ranking for Hearthstone Esports Spring Season (Standard) - Image via D0nkey
D0nkey's ranking for Hearthstone Esports Spring Season (Standard) - Image via D0nkey

Moreover, Norwis, the first player not to qualify for Europe got as many points as APAC #1 player, Surrender. One last thing to highlight is that the current Hearthstone World Champion Bunnyhoppor was two points short of qualifying, and Thijs, the competitive legend, missed the mark by three points. You can check out the full ranking on D0nkey's page.You can check out the full ranking on D0nkey's webpage.

Battlegrounds

There is a slight difference between Standard and Battlegrounds in the Hearthstone Esports qualification system that we should point out before going into the results. In Standard, leaderboards get reset every start of the month. On Battlegrounds on the other way, ranking resets happen once every expansion.

The last Battlegrounds Ranking reset had placed on January 17th, so the first month of the season was a hard grind. Despite this difference in ranking resets, the finish taken into account for Hearthstone Esports purposes are the ones at the end of each calendar month.

Having said that, these are the 16 players that will be competing in the first Battlegrounds Lobby Legends event.

  • Americas: Waterloooooo (US), BeterBabbit (US), wtybill (US) and Lii (US)
  • Europe: XQN (Belarus), oliech (Belgium), guDDummit (Russia) and Tume (Finland)
  • APAC: ペンギンさん -Penginsan- (Japan), Matsuri (Japan), あれっくす -Arekkusu- (Japan) and 梁瀬 -Yanase- (Japan)
  • Wildcards: テスラ -Tesura- (Japan), Satellite (Japan), Alutemu (Japan) and 白うさ -shirousa- (Japan)
D0nkey's ranking for Hearthstone Esports Spring Season (Battlegrounds) - Image via D0nkey
D0nkey's ranking for Hearthstone Esports Spring Season (Battlegrounds) - Image via D0nkey

Similar to what happened in Standard, with Europe claiming all the Wildcard invitations, in Battlegrounds, Japan rules. Eight out of the 16 qualified players for the next Hearthstone esports BG event are Japanese. This is a continuation of what happened in 2022, and I would not expect it to change.

The full Battlegrounds Point Ranking is also available on D0nkey's website, where you can filter by region and season.

What's next in Hearthstone Esports?

Well, the next step would be for Hearthstone Esports to publish the official results. Some minor changes could be expected due to player eligibility and invite responses.

There have been cases in which qualified players were from ineligible regions, and their invitations were passed down to the next in line. Moreover, and despite this could sound unbelievable, some players don't accept or answer their invitation and their slot goes to the player below them.

Those who actually qualify will be competing for a $50,000 prize pool in their respective modes. Standard players who make it to the Masters Tour Spring Championship will also be fighting for a Hearthstone esports World Championship invite.

That's all for now, but stay tuned for the official results and other Hearthstone news and updates. See you next time in the Tavern.