Know the 16 players who qualified for the upcoming Masters Tour and Battlegrounds Lobby Legends Hearthstone Esports events.
After three months of point gathering, the second qualification season for Hearthstone Esports it's over. The grind has been hard for both Standard and BG players, and now it's time to see the results. Let's go over who made it to the second Hearthstone Esports Masters Tour Championship and Battlegrounds Lobby Legends events of the year.
Hearthstone Esports qualification system
The Hearthstone Esports 2023 announcement established a unified qualification system for both Standard and Battlegrounds. In this new system, players would accumulate points each season depending on their monthly ladder finish.
Under this system, only 16 players would make it to the Hearthstone Esports seasonal events -16 for Standard and 16 for Battlegrounds- each season. With three seasons throughout the year, lasting three months each, and few spots on the line, many players felt disincentivized from competing. However, there are still some that are still putting up a fight.
Hearthstone Esports grants 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.
Summer Season results
The second qualification season for the year is over now, and 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.
These are the players who qualified for the upcoming Hearthstone Esports Summer Masters Tour Championship:
- Americas: uikyou* (Canada), DreadEye (US), GamerRvg* (US) and McBanterFace* (US)
- Europe: PocketTrain* (UK), reqvam* (Croatia), Meati* (UK) and RENMEN (Russia)
- APAC: gyu* (Korea), Tansoku* (Japan), hemlock* (Korea) and NAGON (Japan)
- Wildcards: Gaby (France), Casie* (Germany), Roulian (France) and iNS4NE (Ukraine)
*Participated in the Masters Tour Spring Seasonal Championship
Europe still claims the belt for being the strongest Hearthstone esports region, taking the four wildcard spots. Another interesting fact is that there are several players that are returnees and have been present in the Hearthstone Esports Spring Championship.
The fact that 10 out of the 16 players competed in the past seasonal championship tells us that they are actually fierce competitors, and that, at the same time, the Hearthstone esports scene has shrunk dramatically. Talking about fierce competitors, Thijs, the competitive legend, missed the mark by just one point.
You can check out the full ranking on D0nkey's webpage.
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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.
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), dog (US), wtybill (US) and Lii (US)
- Europe: Zorg (Germany), Sevel (Poland), XQN (Belarus), and Maks7K (Russia)
- APAC: Alutemu (Japan), あれっくす -Arekkusu- (Japan), 梁瀬 -Yanase- (Japan) and 白うさ -shirousa- (Japan)
- Wildcards: Tume (Finland), jeef (US), awedragon (Canada) and Cytro (Belgium)
*Participated in the Lobby Legends Spring Seasonal Championship
This time, Americas and European players broke the Japanese supremacy. No Japanese players qualified via the Wildcard spots. This is impressive since Japan used to hold that title, with a 50% representation (8/16) in the past Lobby Legends edition.
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?
While the Summer qualification season is over, the main events are still ahead of us. Hearthstone Esports published the dates for the Lobby Legends and Masters Tour Summer Championships two weeks ago.
- Lobby Legends Summer Championship: July 22-23
- Masters Tour Summer Championship: August 19-20
Then, 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 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.