It’s that time of the year again, where the lesser-known format of Hearthstone gets its chance to shine. The Wild Open makes its yearly return! Hearthstone players will be able to compete for their share of $30,000. While the prize pool for 2019 has gone up by $5,000, the competitors who qualify for the tournament won’t be flown out to play the top 8 in California this year.
How to qualify
If you are a resident of America, Europe, or Asia-Pacific, you can play to the top of the regular wild ladder system, where the top 100 legend players will qualify to one of three qualifier tournaments. The top two players of each tournament will qualify for the top 8 of the 2019 Hearthstone Wild Open. However, for residents of China, the highest two players on the wild legend ladder will directly qualify to the top 8 of the Hearthstone Wild Open instead.
The qualifier tournaments will be held on Feb. 16, 2019. Please keep in mind you can only qualify on the region you are a legal resident of, meaning that qualifying on more than one server – or a region you aren’t a legal resident in – will get you disqualified and banned from future Hearthstone tournaments for an undetermined amount of time.
Top 8 format
The top 8 of the Wild Open will be played out on Feb. 23, 2019. The format played will be a best-of-five single-elimination structure, using the rules of Conquest. With the Conquest format, each player brings four decks and gets to ban one deck of their opponent ahead of the match. In the top 8, the decklists will be public. This will most likely be the last Hearthstone tournament endorsed by Blizzard to use the Conquest format, as a new format is rumored for the 2019 competitive season.
Prize structure
The winner of the Hearthstone Wild Open 2019 will be taking home the grand prize of $11,000.
Second place gets $7,000, third and fourth receive $3,000 each, and the fifth to eighth-placed players will receive $1,500. That makes for a total prize pool of $30,000.
For more coverage around Hearthstone, check out where the 2018 World Championship will be held later this year.
