Tournament Watch: World Cyber Arena 2014

by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

China is quickly becoming thedestination for big money tournaments. If you recall, we just recently saw Tidesoftime dominate the competition at the World E-Sport Championship (WEC), which was also hosted in China and boasted the largest prize pool for a Hearthstone tournament at that present date – $62,000 USD.

Well, hold on to your card collections because this next tournament is about to make that one look like a lap around the kiddie pool.

The World Cyber Arena is being held over the course of October 2nd to October 5th in China and has a fully functioning Hearthstone tournament as part of its esports offerings. Manning quite a bit of the promotion for this major outing, Octavian “Kripparrian” Morosan is our main caster and host, with the live stream of the event happening on his stream (http://www.twitch.tv/nl_kripp/) and according to the following schedule provided by Kripp:

The schedule is approximately as follows:

Oct 1: 21:30 – 05:30 EDT — groups

Oct 2: 21:00 – 06:00 EDT — groups, 16 to 8, 8 to 4

Oct 3: 22:00 – 06:00 EDT — 4 to 2, playoffs. Player interviews & some fun

Oct 4: 21:00 – 22:30 EDT — final

With our fearless leader at the helm, there’s already a guarantee of great analysis mixed with expertise and entertainment, but what about the players? This tournament is invitation-only and the organizers have assembled 32 standout players to come vie for the enormous prize pool of $190,000 USD. You did not read that incorrectly. That’s nearly as much money as is at stake at BlizzCon for the World Championship later this year. Winning this tournament will be life changing and here are the players that will have the opportunity to go for the glory:

• ek0p
• Lothar
• Hafu
• Alchemixt
• Kolento
• Amaz
• Forsen
• Savjz
• StrifeCro
• Hyped
• Noxious
• Monk
• Darkwoynx
• Gnimsh
• ThatsAdmirable
• Rdu
• Gaara
• Massan
• TidesofTime
• Reynad
• Chakki
• KitKatz
• Kungen
• 董小重
• Comm
• 魔法之风
• 蓝毛
• 哀绿琦思
• WE|Hunter.Ming
• WE|HuLu
• WE|YouLove
• 旅法师营地海岛
• 冰蓝飞狐
• iG.Kowfox
• 旅法师营地李博
• 小鱼人仙仙

(List of players from 2P; originally sourced from Official WCA website)

Groups were released initially, but Kripp notes they will be rebalanced and reissued due to some players having traveling issues and being unable to attend the event. Some time soon, however, we will know the final cast and begin to follow these players on their road to conquest. For further details and up-to-the-minute updates, I highly recommend saving or bookmarking this Reddit thread. Otherwise, clear some time in your schedule for the next few days for what are sure to be memorable matches.