by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

Hearthstone is a pretty fun game by itself, just the numbers and cool abilities, different heroes, and the ever changing metagame. Even if some might regard to it as “casual”, Hearthstone has enough meat to it to keep an avid theorycrafter busy for days. But ever since Blizzcon, I’ve become pretty interested with other side of Hearthstone, and that’s its E-Sport potential. I’ve spent plenty of hours not only watching and enjoying, but also analyzing every aspect of Hearthstone’s E-Sport aspect.

Despite the matches traditionally being 1 vs 1 contests, Teams have become an integral part of the Hearthstone eSports scene. Almost every single player in the competitive scene has joined a team, perhaps it is to have stable training partners, or maybe it is to get more sponsorships; what about wanting to get more tournament invites, or simply just to follow the trend? Despite any reasons, the fact of the matter is that nowadays Hearthstone players belong in eSports organizations.

Regardless of this fact, competitive Hearthstone is still pretty much a single player affair. I understand how having full-on team tournaments would be a bit gimmicky, and perhaps not practical at all for tournament organizers, but even in your regular singles tournament Teams can be completely disregarded.

Take for example Dreamhack Summer, Zalae and Firebat of Team Archon were forced to face each other in the first round, greatly diminishing the team’s chances to get both players on the playoffs. In PVPLive’s HPL, the same Team Archon has a significant advantage as Zalae and Purple only face each other on the last round of the Round Robin Phase; this means that if one of the two is already qualified to the playoffs in virtue of a good record, and the other desperately needs 1 more win to get in, they have the ability to make sure that both players qualify.

Those little details might seem a bit insignificant to you, but in a game such as Hearthstone every little advantage matters. With that in mind, tournament Organizers should take measures to set-up team friendly brackets.

How to Handle Teams on the Different Formats?

Round Robin:

If all teams have the same amount of players in the tournament, skip those matches where teammates face each other. If you really want to see those match-ups, then have them go at it on the first round to discourage match-fixing.

If you have teams with different amount of players in the tournament, make sure the first matches you play are the ones where teammates face each other.

Swiss:

Don’t have teammates face each other unless there’s no other possible match-ups.

Single Elimination:

Spread teammates evenly on the brackets. If there’s only two members of a team in the tournament, they should meet in the finals; if there’s 4 members of a team on the tournament, they shouldn’t meet until the semis, and so on.

Double Elimination:

Use the same starting brackets you would use for single elimination. Teammates will meet sooner if they find each other on the loser’s brackets, but is up to them to try and stay in the winner’s side of the tournament.

Group Phases:

Whenever you split the field on groups, make sure to spread teammates evenly throughout the groups. If possible, don’t have more than one player from each team on each group. Also make sure that you once the players qualify to the playoffs, you spread teammates evenly across the new brackets as well.

What About Team Tournaments?

While I expect single player tournaments to continue to be golden standard, having a team-based tournament every once in a while could be a interesting experience for both the players and the viewers at home. But what would be the rules for such a tournament? Well, we have plenty of different options.

One Team, One Client:

This would be the same as an standard tournament, except that now you have multiple people working together to come up with the best plays. This is the easier way to go and would be very similar to the usual experience. This type of format was used in the now defunct ESGN Fight Night.

One Player, One Deck:

With this option, instead of a player bringing a certain number of decks. A team brings a certain number of decks, and each deck can only be used by one member of the team. Lets say Team Hearthlytics brings JAB as a Mage, Muzzy as a Rogue, and Phonetap as a Warlock. Team Celestial brings Silentstorm as a Druid, TiddlerCelestial as a Warlock, and FrozenIce as a Warrior. Both teams then face each other in Conquest Format. While the team as a whole chooses which player they queue, once the match begins the chosen player is on his own and must play by himself. To make things more interesting, you could even have the rest of the teammates cast the match.

But having each member of the team have a single deck assigned also opens for more interesting possibilities. Since the games can now be played in parallel, instead of a best of five, you could have each member of the team face each one of their opponents. It would become best of 9, but since the matches are played at the same time, you only have 3 rounds per match. With this option, you completely eliminate the RNG of getting good or bad match-ups depending on which deck you queue.

One Player, One Lineup:

Each Team has two members, Player 1, and Player 2.  Each player has a 3-deck line up, but the team must have 6 different classes.

Each game proceeds as follows:

• Team-match format is Best of Three.
• Team A Player 1 faces Team B Player 1 in a Standard Conquest Best of Five Series.
• Team A Player 2 faces Team B Player 2 in a Standard Conquest Best of Five Series.
• If the first two player-matches tie up, there will be a loser’s match as tie-breaker.

For example:

• First match, Player A1’s Rogue/Warrior/Priest beats Player B1’s Shaman/Priest/Warlock.
• Second match, Player B2’s Mage/Paladin/Hunter beats Player A2’s Shaman/Paladin/Warlock .
• Third match, Player A2’s Shaman/Paladin/Warlock beats Player B1’s Shaman/Priest/Warlock.
• Therefore, Team A wins with score 2:1.

The Tie-Breaker is played by the losers to prevent one of the players “carrying” the team. This is a variant on the Chinese NEL 3×3 format, and was originally proposed by Curemew. This format offers a bigger deck diversity, but the Matches might be considerably longer as obviously the Tie-Breaker games will have to played after a round is already over.

Are you a fan of teams, or do you root for individual players? Let me know using the comments below. Also, be sure to tell us which team formats are your favorites!