Blizzard‘s flagship event BlizzCon finished this weekend and with it a significant number of esports events. The developer hosted tournaments for each of its games: World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Starcraft 2, Heroes of the Storm and smash hit Overwatch.
Here’s our recap of the action.
GGWP to Team South Korea—our 2016 Overwatch World Cup champions!
?? https://t.co/cKDZiOQOkc (via @Twitch) pic.twitter.com/iVFNJ1d1wd
— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) November 6, 2016
Overwatch
The South Korean’s have announced their arrival to Overwatch in a ridiculously emphatic fashion. They stormed to the title at BlizzCon without even dropping a single game. Never mind not losing a match – they failed to drop a single map. It was sheer, brutal domination.
They faced a strong looking Russian team, and although they were favourites going into it not many predicted the 4-0 slaughter that would follow. The MVP of the tournament ‘Miro’ carved apart the Russian squad with his fabulous Winston play.
They become the first World Cup winners – and with the announcement of the Overwatch League for 2017, the scene looks set to continue to blossom.
World of Warcraft
The developer’s top game has never really had much traction in esports. The game is in its staggering 12th year now, and although the game doesn’t particularly lend itself to competitive gaming with a tonne of player versus environment content, the player versus player arena competition came to BlizzCon. The winners were Splyce who triumphed over Method by four games to three in a tense Grand Final.
The winners took home $120,000 (~£97,000) of the $250,000 (~£201,000) prize pool.
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm is Blizzard’s MOBA that never quite hit the heights that many believed it might. It’s considered by many to be a “simpler” version of huge esports League of Legends and Dota 2. Nonetheless, it has had an esports arm and at BlizzCon teams competed for their share of the $1,000,000 (~£807,000) prize money.
Ballistix conquered giants Team Dignitas in the semi-finals before defeating Fnatic in the grand-final to take home $300,000 (~£242,000).
Starcraft 2
For many esports purists, Starcraft is where the scene started to grow and blossom. Although the competitive scene is somewhat waning at the minute, the tournament was still of extremely high quality and attracted the hardcore bunch of spectators that it always does.
Today a legend was born. Congrats @SC2ByuN ?#WCS2016 #BlizzCon pic.twitter.com/HUrhZQ0AjR
— StarCraft (@StarCraft) November 6, 2016
Starcraft 2 is another scene that the South Korean nation seem to excel at – and ‘ByuN’ provided the crowd with scintillating Terran performances to take the crown at BlizzCon. He defeated ‘Dark’ by four games to two in the Grand Finals to bag himself $200,000 (~£161,500).
Hearthstone
Hearthstone is Blizzard’s hit card game that has developed a relatively strong esports scene despite many believing that it was never the intention. It was another tournament with a $1,000,000 prize pool as Blizzard continued to splash the cash on esports over the weekend.
Russian player Pavel Beltiukov beat Virtus Pro’s Ukrainian superstar Artem ‘DrHippi’ Kravets in the all-CIS final to take home $200,000 (~£161,500).
Esports Insider: Blizzard gave away a considerable amount of money this weekend at their hugely successful BlizzCon event. Congratulations to South Korea who won the Overwatch World Cup in the most emphatic of fashions. No one could even get close to them – it was amazing to watch! Also an extended congratulations to all of the winners and Blizzard for their incredible event.
