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Hearthstone in esports

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Blizzard Entertainment 's online collectible card game Hearthstone became played professionally quickly after its release in March 2014. The game is played as an esport , with high-level tournaments such as Blizzard's official World Championship featuring prize pool of up to $ 1 million , and livestreamers can earn money streaming gameplay on Twitch .

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67-466: The first Hearthstone tournament was held at BlizzCon on November 11, 2013, only a few months after the release of the game's closed beta and several months before the official release of the game in March 2014. Blizzard selected eight prominent Hearthstone players to compete at what they titled the "Hearthstone Innkeeper's Invitational". The tournament was won by Artosis , who was subsequently crowned

134-424: A random number generator (a property referred to as "RNG"). Some cards may have excessively random effects and may be able to completely sway a game through RNG. Various fans are worried about the future of the game's competitive scene due to unbalanced cards being introduced in new expansions. In an interview with Polygon , Hearthstone associate designer Dean Ayala stated that newly introduced cards can add to

201-478: A PPV event ($ 39.95 for both days) for eight hours per day in both standard and high definition. All BlizzCon 2009 Pay Per View event purchasers received an exclusive "Grunty the Murloc Marine" World of Warcraft in-game pet. and had access to the online stream for no additional cost. New in 2009, BlizzCon was broadcast live via an internet stream, calling it a "Virtual Ticket". The site covered both days of

268-462: A Virtual Ticket for live online streaming of all of the events held at BlizzCon. The convention's online broadcast was watched by over 10 million people. Hearthstone' s third adventure, League of Explorers , was announced on November 6, 2015, which was later released on November 12. Overwatch was announced to have a Q2 2016 release date, later confirmed for May 24. The expansion World of Warcraft: Legion released its cinematic trailer and announced

335-424: A deck to "shield", which means the other player cannot ban it. Then each player will ban one deck from the opponent. If a player wins with a deck, then the next match another deck must be played. If a player loses, then they can replay the deck. In October 2019, Blizzard announced it would ban a player for one year from competing and forfeited all of his winnings earned during Season 2 because he spoke in support of

402-538: A new class-based multi-player shooter , was announced on November 7, 2014. The third part of Starcraft II , Legacy of the Void was announced. The first expansion pack for Hearthstone , Goblins vs. Gnomes , was also announced on the same day. The first Hearthstone World Championship was hosted at the event. The 2014 StarCraft II World Championship Series Global Finals was won by Lee "Life" Seung Hyun beating Mun "MMA" Seong Won. The World of Warcraft championship

469-518: A new expansion for World of Warcraft . Diablo III , StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm , and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria were playable. DirecTV once again offered both days of BlizzCon 2011 as a PPV event. The GOMTV Global Starcraft II League October final match took place in Anaheim alongside BlizzCon. Moon "MMA" Sung Won beat Jeong "Mvp" Jong Hyeon, 4–1. The closing concert featured

536-492: A performance from Blizzard's own in-house band, The Artist Formerly Known as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftains (TAFKL80ETC), who changed their name mid-concert to Level 90 Elite Tauren Chieftains (L90ETC). The Foo Fighters performed for the closing concert. Blizzcon 2013 was announced to be held on November 8 and 9 in Anaheim. The tickets were sold in two batches, on April 24 and 27, 2013, and both batches quickly sold out. Blizzard also sold special tickets that include access to

603-538: A pre-Blizzcon Benefit Dinner. Blizzard once again sold a Virtual Ticket for live online streaming of all of the events in BlizzCon 2013. The Heroes of the Storm "Cinematic Trailer" was presented with an alpha version of the game available for playing. Hearthstone was announced to begin beta testing and that the game would be released on iOS and Android. The fifth expansion to World of Warcraft , Warlords of Draenor ,

670-494: A release date on or before September 21, 2016 and was playable. The Warcraft (film) released its first official trailer and revealed its release date of June 10, 2016. StarCraft II was announced to have upcoming single player mission packs, Nova Covert Ops , which each consist of three missions. The 2015 Heroes of the Storm World Championship and the second Hearthstone World Championship were hosted at

737-499: A similar event outside the U.S. from 2004 to 2008, the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational . General admission tickets are considered to be the baseline experience for BlizzCon. It grants access to all of the panels on both days, ability to playtest new games, patches, expansions, etc. and ability to view as well as order exclusive Blizzard merchandise online before the convention. Since its inception in 2005,

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804-493: A sneak peek at the BlizzCon 2016 in-game item rewards and offered for the first time the "goody bag", normally only for physical attendees, was offered for sale to virtual ticket holders. The gaming announcements included the fourth expansion for Hearthstone , Mean Streets of Gadgetzan , expected to be released in December 2016. Overwatch had two big announcements: it confirmed the hero Sombra after teasing her via an ARG and

871-808: A total of 52 tournaments and series awarded US$ 1,000 or more to individual players. Over the year, over US$ 1,000,000 worth of prize money was awarded during 2014, large tournaments being the World Championships and the World Cyber Arena. James "Firebat" Kostesich was the most successful tournament player, winning a total of US$ 105,650. Fifteen players made above the United States federal minimum wage through tournaments alone in 2014, and many players make more through livestreaming their Hearthstone games. Hearthstone 's inaugural World Championship concluded at BlizzCon 2014 and featured

938-512: A total prize pool of US$ 250,000 and the Last Hero Standing format. James "Firebat" Kostesich defeated Wang "Tiddler Celestial" Xieyu in the finals, becoming the first World Champion and earning US$ 100,000. In March 2015, Red Bull ' s Jon Partridge stated that Hearthstone was "emerging as one of the world's top esports." Technology company Nvidia held a professional Hearthstone tournament series that spanned eight weeks, from

1005-729: Is a computer hardware manufacturer founded and based in Hong Kong . The company specializes in producing video cards (GPUs), mini PCs , solid-state drives , motherboards , gaming computers and other computer accessories. All its products are manufactured in the PC Partner factories in Dongguan City , China . Aside from its international headquarters in Hong Kong, it also has four offices overseas in Japan, South Korea,

1072-526: Is considered cheating, and Blizzard gives out permanent bans for people who indulge in the practice. In 2014, professional coaching services became popular, where high-level players discuss strategies with their clients and give tips for improvement. Nathan 'ThatsAdmirable' Zamora stated that the work is his main source of income, and that the service is useful for players that have plateaued and are unsure on how to change their play style. In August 2014, competitive Hearthstone player Ryan "Realz" Masterson

1139-458: Is their main source of income. In 2014, Kinguin project coordinator Giovanni Varriale stated that Hearthstone was one of the most popular games on Twitch , with "thousands of people spend[ing] hours watching the best players in action." Hearthstone is a digital and online card game, comparable to traditional collectible card games such as Magic: The Gathering . The game features a large amount of inherent randomness as calculated through

1206-460: The 2019–20 Hong Kong protests during a tournament interview, which violated the rule against promoting a political stance during a broadcast. A few days later, Blizzard revised its decision so it gave back the prize money and reduced the suspension to six months. The sixth Hearthstone World Championship winner was Chinese Xiaomeng " VKLiooon " Li, who lives in China that received $ 200,000; VKLiooon

1273-490: The Hearthstone season structure, where the game's esports calendar would be split into Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring seasons, each running for three months. Players have to earn enough HCT points in order to qualify for major tournaments at the end of each season which are held in three of the game's regions. Companies like Kyoto esports , StriveWire , and Zotac host tournaments that give players points to qualify for

1340-804: The World of Warcraft arena championship, the Hearthstone third world championship, the Heroes of the Storm fall championship, and the Overwatch World Cup . Kristian Nairn , who played Hodor on the HBO series Game of Thrones , was the DJ during Blizzard's 25th anniversary party. The closing ceremony concert was performed by "Weird Al" Yankovic . On March 14, Blizzard Entertainment announced that BlizzCon 2017 would be held on November 3 and 4, with tickets being available to purchase on April 5 and 8 using

1407-533: The "Grandmaster of the Hearth". After the official release of the in early 2014, more Hearthstone tournaments followed, including events at EGX Rezzed and DreamHack Bucharest. BlizzCon 2014 featured a Hearthstone tournament with a $ 250,000 USD prize pool, the largest up to that point, and players from the Americas, Europe, and Asia qualified for the event through winning regional tournaments. In June 2014,

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1474-668: The 2017 StarCraft II World Championship Series Global Finals won by Lee "Rogue" Byung Ryul, the World of Warcraft arena championship won by ABC, the Hearthstone Inn-vitational won by the Grimestreet Grifters, the Heroes of the Storm HGC Finals won by MVP Black, the Overwatch World Cup won by South Korea for the second time, and StarCraft: Remastered Ultimate Title Fight won by Bisu. Zotac ZOTAC Technology Limited

1541-652: The Anaheim Convention Center. The gaming announcements included that the next expansion to World of Warcraft would be Battle for Azeroth , there would be official World of Warcraft Classic servers, a new hero for Overwatch named Moira was added as well as a new map called "Blizzard World", StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty ' s first campaign, multiplayer and other modes of the game are now free, and Hearthstone ' s next expansion Kobolds and Catacombs and it would be released in December 2017. The esports events at BlizzCon 2017 included

1608-734: The Blizzard games, and a performance including the Wrath of the Lich King music. In an attempt to reduce frustrations linked to lack of ticket availability for previous BlizzCons, there were four halls (increased from three) of space available. Blizzard implemented a new system designed to make buying tickets easier. The new system implemented an online queue, effectively creating an organized online "line" for anyone who wants to purchase tickets, an improvement on 2008's chaotic sale of tickets. As in 2008, DirecTV carried both days of BlizzCon 2009 as

1675-567: The Conquest format and a prize pool of US$ 1,000,000, four times as much as in 2015. It was played in a Swiss tournament format and one class could be banned from use by one's opponent. The winner was Russian Pavel "Pavel" Beltiukov , who defeated Artem "DrHippi" Karevets to earn the top prize of US$ 250,000. The 2017 Hearthstone World Championship is the fourth year of the Hearthstone World Championship. Breaking from

1742-507: The Lich King , was officially announced and it was available to play. Comedian Jay Mohr entertained at the closing ceremony followed by Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain (who changed their name to reflect the new level cap in The Burning Crusade ) alongside Video Games Live performing at the closing concert. In the opening ceremonies, Blizzard president Michael Morhaime revealed the third playable class for Diablo III :

1809-703: The Portal Pass was added as an additional ticket option; effectively replacing the Benefit Dinner option with BlizzCon 2023. It is considered an upgrade over the General Admission ticket as it added several additional benefits. It cost $ 550 for BlizzCon 2019. This price was increased by $ 229 to $ 799 with BlizzCon 2023. It granted additional access to: BlizzCon is typically held every year. However, it has been cancelled five times in 2006, 2012, 2020, 2022 and 2024. Attendees were able to try one of

1876-768: The Storm , cosmetic wings & pets for Diablo III , skins for Overwatch , and portraits, unit skins & console skins for Starcraft: Remastered & Starcraft II . Starting with BlizzCon 2009, the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner, sometimes called the VIPs Dinner, was introduced as an additional ticket option. The dinner benefits the Children's Hospital Orange County (CHOC) Children's Foundation with all net proceeds going to them. Guests can meet and chat with game developers, artists, executives and other folks from Blizzard Entertainment. The tickets included

1943-558: The United States, and Germany. ZOTAC was established in 2006 under the umbrella company of PC Partner . Its name was derived from the words "zone" and "tact". A year later, ZOTAC created its first ever video card, the ZOTAC GeForce 7300 GT . In 2015, ZOTAC created a Steam Machine called the NEN. It featured a Nvidia GeForce 960 and an Intel Core i5-6400T Processor. In 2016, The MAGNUS EN980 debuted at Computex Taipei . It

2010-549: The Wizard, as well as the major announcement that Starcraft II would be separated into three games. Playable versions of Diablo III , StarCraft II , and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King were available to test during the convention. As well, there were tournaments and competitions for the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game, World of Warcraft miniatures game, StarCraft , StarCraft II , Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne , and World of Warcraft arena. The Zerg race

2077-578: The World Championship by improving their regional rankings in Europe, North and Latin America, China, and Asia-Pacific. This World Championship was the first to be held with the Conquest format with a ban. Swedish player Sebastian "Ostkaka" Engwall defeated Canadian player Dylan "Hotform" Mullins to earn US$ 100,000 and the title of World Champion. In November 2015, Blizzard announced a change in

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2144-514: The closing concert with Dave Grohl . Recordings of the event were released for free as part of the Live Music Archive . The opening ceremony showcased a new Diablo III cinematic trailer titled "The Black Soulstone", a StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm reveal trailer showcasing new units and abilities, a " Blizzard DOTA " trailer for a new game made from StarCraft II and the reveal of World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria ,

2211-415: The closing concert. A pre-release version of StarCraft II was available for play (the game would be released as StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty only in 2010), as single player or 2v2 as Terran or Protoss. Much of the game was revealed and explained as well as Q&A with attendees. The Zerg race was, however, not unveiled at that time. The second expansion to World of Warcraft , titled Wrath of

2278-598: The closing concert. The fifth playable Diablo III class was revealed to be the Demon Hunter and the StarCraft II modification called "Blizzard DotA" was presented, which later evolved into Heroes of the Storm . Diablo III , StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm were playable. Similar to 2009, BlizzCon 2010 was available live via an online broadcast on the "BlizzCon Virtual Ticket". The Virtual Ticket provided four live feeds from

2345-535: The content of AmazHS' hand. Though the information was no longer relevant in the game, Rdu was upset about the unsolicited help and tournament organizers called for a 20-minute break in which Rdu's " friend list " was deleted, though they decided the round was won fairly. Though AmazHS gave his support to Rdu afterward, he stated that DreamHack should have been better at organizing the tournament and implored Blizzard to implement game modes in which such forms of cheating are not possible. In Hearthstone ' s first year,

2412-435: The convention featuring exclusive interviews and commentary, main stage presentations including the opening ceremony and tournament coverage with team highlights. All purchasers received an exclusive "Grunty the Murloc Marine" World of Warcraft in-game pet. The third expansion, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm was announced. Diablo III , StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty were available to play. Ozzy Osbourne performed for

2479-529: The convention floor, offering 50+ hours of HD BlizzCon programming. DirecTV again offered both days of BlizzCon 2010 as a PPV event (US$ 39.95 for both days) for ten hours per day in both standard and high definition. Korean pro-gamer MVP_Genius won the StarCraft II BlizzCon Invitational The vinyl record Revolution Overdrive: Songs of Liberty was released for the event. Tenacious D ( Jack Black / Kyle Gass ) played for

2546-501: The creation of an official esports league for Overwatch . Diablo III also had two big announcements: it would be getting a remake of Diablo called The Darkening of Tristram which would reoccur every January and the necromancer class would be added in a DLC pack called Rise of the Necromancer. The gaming events at BlizzCon 2016 included the 2016 StarCraft II World Championship Series Global Finals won by Byun "ByuN" Hyun Woo,

2613-631: The decision to be an act of self-censorship intended to appease Chinese investors and stakeholders. Chinese conglomerate Tencent owns a minority stake in Activision Blizzard . Comparisons were also drawn with a recent controversy involving Daryl Morey , owner of the Houston Rockets basketball team, over a Twitter posting that similarly pledged support for the protests. The developers of the similar game Gods Unchained invited Blitzchung to its own tournament, offering to also repay

2680-507: The dinner, a signed print of Blizzard artwork and a BlizzCon ticket. In later BlizzCons, reserved seating for the Opening Ceremony and Community Night on the first day of the show were added as additional benefits. These tickets usually had their own sale date separate from the main ticket. The price for these tickets were: The Benefit Dinner was neither offered nor returned as part of BlizzCon 2023. Beginning with BlizzCon 2019,

2747-585: The end of March to the middle of May, with a total prize pool of US$ 25,000. The tournament, which was split up in Professional Division of 16 high-level players and an open worldwide Amateur Division, was a qualifying event of the 2015 World Championship . Blizzard's official 2015 Hearthstone World Championship tournament concluded at BlizzCon 2015. Sixteen players qualified for the event by improving their rankings at Blizzard-sanctioned tournaments. Four players per region eventually qualified for

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2814-399: The event. Hearthstone was won by Sebastian "Ostkaka" Engwall and Heroes of the Storm was won by team Cloud 9 again. The 2015 StarCraft II World Championship Series Global Finals was won by Kim "sOs" Yoo-jin beating last year's winner Lee "Life" Seung Hyun and becoming the first two-time StarCraft II World Championship Series world champion. The World of Warcraft arena team championship

2881-509: The final. The defending champion Wataru "Posesi" Ishibashi also qualified for the tournament and he ended up losing in the quarterfinal. The tenth Hearthstone World Championship winner was British Thomas "PocketTrain" Swinton that received $ 100,000. He defeated "CJkaka" from Taiwan in the final. En route he defeated fellow countryman, practice partner and sometimes friend British Thomas "Meati" Wayland. For many professional Hearthstone players, rather than tournament earnings, livestreaming

2948-430: The gesture to be a violation of rules forbidding players from engaging in conduct that "brings [the player] into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public or otherwise damages" the reputation of the company. As a result, Blizzard removed Blitzchung from the tournament, rescinded his Season 2 prize winnings, and banned him from Hearthstone competitions for one year. Blizzard also terminated its contract with

3015-618: The live global tournaments throughout 2019. The fifth Hearthstone World Championship took place in April 2019 and was held in Taipei ; the winner was Norwegian Casper "Hunterace" Notto that received $ 250,000. Grandmasters Season 2 will remove the Specialist format used in Season 1. Instead, players will bring four decks, each from a different class. Before the match begins, each player chooses

3082-515: The organization of Assembly Summer 2014, a Finnish qualifying tournament for the International e-Sports Federation 's (IeSF) World Championship, sparked controversy when it was announced that tournament would be open for men only. The cause was that the World Championship was also slated to have an all-male line-up, and its qualifying events were subject to the same rules. According to the IeSF,

3149-451: The prices have changed drastically as its scope and number attendees have grown with it. Each general admission ticket includes a goody bag that has contained items such as beta keys for upcoming Blizzard games, exclusive Blizzard paraphernalia and in-game prizes. The in-game prizes have ranged from pets, transmog & mounts in World of Warcraft & Heroes of the Storm , exclusive card backs for Hearthstone , heroes for Heroes of

3216-424: The rule was set in place in order to "secure traditional sports status" for esports. The forced gender division was abolished a few days after it was announced for Assembly Summer when the IeSF switched to an "open for all" format. June also saw a cheating scandal when Radu "Rdu" Dima won first prize and US$ 10,000 at DreamHack Summer . During Rdu's final match against AmazHS , he got a Battle.net message stating

3283-588: The same metropolitan area as Blizzard's headquarters in Irvine . The convention features game-related announcements, previews of upcoming Blizzard Entertainment games and content, Q&A sessions and panels, costume contests, and playable versions of various Blizzard games. The Closing Ceremony has featured concerts by The Offspring , Tenacious D , Foo Fighters , Ozzy Osbourne , Blink-182 , Metallica , Linkin Park , "Weird Al" Yankovic , and Muse . Blizzard also hosted

3350-405: The seasonal major tournaments. The winners of each tournament qualified automatically for the World Championship. Through this setup, 12 players qualify for the event, while Blizzard appoints four players from China in some other manner. The 2016 Hearthstone World Tour featured over US$ 1,900,000 in prize money. The third Hearthstone World Championship was held at BlizzCon 2016 on November 5 with

3417-485: The strategy of the game, and that expanding Hearthstone is "all about finding the balance with what is ok and what isn't ok." Ayala explained that a large part of adding new cards to the game is trying to view each card through the lens of each possible type of player and how the card may be used. The practice of "win trading", where players forfeit games in order to help other players gain in ranking, can be used to reach Legend ranking with less effort. However, win trading

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3484-473: The ticketing service Universe. A third round of tickets were sold on July 5 due to the convention center adding a new hall. On September 13, 2017, Virtual Tickets began being sold; this ticket included a faction-specific flying mount in World of Warcraft, and other special items in the various Blizzard games. Blizzcon 2017 had a record number of more than 35,000 attendees due to a recently completed expansion of

3551-464: The title. This was also the first ever time that the defending champion qualified for the next World Championship tournament, but Kenta "Glory" Sato ended up just one series away from winning it back-to-back. The ninth Hearthstone World Championship winner was German Raphael "Bunnyhoppor" Peltzer that received $ 100,000. He defeated Jack "DeadDraw" Bancroft, who is his teammate in Team Liquid , in

3618-599: The tradition of previous years, the 2017 Hearthstone World Championship took place in January 2018 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, instead of during BlizzCon near the end of the year. The winner was Chen "Tom60229" WeiLin from Taiwan, who defeated Frank "Fr0zen" Zhang to earn the top prize of US$ 250,000. The 2018 Hearthstone World Championship will be the Hearthstone Championship Tour's final event and

3685-427: The two casters involved in the broadcast. Blizzard stated that while it "[stands] by one's right to express individual thoughts and opinions", players were still subject to their official rules and regulations during competition. The removal of Blitzchung led to criticism of Blizzard and calls for a boycott of the company. As coverage of the protests have been subject to censorship in mainland China, critics considered

3752-550: The two new playable races, the Blood Elves, for upcoming expansion based in Outland which was released as World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade in 2007. Playable demos of the single and multiplayer modes of the since canceled Starcraft: Ghost were available. A songwriting competition was judged by Jonathan Davis of Korn . Level 60 Elite Tauren Chieftain, comedian Christian Finnegan , and The Offspring performed at

3819-638: The winnings that Blizzard had rescinded. BlizzCon BlizzCon is an annual gaming convention held by Blizzard Entertainment to promote its major franchises including Warcraft , StarCraft , Diablo , Hearthstone , Heroes of the Storm , and Overwatch . The first BlizzCon was held in October 2005, and since then, all of the conventions have been held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California , in

3886-421: Was also the first woman to win a Hearthstone world championship and to win a BlizzCon tournament. The seventh Hearthstone World Championship winner was Japanese Kenta "Glory" Sato that received $ 200,000. The eighth Hearthstone World Championship winner was Japanese Wataru "Posesi" Ishibashi that received $ 200,000. He defeated the 2020 Hearthstone World Champion, Kenta "Glory" Sato, in the final round to win

3953-487: Was held in April 2019 in Taipei, Taiwan with a $ 1 million prize pool. The fifth Hearthstone World Championship winner was Norwegian Casper "Hunterace" Notto that received $ 250,000. Blizzard is replacing the previously used tour system with three variations of a single class deck called "Specialist". More than $ 4 million will be available in the prize pool. Blizzard will hold the first tournaments primarily online and will be region-locked. The winners will go on to compete in

4020-487: Was hired by Blizzard in order to help with the balancing of the game. During a GrandMasters Season 2 match on October 6, 2019, player Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai made statements in support of the ongoing protests in Hong Kong . During a post-match interview on the official Taiwanese broadcast, Blitzchung wore ski goggles and a respirator mask similarly to the protesters, and used the popular pro-democracy slogan "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time". Blizzard considered

4087-447: Was now playable in the StarCraft II demos. BlizzCon 2008 was broadcast live on both days as a PPV event on DirecTV for US viewers only, for eight hours per day in high definition. Official Blizzard fansite WoW Radio broadcast live audio via SHOUTcast . For the closing ceremonies on Saturday, comedians Kyle Kinane and Patton Oswalt performed. The closing concert was performed by Video Games Live, playing arrangements from all of

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4154-539: Was officially announced and a trailer was shown. The Warcraft film concept art was shown. Diablo III: Reaper of Souls was announced to be released on PC, Xbox One and PS4 . The gaming events included the finals of the 2013 StarCraft II World Championship Series as well as the Hearthstone Innkeeper's Invitational, a Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft tournament featuring a handful of prominent Twitch streamers. The StarCraft II competition

4221-888: Was the MEK Gaming PC, which was a Mini ITX desktop. In addition to the MEK Gaming PC and graphic cards, Zotac also released an external enclosure that supported Thunderbolt 3 and could host a graphic card up to nine inches long. In 2018, Zotac announced their GeForce 20 series graphics cards including the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, GeForce RTX 2080 series, and the GeForce RTX 2070 Series. In addition to graphic cards, Zotac also released their new line of ZBOX mini PCs in Q2 2018. Zotac's GeForce series includes their slightly modified stock graphic cards and their own Amp! and Amp! Extreme products. Their Amp! and Amp! Extreme series are modified versions of NVIDIA 's stock graphics cards that include

4288-517: Was the first ever Mini PC that was considered "VR ready" by Nvidia , and it featured an Nvidia GTX 980 and an i5 Processor. Also launched is the smallest Mini PC line-up, P Series, and ZOTAC VR GO. In 2017, Zotac released their GTX 1000 series line including their 1080, 1070, 1060, and also their miniseries including the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Mini. They also introduced their new brand now known as 'Zotac Gaming'. The first product launched under it

4355-490: Was won by Kim "sOs" Yoo-jin , World of Warcraft arena was won by team Skill-Capped and Hearthstone was won by Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski . The closing concert was performed by Blink-182 . The tickets went on sale May 7 and 10, 2014. For 2014, tickets were sold via Eventbrite instead of the Blizzard Store. Blizzard once again sold a Virtual Ticket for live online streaming of all of the events. Overwatch ,

4422-499: Was won by SK Gaming. The closing concert was performed by Linkin Park . BlizzCon 2016, also known as BlizzCon X, was the tenth BlizzCon event. Its tickets were sold on April 20 and 23 using the ticketing service Universe. Blizzard offered a Virtual Ticket for live online streaming of all of the esports events and major panels, remaining at the $ 39.99 price. Other panels and interviews in smaller rooms were not included for streaming. In September 2016, Blizzard Entertainment released

4489-484: Was won by team Bleached Bones. Hearthstone was won by James "Firebat" Kostesich and first official tournament in Heroes of the Storm was held at the event that was won by team Cloud 9. The closing ceremony concert was opened by Level 90 Elite Tauren Chieftains (changed their name during the show to Elite Tauren Chieftains) and closed by Metallica . The tickets went on sale on April 15 and 18 using Eventbrite, and were sold out nearly instantly. Blizzard once again sold

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