Last night, Blizzard and NetEase shared some bombshell news. But some background first – back in January 2023 the Chinese servers for Blizzard games closed due to a disagreement between those two companies. Chinese players were forced to start over on other servers, most likely through a VPN, if they wanted to continue playing. Luckily, after Microsoft’s purchase of Activision-Blizzard, earlier this year they have announced plans to renew their agreement. And we’re finally getting some details regarding Hearthstone.
First, during the ChinaJoy event, we learned that the game will return to China on September 25th. Data from their old accounts has been retained, so they will return to their old collections. However, since they couldn’t play over the entire 2023, they will get every single card from last year for free (both regular and golden). They will, however, be special versions of the cards that can be disenchanted for 1 Dust each. This way they can play the cards they missed during the time servers were off, but won’t sit on a huge pile of Dust once they rotate out. Re-launch will also be commemorated with special events with free skins/rewards and a brand new Coin and Card Back (there’s no info whether they will be earnable worldwide or only in China).
Today’s ChinaJoy event announced the information of Blizzard’s CN server.
All cards from 2023 will be available for free!!!!! Include Golden cards !!!!!https://t.co/nH6B5eEyXU#Hearthstone pic.twitter.com/sIUyKhUrPo
— 燁魔 HS Wild/Standard Deck (@glormagic) July 28, 2024
Additionally, Blizzard announced the expansion of Masters Tour World Championship 2024. To welcome back Chinese players, the event will be expanded from 8 to 16 players. 4 of those extra slots will be reserved for Chinese players, while the other 4 will go to the highest point earners from all regions. The prize pool also has also been expanded from $350k to $500k.
Read more below:
The Masters Tour World Championship of 2024 is expanding with the return of Hearthstone to China! We’re doubling the number of global qualifiers from 8 to 16 players and boosting the prize pool to a grand total of $500,000 USD provided by Blizzard Entertainment® and NetEase ThunderFire!
The top four players from the China qualifiers and eight players based on points from the Ladder rankings will join the champions and runner-up of the Spring and Summer Masters Tours in a showdown for their share of the prize pool.
Read the updated official rules for more details. Stay tuned here on the Hearthstone official site and X for all of the latest Hearthstone Esports news and content as we move forward. . Good luck, have fun, and we’ll see you in the Tavern!
