Battlegrounds will be part of the Hearthstone Esports scene with a completly independent ecosystem: Lobby Legends with $500.000 in prizes. All you need to know about the autobattler’s competitive scene in this article.
After a year of successful events, Battlegrounds will be part of Hearthstone Esports in 2022, with Lobby Legends a circuit with $500.000 in prizes. The Battleground community had high hopes after some Tweets from HS Esports team members. Esports.gg talked with Abar about the topic for some exclusive insights. Everything you need to know about Lobby Legends, Hearthstone Battlegrounds’ new competitive system, in this article.
What is Hearthstone Battlegrounds Lobby Legends?
Battlegrounds will finally have its own competitive system with Lobby Legends. The official announcement describes Lobby Legends as a series of one-off events along 2022. Each event will feature 16 players from all around the world competing for a part of the $500.000l prize pool.
Battlegrounds Lobby Legends will be completely independent of constructed Esports. The announcement didn’t mention any specifics on how to qualify to Battlegrounds Lobby Legends. However, it mentions that Ladder will be the path to getting into these events. With 16 slots per event, and players coming from the Americas, Asia-Pacific, European, and Chinese servers, it is fair to assume that each region will get four spots.
It is still uncertain how invites to Battlegrounds Lobby Legends will work. One possibility is that they could be directly given to the top 4 players of each server. On the other hand, there could also be an extra step with regional playoffs, including a wider range of competitors.
Something that we do know, thanks to the announcement, is the competitive format for these events. Each Battlegrounds Lobby Legends event will consist of 2 days of competitions. Day 1 will feature group play, with players receiving points for each match according to their standings. The top players from each group will advance to the Day 2 playoff.
Contrary to what we’ve experienced during 2020 and 2021, Lobby Legends seems to be an individual competition. This makes sense, considering it resembles the Ladder competitive experience.
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Hearthstone Esports Goals for Battlegrounds Lobby Legends
With the same democratization philosophy used as a benchmark for constructed competition, Abar thinks of Battlegrounds Lobby Legends as another opportunity for players to embrace esports.
Last week, in an interview Esports.gg had with Abar, he mentioned that the feedback received by the Battlegrounds community is that they needed a place to participate in esports.
“A lot of what we’ve heard from Battlegrounds players is that they want a sort of avenue or space to participate in. The same way constructed players have had that opportunity. They wanna show their passion and their dedication to the game, and they want a reason to strive to be the best. Battlegrounds Lobby Legends is gonna offer a lot of those opportunities to players. Hopefully, it will inspire more participation and even greater displays of passion to people.”
In the past, we’ve seen big streamers participating in invitational events. However smaller streamers who were top ladder players lacked exposure. Abar hopes this first iteration for competitive Battlegrounds with Lobby Legends helps attract both audiences.
“It will give those top streamers another reason or something to build their content around and get their fans excited about if they are interested themselves in participating in Battlegrounds Lobby Legends. For those lesser-known players, maybe they see it as an opportunity to capitalize on this new platform to grow their own brand and try to make a name for themselves in the Battlegrounds community as well.”
The rise of Battlegrounds
Since its release in 2019, Battlegrounds has been gaining popularity among players and viewers consistently. Many top-level streamers such as Kripparian, Dog, RDU, Slysssa, among others, switched to doing Battlegrounds content shortly after the game mode went out.
The simple fashion of how it’s presented to the audience makes perfect sense with Hearthstone’s motto: “Deceptively Simple, Insanely Fun”. According to twitch stats, this applies to viewers too. Leaving Battlegrounds out of the Esports scene seemed to be a mistake.
With the Hearthstone Masters system for Constructed and Lobby Legends for Battlegrounds, both communities will enjoy some extra exposure and growth opportunities. It might even inspire current or former Grandmasters to pursue the dream of being part of the competitive elite of two different game modes at once.
Finally, the Hearthstone Esports team promised to release specifics on event dates and qualifying schedules in the coming months. So stay tuned to Esports.gg and don’t miss on any Hearthstone news and updates. See you next time, in Bob’s tavern.
