Hearthstone’s American champion will be determined on Oct. 10-11

After a grueling nine-day qualifying tournament, eight of the best Hearthstone players in the Western hemisphere have risen to the top of a pool of 40, and will compete for the title of Americas Champion on Oct. 10-11 in San Francisco. In addition to the title, the players are competing for a $25,000 prize pool. The top four players from the Americas Championship will advance to BlizzCon, where they will compete with twelve of the best players from Asia and Europe for a $250,000 prize pool and the glory of being the Hearthstone world champion.

The eight competing players are:

• Vinicius “Coreia” Pupo (LatAm)
• Dylan “Hotform” Mullins (North America)
• Justin “JAB” Black (North America)
• Alexandre “MoleGel” Sousa (LatAm)
• Victor “Nias” Shelstad (North America)
• Ryan “Purple” Root (North America)
• Jeffrey “Trump” Shih (North America)
• Victor “Vlsp” Lopez (North America)

The event will be hosted by eSports personality Rachel “Seltzer” Quirico. Live match commentary will be provided by Dan “Frodan” Chou, TJ “Azumo” Sanders, Brian Kibler, Robert “Whirthun” Wing, Janne “Savjz” Mikkonen, Andrey “Reynad” Yanyuk.

Fans and players will gather at San Francisco’s Folsom Street Foundry, with the tournament running from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT on Saturday, Oct. 10, and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. PT on Sunday, Oct. 11. Doors will open at 9:30 a.m., with free admission on a first-come, first-served basis. BlizzCon, developer Blizzard’s annual fan convention, will be held on Nov. 6-7 at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Attendees of the Americas Championship will walk away with a snazzy Power Core card back as a cosmetic upgrade usable in the game. For fans that can’t make it out to the Folsom Street Foundry, all of the games will also be broadcast on Blizzard’s official Hearthstone Twitch channel.

Hearthstone is Blizzard’s extremely popular digital take on collectible card games in the model established by Richard Garfield in the early ’90s with Magic: The Gathering. Two players construct decks of spells and creatures out of virtual cards earned in randomized packs, squaring off against one another to see who can whittle down the other’s health first. Mechanically it is essentially a lightweight Magic, couched in a slick interface, easy matchmaking, and the art and characters of Blizzard’s popular Warcraft universe.