Survival Guide: HCT Summer Playoffs 2018

Do you feel that heat? Spring is well under way, and summer is close by! The Summer Playoffs for the 2018 Hearthstone Championship Tour (HCT) are kicking off, and we’ve prepared this viewing guide to make sure you don’t miss any of the action. Format HCT 2018 utilizes the Swiss format. Players compete in seven Swiss rounds, with the top eight players advancing to the dual tournament playoffs. The top two players from each group will move on to play in the Seasonal Championship. The semifinals and finals will not be played. Matches will be best-of-five with one ban in the Conquest format. Prizing For a breakdown on playoffs prizing, check out page 5 of our visual guide. Casters Your casters for the HCT Summer Playoffs 2018 are: Dan “Frodan” Chou and Brian Kibler TJ Sanders and Nathan “ThatsAdmirable” Zamora Alexander “Raven” Baguley and Simon “Sottle” Welch We’d also like to bid a warm welcome to Darroch Brown and Billy “JBillyB” Baria as they join the HCT casting desk! Schedule The first region to go through playoffs is Europe, followed by the Americas, and then Asia-Pacific. Europe Americas Asia-Pacific Starting time Date CEST 10:00 a.m. May 5-6 PDT 1:00 a.m. May 5-6 CST 4:00 p.m. May 5-6 KST 5:00 p.m. May 5-6 Check out the tournament brackets here. Livestreams English: twitch.tv/PlayHearthstone French: twitch.tv/PlayHearthstoneFR German: twitch.tv/c4mlann Italian: twitch.tv/morningstars Korean: twitch.tv/PlayHearthstoneKR Polish: twitch.tv/blackfireice Portugese: twitch.tv/copaamerica_pt2 Russian: twitch.tv/PlayHearthstoneRU Spanish: twitch.tv/feelinkhs Spanish: twitch.tv/ogseries Spanish (Latin America): twitch.tv/copaamerica_es2 Starting time Date PDT 8:00 a.m. May 12-13 CEST 5:00 p.m. May 12-13 CST 11:00 p.m. May 12-13 KST 12:00 a.m. May 13-14 Check out the tournament brackets here. Livestreams English: twitch.tv/PlayHearthstone French: twitch.tv/PlayHearthstoneFR German: twitch.tv/c4mlann Italian: twitch.tv/morningstars Korean: twitch.tv/PlayHearthstoneKR Polish: twitch.tv/blackfireice Portugese: twitch.tv/copaamerica_pt2 Russian: twitch.tv/PlayHearthstoneRU Spanish: twitch.tv/feelinkhs Spanish: twitch.tv/ogseries Spanish (Latin America): twitch.tv/copaamerica_es2 Starting time Date PDT 7:00 p.m. May 18-19 CEST 4:00 a.m. May 19-20 CST 10:00 a.m. May 19-20 KST 11:00 a.m. May 19-20 Check out the tournament brackets here. Livestreams English: twitch.tv/PlayHearthstone French: twitch.tv/PlayHearthstoneFR Japanese: twitch.tv/PlayHearthstoneJP Korean: twitch.tv/PlayHearthstoneKR Mandarin: twitch.tv/HearthstonezhTW Russian: twitch.tv/PlayHearthstoneRU Spanish: twitch.tv/ogseries Join in the conversation and hit us up on Twitter with the #HCTSummer hashtag. Who do you think is going to make it out of playoffs and into the first Championship event of the year?