After Blizzard updated their standings for the upcoming Summer Playoffs, which will be the last chance for players not in contention for the top spot in their region to make it to the World Championship, the debate about the HCT system has once again risen.

The EU point cutoff being higher than any other region is no surprise to anyone but after the rankings have been published the cutoff which a lot of players thought was going to be at 24 points proved to be at 25 points instead. Meaning that highly prolific players such as Dreamhack Valencia 2016 runner-up Simon “Crane333” Raunsholt, two-time HCT Championship participant George “GeorgeC” Connoly and Hearthstone Festival Champion Michael “Maverick” Looze are a few of the names that can be crossed out on the list of players participating in summer playoffs. This has raised some concerns from multiple involved parties on Twitter where players as well as on air talent have been discussing the current state of the HCT circuit and what impact it has that it is remarkable harder to qualify in Europe than in other regions.

One of the parties calling for a change in the current system is MTG Hall of Famer and resident on-air talent for the HCT circuit Brian Kibler: Earlier today he posted a tweet wherein he touches a bit on subject:

Aforementioned tweet regarding the HCT situation

Kibler would much rather see a certain amount of points being required globally but there are complications with changing to this system, such as an unseen amount of stress on the preliminary-tournaments themselves. Hypothetically the top 118 players in Europe would have made Summer playoffs with the current cutoff for the Americas region which was 18 points. Going into the 2017 circuit Blizzard made some changes to the circuit including swapping from a double elimination bracket to the generally less random Swiss system as well as reducing the amount of plays from 128 to 64 for each region, combined with bigger prize pool for the HCT events. Compare that to 2016 there is now fewer spots and more on the line which means that the circuit is even more competitive than ever.

The Dreamhack Austin champion David “Shoop” Steinberg also raised a very valid point on Twitter stating that it is also a question about the players that spent the most time grinding and it doesn’t leave much time for commitments outside of playing Hearthstone to get the ladder finishes and open tournament wins.

This entire debate shows that even with all the changes Blizzard has made to meet the competitors’ wishes for the circuit there is still much more to be worked on to make a more and transparent way of qualifying for the HCT playoffs. Not knowing the exact requirements for the qualification for the event in the first place can jeopardize three months of hard work for players and can prevent them from taking the next step into the pro-scene which at the end of the day ensures that competitors get more and more fed up as the seasons go by. One of the major problems with professional Hearthstone is the lack of stability having no hard requirements for qualification for events does not do anything but add more instability to the scene. Getting big esports organizations to enter the scene is already problematic enough as it is. No reason to give the organizations more reasons to stay away.