Heroes of Cards, the long-running Hearthstone series, is shutting down.
Kaos Industries’ Hearthstone tournament series established itself early on as a must-watch tournament for fans of the explosive card game. From its start back in mid-2014, its cup series has attracted top names from across the pro scene. Heading into 2015, the organization’s plans became more ambitious, including a Grand Finals LAN where the top finishers in the cup series would compete for a $12,000 prize pool.
Despite the game’s massive growth this year, the organization has informed players that “the series will not happen anymore,” and that Kaos Industries has effectively canceled the remaining five cups, along with the Grand Finals LAN.
According to Kaos, it’s largely because of low viewership numbers for the series, which sometimes dropped as low as 2,500 for top matches. One obvious cause for the low numbers is the tournament’s decision to stream on Hitbox, rather than the much larger Twitch. Indeed, the tournament’s YouTube page received substantially higher views, with its finals match in February between Aleksandr “Kolento” Malsh and Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy receiving close to 40,000 views.
It’s also possible that the tournament felt pressure from larger tournaments, especially with reports of massive leagues from Vulcun and Archon being planned.
In total, this leaves six tournaments and $27,000 suddenly gone from the pro scene, with only Heroes of Cards’ first cup back in February actually realized.
Callum Leslie contributed to this report.
Image via Blizzard
