China vs. Japan: newly announced Hearthstone competition channels old grudges in a friendly way

With the second season of the Hearthstone competition China vs. Korea Masters having just kicked off, a new Hearthstone competition in the same mold has been announced. Chinese distributor Netease, in cooperation with Japanese eSports organization e-Sports Square and Blizzard Entertainment, plan on pitting bitter rivals Japan and China against each other in the increasingly-popular card game. The Hearthstone Japan China Arena Tournament will be run from September 7th until October 25th.

(See: The China vs Korea Masters: who are the best Hearthstone players in Asia?)

China and Japan don’t clash as frequently as one might think, despite having bad blood between them that would feasibly fuel competition. Games that are or have been popular in China like Warcraft 3 Dota and League of Legends have failed to find much of a foothold in Japan, while Japan is often more interested in single-player console gaming, which has been long-banned in the mainland.

The one major overlap between the two in the past has been fighting games, especially Street Fighter, where Japan was king for many years. In addition to that, the difficulty of Chinese players leaving the country to take part in international competitions has stifled China’s participation in those somewhat.

But thisHearthstone competition has the potential to be different. Japan has traditionally been strong at card games, especially homegrown properties like Yu-gi-oh and the Pokemon trading card game, as well as foreign-made Magic: the Gathering. China, meanwhile, emerged victorious in the first Hearthstone China vs Korea Masters season, and has had a consistently strong presence in tournaments in the region.

For this showdown, each country will put forward a team of five players. As in the China vs Korea Masters, each player will have to submit nine decks of at least four classes, three of which they will be able to choose before each match begins. The competition will follow a “winner stays on” all-kill format.

The Hearthstone Japan China Arena Tournament will have a prize pool of $20,000 with $15,000 going to first place.

Update 03-09-14: An earlier version of this article used a tentative English translation based on the Chinese name used in the announcement video. We have since corrected the competition’s English title after reaching out to Blizzard and e-Sports Square.

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