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The 2016 Hearthstone Championship Tour doesnt crown the winner until Nov. 5 at BlizzCon, but that doesnt mean Blizzard isnt already thinking about the next years tour. Blizzard announced several changes to the esports side of Hearthstone on Wednesday morning, focusing on prize pool, new events, scheduling and more.Increased prize poolThe 2016 HCT featured a $1 million total prize pool. For 2017, Blizzard is doubling the pot to $2 million. This will be split into $250,000 pots for each season championship and $1 million total to be distributed at the World Championship.While every professional wants to be thought of as the best of the world, pride cannot be exchanged for goods and service the way money can, and the more Blizzard invests in the prize pool, the more incentives players have to try to get their seats.Hearthstone Global GamesOverwatch wont be the only Blizzard game to get a World Cup-type event. To create a Hearthstone version, Blizzard is putting together the Hearthstone Global Games, a weekly league featuring teams of players representing individual countries.We havent seen a lot of team events in Hearthstone, but one of the best tournaments in Hearthstones existence was the Archon Team League, run throughout the summer of 2015. Hearthstone itself isnt a team game, but the Archon Team League demonstrated that with the proper format -- all classes had to be played and teammates figured out their best matchups -- you can bring a team concept to what is an individual game.Change of seasonal formatBlizzard is doing away with the regional championships for each season and instead going with a regional season playoffs. Now, each of the four Hearthstone regions (Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, China) will hold its own tournament at the end of each season in Swiss format and send the top four to the overall seasonal championship.Im a fan of this idea, simply because by keeping the regions isolated in this way, you cause a bit of Balkanization of the Hearthstone community. Different regions tend to have slightly different metas, especially when the meta is an unstable period after a content release. One example of this was during the Goblins versus Gnomes/Blackrock Mountain era in which the Chinese server had a notably different flavor of Priest decks -- yes, those existed at one point at high ladder ranks -- with Lightbomb adopted before the NA/EU regions started including it.Championship to be aligned with StandardOne first is that the next championship wont take place at BlizzCon, but in early 2018 at the end of the upcoming, as-yet-untitled Standard year (we are currently in the Year of the Kraken). The main reason for this is Blizzard wishes to align its content releases with the seasonal championships and the overall Standard year with one full championship tour.Blizzard wants to match the HCT calendar with new content such that each season is based on the same card pool all the way through. Doing it this way eliminates a significant inconsistency in some of the tournaments. For example, this year, the summer preliminaries came the same month as the One Night in Karazhan adventure, resulting in a weird situation where the card pool was different each week as new cards were implemented.More even distribution of both points and prizesA significant reality of Hearthstone compared to other esports is that theres always going to be a great deal more RNG (random number generation) than in a MOBA like League of Legends or an FPS like Counter-Strike. Its a high-variance esport like poker, and as such, a more level distribution of awards seems to be necessary for a healthy competitive scene. Tournament formats in which the competitors play 1,000 games to get healthy sample sizes to differentiate ability are impractical, so the next-best thing is to even out these awards. This rewards consistent players and encourages pros to stick with Hearthstone rather than have to chase high-risk, high-reward payouts.The exact distribution of points and jackpots has not been released, but Blizzards plan is to distribute both Hearthstone Competitive Points earned from tournaments and ranked play more evenly, starting with the November Ranked Play season. The same deal goes for Blizzard-run tournament jackpots. This will help prevent a situation like this years in which many of the Hearthstone pros found themselves so far behind in points that they were simply throwing in the towel by late summer.Hearthstone Inn-vitationalsId like to complain about the pun, but Ive made some quite awful ones myself, so I probably shouldnt throw any stones here. Blizzard is again taking a page from a successful alternative kind of tournament, the best examples in this case being the SeatStory cups or the Challengestones. The idea of an Inn-vitational is to create a fun, looser type of tournament for people to watch, with popular streamers, tournament winners and celebrities.Top streamers and players like Octavian Kripparrian Morosan, Jeffrey Trump Shih, Kacem Noxious Khilaji and Brian Kibler are important to the Hearthstone viewing audience, and its not because they win tourney after tourney. The idea here is to play with tournament formats and introduce personalities as well, to bring some variety to a game that sometimes needs it. Vans Shoes Discount . Halifax beat the Saint John Sea Dogs 7-5 on the strength of two goals apiece from Nikolaj Ehlers, Matt Murphy and Brent Andrews. Jonathan Drouin also scored and had three assists while Zachary Fucale made 17 saves for the Mooseheads (16-8-0), who led 6-1 after two periods. Vans Sk8 Hi Clearance .J. -- New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz will miss the rest of the season after having surgery on his left knee. http://www.vanssalestore.com/vans-slip-on-clearance.html . Fellow centre Pavel Datsyuk remains out because of a concussion. Zetterberg has 11 goals and 19 assists for a team-high 30 points, and Datsyuk has a team-high 12 goals and 11 assists. Vans Slip On Cheap . - The Oakland Raiders re-signed offensive lineman Khalif Barnes on Friday. Vans Toy Story Sale . Halifax beat the Saint John Sea Dogs 7-5 on the strength of two goals apiece from Nikolaj Ehlers, Matt Murphy and Brent Andrews. Jonathan Drouin also scored and had three assists while Zachary Fucale made 17 saves for the Mooseheads (16-8-0), who led 6-1 after two periods. MINNEAPOLIS -- Dez Bryant sashayed through the Dallas locker room with an unmistakable swagger and had nothing but good things to say about his adversary this time around.It was a stark change from a week ago, when he sparred with Washington cornerback Josh Norman on Thanksgiving. The trash talking Dez and the polite Dez share one thing in common: they both win.Bryant caught four passes for 84 yards and the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter, helping the Cowboys win their 11th straight game with a 17-15 victory over the Minnesota Vikings on Thursday night.In a hard-fought battle with cornerback Xavier Rhodes, Bryants 56-yard catch set up Ezekiel Elliotts 1-yard TD in the first half. Bryant caught an 8-yard scoring pass in the fourth quarter after a fumbled punt by Minnesotas Adam Thielen.I knew coming into this game it was going to be a tough match and I had to be on my `A game, Bryant said. Because if I wasnt, he can get the best of you. We had a good battle. We shared our thoughts throughout the game. It was good thoughts. Its nice playing games like that.Elliott rushed for 86 yards on 20 carries for the Cowboys (11-1). They have the longest single-season winning streak in franchise history.Sam Bradford threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Jerick McKinnon with 25 seconds to play, but the 2-point conversion pass failed. Bradford argued for a penalty after he was hit in the face by a defender, but there was no call for the Vikings (6-6). Minnesota played without coach Mike Zimmer after he had emergency eye surgery Wednesday night.Im sick and tired of the reffing in this league right now, Vikings defensive end Brian Robison said. Im sick and tired of it. Youve got holding calls all over the place that people dont want to call. Bradford gets hit in the face at the end of the game and you dont call it. Im not laying this loss on reffing, but at some point its got to get better.Bradford completed 32 of 45 passes for 247 yards, Danielle Hunter had two sacks and Kai Forbath kicked three field goals for Minnesota, which has last six of the last seven games after a 5-0 start.Vikings special teams coordinator Mike Priefer was elevated to head coach for the game and it remains unclear how long Zimmer will be out. Minnesotas third-ranked defense did their fiery leader proud, holding the explosive Cowboys offense to season lows in points, yards (264) and first downs (13).Its not the best game we played, but we showed up when we needed to and made the plays at the end, Elliott said.KEY PLAYWith Dallas offense doiing nothing, Kyle Wilber made the play of the game when he punched the ball out of Thielens hand, then pulled the ball away as the two rolled to the turf.dddddddddddd Officials initially did not catch the fumble, but a heads-up challenge by Jason Garrett got the call overturned and Prescott found Bryant on the next play.CATCHLESS IN MINNEAPOLISCowboys tight end Jason Witten did not catch a pass, snapping a team-record streak of 130 straight games with a reception dating to 2008.A TD TO TIE TDElliotts 1-yard plunge in the second quarter gave Dallas a 7-3 lead. It was his 12th touchdown rushing this season, tying him with Tony Dorsett for most by a rookie in Cowboys history.BRADFORD UNDER SEIGEPlaying behind a patchwork offensive line that included center Nick Easton making his first career start in place of the injured Joe Berger (concussion), Bradford was under pressure all night long from a Cowboys defense that has often struggled in that area this season.Bradford was sacked three times and had to leave the game on the final drive of the second quarter after taking a helmet from Maliek Collins to his rib cage. After getting some medical attention during halftime, Bradford was able to remain in the game.I had to take a deep breath, he said. After that they were fine.The bad news on the injury front for the Vikings came for safety Harrison Smith, who left the locker room on crutches with a walking boot on his left foot. He has been fighting through an ankle injury over the last several weeks.ZIMMER TRIBUTEBefore the game, the Vikings played a short video of Zimmer addressing the team during a practice. Zimmers primary message: Do your job.That has been a common theme during his three seasons in Minnesota, and the organization likely wanted the players to hear it one more time before taking the field. After the video, a picture of Zimmer was put on the big screen with a Get Well Soon message attached.They fought to the bitter end, and I know coach Zimmer wouldve been very, very proud of them, Priefer said.UP NEXTCowboys: Dallas heads to New York on Dec. 11 to face the Giants, the only team to have beaten the Cowboys this season.Vikings: Minnesota will travel to Jacksonville on Dec. 11 to face the Jaguars, hoping the extra time off will be enough for Zimmer to recover and return to the sideline.---For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP-NFL ' ' '