Hearthstone is getting a $1M championship event in 2016

Blizzard is putting some serious money on the line for the future of competitive Hearthstone.

The first event of the 2016 Hearthstone Championship Tour will kickoff tomorrow at Dreamhack Winter in Sweden. This will lead into a season that will last months before culminating in the Hearthstone World Championship, where competitors will have a crack at a $1 million prize pool. That is four times the $250,000 Blizzard put up for the 2015 Hearthstone championship. This signifies that Hearthstone, a free-to-play card battler for PC, Mac, and mobile, is establishing a healthy esports scene. This makes Hearthstone only the eighth video game ever to have a single event with a seven-digit dollar amount up for grabs, according to website Esports Earnings. This signifies that Activision Blizzard, which has previously put up $1 million for four separate different Call of Duty tournaments, sees esports as a key strategy in maintaining Hearthstone’s momentum.