I flew out to a LAN to compete for Hearthstone World Championship points. I was told that the points would count for Spring because the event happened during the Spring season. However, 10 days before the event (after my flight and hotel were booked). The cutoff date for the spring season was announced to be May 1st. The event runs from the 29th of April until May 1st, but the cutoff was at 3am and the tournament finished at 5pm, so I was not awarded the points. Prior to planning my trip I had no idea what the exact cut off would be. The cutoff blizzard decided was also the finish date for all of the NA Majors events.
link to postThe only reason I attended this event was because at the time I believed my points would be towards Spring, so I could qualify for prelims. But the cutoff date is decided upon the tournament ending, I guess? And the cutoff date was a big secret until right before the season ended. And it is different than the Winter cutoff which was on the 5th of the month.
link to postI noticed I did not get points, so I inquired about it. And Blizzard said
Hello James,
The Global point cut off for events to provide HCT Spring Season points was 3 AM PDT on May 1st, 2016. This means that the event had to finish before this time for it to award points for the Spring Season. This was announced a few weeks ago and then also posted on April 18th to
http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20097356. This means that EGLX and Copa America Season 2 (both Majors in the Americas Region) which concluded after the 3 AM May 1st, 2016 cut-off are not providing points for Spring but rather Summer Season. I hope this helps clear up any confusion around the time frame for events award points to which season and we will work with organizers to ensure that is made more clear in their communications in the future.
Regards,
Esports Team