Hearthstone World Championship 2026 Draws Biggest Peak Since 2020

The Hearthstone World Championship 2026 took place last weekend in Anaheim as part of BlizzCon 2026. The live final stage and accompanying broadcasts reached a peak concurrent audience of 41,387 viewers, the highest single-time peak for the series since the 2020 event.

Organizers reported total broadcast watch time of more than 858,600 Hours Watched, a figure modestly below the previous edition. Peak concurrent viewers rose nearly 10% year over year to 41,387. The 2020 World Championship posted a peak of more than 89,200 concurrent viewers.

The tournament’s most-watched match was a semifinal between Wu “XiaoT” Juwei and Wu “Curfew” Zheng-xian, which registered a higher peak than the grand final. In the final, Chinese player OTGxhh defeated XiaoT 3–1 to claim the championship and a $100,000 first prize. The victory marked OTGxhh’s first major tournament win. XiaoT entered the event with more than $344,000 in career prize earnings.

English-language broadcasts accounted for nearly 59% of total Hours Watched. Twitch represented more than 80% of watched time, with most of the remaining viewership on YouTube. The official English playhearthstone channel on Twitch drew the largest single-channel audience. Community casters expanded coverage across other channels, with Russian streamer SilverName leading community viewership. In all, 65 unique channels carried the event.

The Anaheim program combined in-person competition with a single set of multilingual broadcasts intended to reach a global audience. The tournament awarded $100,000 to the champion, with additional payouts distributed to other top finishers from the official prize pool.

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