War Chest (2 or 4 players) is strategy game where you’re deploying troops to control spots on the board. But you do that by drawing chips from a bag. So it’s a deck-builder mixed with games like The Duke.

Each player has 4 different types of troops (chips). Each round, you draw three chips from the bag. On your turn, you can either play one of those chips to the board (if one isn’t there already), discard a chip face down to add a new chip to the bag, place a chip on top of an existing chip to increase its strength, or discard a chip face up to move a matching chip on the board. The round is over once all three chips have been played. Then players draw again. Once the bag is empty, you refill it with your discarded chips.

There’s a ton of strategy to this game. Every combination of troops makes for a different synergy. Adding more to the bag gives you options, but makes it harder to pull the chips you need. As chips are attacked, they’re removed from the game. Soon your options dwindle, so you must hurry. The first player to control six of the green spots wins.

Katowice 2019

Uncover the secrets of the Simulant zerg, deploy elite terran Special Forces, harness the might of the Forged protoss, or obtain them all with the War Chest: Katowice 2019 Complete Bundle. Support StarCraft II esports and gain early access to new base-wide building skins, plus enjoy three new comics!

https://geekandsundry.com/10-fantastic-two-player-board-games-better-than-chocolate-roses-valentines-day/

Blizzard today announced the War Chest: BlizzCon 2017. 

On the surface this seems like a great initiative for the StarCraft II community, Blizzard is finally engaging fans of their awesome RTS to help contribute to the esports scene. The three individual race passes will be $9.99, the entire War Chest will be $24.99.

It’s a concept that was obviously greatly inspired by the Battle Pass/Compendium in Dota 2, where the community-funded prize pool for 2017 just hit $21,5 Million USD. But once again Blizzard just proves to be remarkably tone-deaf when it comes to creating lasting value in its own community. 

Just like similar crowd-funding campaigns in LoL and Dota 2, 25% of all War Chest purchases go directly to the StarCraft II prize pool, to create engagement and excitement BlizzCon 2017. But where Dota 2 again this year broke the world record record for the highest prize pool in esports, Blizzard severely limits the impact of their own campaign before it’s even for sale. 

Just up to $200k USD will be added to the prizepool for BlizzCon 2017, anything over that amount will “contribute to event production”.

Blizzard just put a $700k USD ceiling on their own tournament. Or in other words, they put a $200k limit on their own crowd-funding campaign. 

Why?

Does this mean that Blizzard have absolutely no faith in their own community? I mean, do they simply not believe that they can sell more than 32,051 units of the War Chest (which would equal roughly $200k contribution to the prize pool)?

Or is this a new low, and a new high, for publisher greed in esports?