Hearthstone: World Championship drops at BlizzCon — four free packs on September 12 and 13, including one golden

The Hearthstone World Championship playoffs take place at BlizzCon on Saturday, September 12 and Sunday, September 13, 2026. Blizzard is giving out card packs to viewers, and the schedule has been published in French: two Fractured in Alterac Valley packs on the first day, one pack and one golden pack on the second. The times are given directly in Paris time, no conversion is necessary.

That's four packs over the weekend, including one golden pack. The fifth one, which the recaps mention, isn't guaranteed: it's the bonus from the Choose Your Champion prediction campaign, whose voting has been closed since Tuesday, September 8, 2026 at 3 PM, Paris time.

The official schedule, day by day

The French page lists three rows of Drops, one per broadcast day, along with the start times given in the same text.

Two clarifications. The packs are Fractured in Alterac Valley packs, the July 2026 expansion, not standard packs: this is the exact wording used in all three rows. And the total for the competition rises to seven packs, three of which have already been given out during the group stage, which ended on Thursday, September 10. This addition is our own; the studio does not publish a total. The first day of the playoffs features the "single-elimination quarterfinals of the top 8 players," the second the "semifinals and finals," in a "best-of-five conquest format, with four decks and one ban."

“By watching the broadcasts”: no viewing duration published

The French wording is identical across all three lines: “win […] by watching the broadcasts on Twitch or YouTube.” Not a word about the required viewing time, nor about when the timer starts. The English version says no more (“while watching on Twitch or YouTube”).

This silence isn't the house's habit. For the July 19 Summer Qualifiers, the same section had a number: “get a Fractured in Alterac Valley pack by watching the event on Twitch for one hour.” For the World Championship, the number has vanished. We won't replace it with an estimate: plan for the long haul.

One detail has changed for the better. The Summer Championship reserved its Drops for Twitch; the World Championship names both platforms on each of its three lines, twitch.tv/playhearthstone and youtube.com/Hearthstone. These are the only two addresses listed, and the distinction matters on September 12 and 13: the BlizzCon Drops devoted to World of Warcraft, opening on that same September 12, form a separate campaign, with its own tiers and category — we detailed them on September 6, 2026. Blizzard states nowhere that the convention's general broadcast credits Hearthstone packs.

Four packs, not five: where did the fifth one go

The fifth pack does exist, but it's conditional, and already out of reach for anyone who did nothing before September 8. Choose Your Champion is a prediction campaign, summed up as follows on its official page: "Get a pack for signing up, then earn an additional pack for every match your champion wins, up to a maximum of six packs if they win the World Championship." The competition's article adds the bonus on top: "if the player you picked wins the World Championship, you'll get an additional Golden pack of Fall of Ulduar".

What that article doesn't say, the voting page's terms spell out: "Each Battle.net account may cast only one vote between September 3, 2026 at 7:00 PM Paris time and September 8, 2026 at 3:00 PM Paris time." That window is closed. Checked on Friday, September 11, 2026 across the French, English, German, Spanish, and Italian versions: all five give the same cutoff. If you didn't vote, the four weekend packs are all that's left.

Two inconsistencies linger in those same terms.

• The cap differs by language. The English version reads "A maximum of 6 […] card packs and 1 Golden […] card pack per Battle.net account." The French, German, Spanish, and Italian versions only mention the six packs, dropping the Golden one. Yet the body of the page promises it in all five languages: it's the legal text that falls short.
• The legal text refers to a different tournament. The French version has your champion advancing "in the Winter Championship tournament," the English one in "the Winter Championship Tournament." A leftover from the previous season, copied across every language.

The actual schedule in Paris time, and Saturday's all-nighter

The article only gives one start time per day. BlizzCon's schedule, on the other hand, breaks down Hall B's "Hearthstone Stage" slot by slot. Its data is in Coordinated Universal Time; the conversion below is our own, but it lines up exactly with the 9:00 PM announced by the Hearthstone team, which confirms it.

Three takeaways. Day one doesn't stop at midnight: the last slot closes at 4:00 AM, in the night from Saturday to Sunday. The two packs for September 12 are earned late, unless the counter fills up in the very first hours — something the studio doesn't say.

Next, a fifteen-minute gap between two official communications: the article announces day two "starting at 6:30 PM," while the schedule places the first semifinal at 6:45 PM. That quarter hour is described nowhere. Finally, a caveat for readers: Blizzard doesn't state that the Hearthstone channel broadcasts this stage in its entirety — these slots belong to the venue's program, not a broadcast lineup. Incidentally, "Trophy Ceremony" is the only heading left in English in this French-language schedule.

What's left to do before Saturday

Account linking is the mandatory step: the Twitch account is linked from account.battle.net/connections, the YouTube account from the account sharing page. We broke down this mechanic on September 6, 2026 regarding World of Warcraft Drops — a seven-day delay in case of re-linking, expiration of unclaimed rewards, region locked by the first connection. These rules apply to the Battle.net account, not the game: check the linking before Saturday, not during the quarterfinals.

Three unknowns specific to Hearthstone remain, which we list because they are written nowhere: the required viewing duration, absent from both the French and English text; the location and delivery time of the packs; the fate of missed Drops, with no catch-up mentioned after Sunday, September 13.

In practice

Four Fall of Fort Crimson packs, one of them golden, in exchange for two evenings of viewing: Saturday, September 12 starting at 9 p.m. to earn two, Sunday, September 13 starting at 6:30 p.m. for the single pack and the golden one. Two addresses, twitch.tv/playhearthstone and youtube.com/Hearthstone, and a Battle.net account linked before kickoff.

What can no longer be claimed: the three group stage packs, and the Choose Your Champion bonus. What remains open alongside it: the World Championship Tavern Brawl, from September 9 to 16, detailed here on August 25.

For context, the prize pool reaches $500,000, including $100,000 for the 2026 world champion, and the group stage narrowed sixteen qualifiers down to eight. Three Europeans were among these sixteen: Fatty, Gaby59, and SAVOR. As of Friday, September 11, 2026, no French news on the official site recaps the eight survivors — the quarterfinal matchups are not published where the Drops are.