After a short delay, StarLadder's Hearthstone Ultimate Series is set to start today. The first in a four-tournament series, the Winter tournament sees 16 names engraved in competitive Hearthstone's history fight over a $25,000 prize pool.

Hodgepodge groups

Split in two groups of eight, the players engage in a Round Robin system, after which both groups' top four advance to a Double Elimination bracket. The competition is looking to be intense, with card-sling kings Casper "hunterace" Notto, Raphael "BunnyHoppor" Peltzer and Muzahidul "Muzzy" Islam in one group.

There are a couple of remarkable invites too. Players like Stanislav "StanCifka" Cifka and Ole "Naiman" Batyrbekov have both switched career paths and focused on Valve's Artifact since before it was released to the public, but seem to make at least a brief reappearance. Additionally, players like James "Firebat" Kostesich and Vladislav "Silvername" Sinotov haven't lived their most successful competitive times recently.

The full groups are:

All of the action can be followed via the stream on StarLadder's Facebook page, although a specific time has not been announced yet.