Gwent has been gaining traction as a competitive virtual card game for the past few months now, so it was about time that it started making headway into esports. The Gwent Masters marks the first foray into esports by Polish game developer CD Projekt Red, and they've started off with a bang: an $850,000 tournament series.

Gwent is a competitive virtual card game, not unlike Hearthstone, but whilst Hearthstone is based on Blizzard's WarCraft universe, Gwent is based on The Witcher - the series of fantasy novels which inspired The Witcher trilogy of video-games - once of the most successful RPG series of this generation. 

Successful ladder players will be eligible to participate in any of the eight Gwent Open tournaments, each featuring a $25,000 prizepool. The finalists from every Gwent Open, together with the previous champions, the players with the highest crown points and two wild card invitees, will qualify towards the Gwent Challenger events, which will happen once every four months, featuring a prizepool of $100,000. Four Challengers in, and the eight finalists from each event will qualify towards the World Masters, featuring a $250,000 prizepool.

The ladder season starts from the 1st September, whilst the first Open event will be held during Gamescom in Cologne this week.