Hearthstone's elite competition, Grandmasters, continues from where we left off last weekend. 16 players from each region started competing already on Wednesday, but only one will be crowned the winner of the week on Sunday. You can find everything you need to know below.
This Week's Format
This week will continue in a similar fashion than last week.
- This week the usual Conquest format will be replaced by Last Hero Standing.
- 7 Swiss rounds will be played off-stream on Wednesday and Thursday with top 8 of each region advancing.
- Top 8 will be divided to two groups, which play through a double elimination bracket, top 2 from each group advances.
- Top 4 play through a single elimination bracket to decide the winner.
Players will be gaining points based on their performance, and at the end of next week Grandmasters will be divided to Division A and B based on these points. You can check the current point standings here.
For the entire competition format, check out the spoiler below.
Quote From Blizzard Weeks 1-3: Swiss into Group Stage
During weeks 1-3, players will compete in matches in a Swiss format on each Wednesday and Thursday to earn placement in the weekend Group Stage. Points from these weekend rounds will be used to determine two Divisions in each region for round-robin weeks. Different gameplay format each week.
- The 16 players in each region will compete against each other off broadcast in 7 Swiss rounds during the week.
- On Thursday, after Swiss play has completed, the field is cut in half based on standings and the Top 8 per region will play in a dual tournament format live on YouTube across Friday and Saturday, with the top-4 finals played out on Sunday.
- Gameplay format changes every week:
- Week 1: Conquest with 1 Ban
- Week 2: Four Deck Last Hero Standing with 1 Ban
- Week 3: Ten Deck Conquest with 6 Bans
Weeks 4 - 7: Round Robin
Weeks 4 –7 will consist of round-robin group play within the two divisions in each region—much like the previous seasons of Grandmasters.
- Following weeks 1-3, players will be sorted into two divisions based on their points standings. Division A is comprised of the top-8 point-earning players, and Division B will be point total ranks 9-16.
- The two divisions compete in round-robin group play over four weeks. The standings at the of conclusion of these weeks will determine who will go on to compete in Playoffs, and who will be relegated from Season 1.
- The format will stay consistent during round-robin weeks:
- Bo5 Conquest (4 decks, 1 ban)
Week 8: Season 1 Playoffs
Round-robin weeks lead into Week 8 Playoffs, which will qualify one player per region to the World Championship at the end of the year, while three players from each region will be relegated.
- Top 6 from Division A automatically make it into Playoffs.
- Top 4 from Division B compete in a play-in round to determine who will join the top 6 from Division A in a dual tournament bracket for Playoffs.
- The 7th- and 8th-placed players in Division B at the close of round robin are automatically relegated from Season 1 of Grandmasters.
- Final relegation will be determined via a 3-match Play-In involving the 7th- and 8th-placed from Division A, and 5th- and 6th-placed from Division B.
- The winner of Playoffs from each region will qualify to the Hearthstone World Championships later this year.
Stream Schedule
If they're keeping the schedule from last week, the stream should begin as follows:
West Coast PDT (UTC-7) | East Coast EDT (UTC-4) | Europe CEST (UTC+2) | Korea KST (UTC+9) | |
| April 24 | 2:00 | 5:00 | 11:00 | 18:00 |
| April 25 | 2:00 | 5:00 | 11:00 | 18:00 |
| April 26 | 4:00 | 7:00 | 13:00 | 20:00 |
Please note that there might be some downtime between regions depending on how the matches progress.
You can find all the matches, results, and decklists on the official tournament site.
Asia-Pacific Grandmasters
Alutemu
blitzchung
Che0nsu
DawN
Flurry
FroStee
glory
kin0531
posesi
Ryvius
SamuelTsao
Shaxy
Staz
Surrender
Tom60229
Tyler
Europe Grandmasters
BoarControl
Bozzzton
Bunnyhoppor
Casie
Felkeine
Jarla
Kolento
Pavel
Rdu
Seiko
SilverName
Swidz
Viper
Zhym
Americas Grandmasters
Eddie
Empanizado
ETC
Firebat
Fr0zen
Gallon
Justsaiyan
languagehacker
Monsanto
Muzzy
Nalguidan
PapaJason
PNC
Purple
Zalae
Watch Live
You can watch all the action on the official Hearthstone Esports Youtube channel.
Comments
I am curious as to how many of these players created their own decks. While I was playing MTG and judging, most of the time I would see pros playing decks that were created by someone else. The situation was usually the deck creators were unable/unwilling to deal with the pressure of the pro events. I'm just curious as to how much of this bleeds into other CCGs
A lot of those people train together, but there is still a pretty large diversity, especially right after nerfs hit and between regions.
e.g. NoHands Warrior was quite popular, but variations of it were very different and some people didn't bring it (or warrior at all, sometimes). DH was likewise pretty popular but some players didn't bring that either and it also differed between tempo and OTK. Zoo was pretty scarce in Europe (and carried Swidz to some insane 3-0 series) but common in Asia.
By the time the meta settles and decks are refined you usually see less diversity, but there are still some strokes of brilliance from time to time (like HunterAce's Bwonsamdi in combo priest that took a while to filter through until literally everybody was running it). I think prt of Blizzard's high rate of changes are to prevent the stalemate that usually happens a month after a new expansion launches.
I can´t be the only one who enjoys these streams, even without pack drops. While it´s true that some matches are repetitive, some of them could be very interesting and fun, at times when players make moves I would never think of or make unexpected missplays and try to recover from that. Most of all I like to cheer my favourite players and watch how they compete against others (Go Jarla! :)))
No packs no views :)
Several thousand people would disagree with you.