Grandmasters 2020 continued with Week 2 last weekend. The field was again cut in half during Wednesday's and Thursday's off-stream Swiss rounds, and the remaining 24 players entered the weekend hoping to secure some much needed points for the second phase of the new Grandmasters system. As a test to the players' versatility, the format was changed from the usual Conquest to Last Hero Standing. You can re-live the action with our spoiler-free post below.
Top 2 Decklists
These were the players that made it into the Final in each region, respectively. Due to the nature of Last Hero Standing, some of the decklists may be heavily teched towards certain matchups.
VoDs
Here are the VoDs from the three days of competition Blizzard wanted you to see (i.e. excluding the Swiss portion, see tournament format). Timestamps have been provided in a spoiler below the video if you're only interested in certain matches.
Day 1: (Video not available at the time of writing, check spoiler for links to individual videos)
——— Asia-Pacific ———
——— Europe ———
——— Americas ———
Day 2: (Video not available at the time of writing, check spoiler for links to individual videos)
——— Asia-Pacific ———
——— Europe ———
——— Americas ———
Day 3:
Results
The results in full, including the preceding Swiss rounds, can be found here.
Group A
Group B
Top 4
Group A
Group B
Top 4
Group A
Group B
Top 4
Discussion
As a reminder what's on stake here, the players are getting points for their performance during the first three weeks as follows:
- First place: 6 points.
- Second place: 5 points.
- Third and Fourth place: 4 points.
- Fifth through Eighth place: 3 points.
- Ninth through Twelfth place: 2 points.
- Thirteenth through Sixteenth place: 1 point.
At the end of the three week period, players will be divided into two divisions based on their points tally. The players can still reach the playoffs from both divisions as well as get relegated from both, but Division A has got some massive benefits for both prospects compared to Division B, so the points do matter. You can find the current point standings here.
The change in format toned down the popularity of Demon Hunters a bit, but they were still near the top with 20 out of 24 players picking it. The runaway top 3 picks were Rogue (21), Demon Hunter (20) and Warrior (19), the first of which got a huge increase in popularity (only 6 last week) while Druid and Warlock faltered. Nobody was playing Paladin this week either, but at least Uther got company from Thrall as this week's absentees.
The switch from Conquest to Last Hero Standing also changed the fortunes of the players. From last week's respective top 4s, only one from each region made it further than the mid-week Swiss rounds, and only one altogether was able to replicate their top 4 success (Surrender in APAC). This meant that the point standings for each region evened up quite a bit. In Asia-Pacific, Surrender's back-to-back Final berths meant that he already booked his place on Division A, but the other spots are very much up for grabs. In Europe, nobody can breath freely just yet with only 6 points separating the points leaders from 16th place. And if you thought that sounds close, the opposite ends of the table in Americas are only separated by 5 points. The stakes for next week's matches are truly high.
Grandmasters will continue next week and Conquest will return - with a 10-deck format with 6 bans! Will Paladin finally see play? Don't forget to tune in!
Comments
After 5 Years of HS i have finally discovered my interest in the competitive scene!
But time is short and i can’t possibly watch all of it ..
Any recommendations for some noteworthy games? I value high level over entertainment here!
Preferably EU>US>AP
The ap finals was really good with surrender
Lnguagehackr never cease to amaze me - best of luck for next week
How does one get to the level where they can compete in this?
I think the only way into grandmasters right now is winning the masters tour, which only high legend players (top 10 or 15) are eligible to compete.
You can also qualify for the Masters tour via open cup qualifiers.
I think you still need to get to top 8 (five times) instead of 16 but otherwise correct. That gets you a place at Masters Tour, and performing well there could get you a spot at Grandmasters. Winning Masters Tour pretty much guarantees a spot, but you don't necessarily have to win to qualify, especially in the new system where there are 3 relegations from each region every season. Be a top 3 prize money earner from these tours and the spot is yours.