The final Masters Tour event this year took place last weekend with over 300 players battling it out in an online tournament. In addition to a share of the prize money, the enticing prospect of getting invited to Hearthstone Grandmasters was on the line. You can re-live the action with our spoiler-free post below.
Top 8 Decklists
These were the players that survived the nine Swiss rounds and made it to the final day.
VoD
You can find the VoDs of the three days of competition below.
Day 1:
Day 2:
Day 3:
Results
You can find out how the Top 8 single-elimination bracket played out within the spoiler below. The preceding Swiss results can be found here in full.
Recap
Following the Mage nerfs less than 24 hours before the tournament started, Demon Hunter and Priest rose to the most popular picks of this Masters Tour and backed up their support by finishing as the top 2 winrate classes as well according to Battlefy's stats. Mage and Warrior also continued to be a common sight, but their winrates ended up below 50%. Druid's winrate, a mere 45%, seems to suggest that the class flopped hard, but the number can partially be explained by the relatively high portion of anti-Bomb Warrior Heal Druids in the tournament, which causes unusually bad matchups against a lot of other meta decks. Warlock and Shaman were not in the players' favor, and their winrates seem to suggest that the mistrust was justified.
GivePLZ was already vying for a GM spot before the tournament thanks to his consistent results from all Masters Tours this year, but he left nothing to chance as he finally reached the top 8 of a tournament and secured his well-deserved spot. While lambyseries was also able to hold on to his GM spot thanks to his semifinal appearance in Montreal, XiaoDai's quarterfinal finish from the same tournament was not enough for another Taiwanese promotion as Hi3's better record throughout the year guaranteed him the third spot just by reaching the top 8.
Thanks to the Europeans' previous performances (and Blizzard's weird promotion rules), the Grandmasters spots were not easily achievable in Europe, requiring nothing but winning the whole tournament from most players. Out of the four Europeans that reached the final day, only Gaby and J4YOU had the mathematical chance of reaching Frenetic, who was holding on to the third place in earnings. Both players ended up reaching the semifinals but to Frenetic's relief, were eliminated by XC and Alutemu, respectively, granting the Spaniard the third spot.
Americas had the most anti-climactic ending of all regions. The region had the most easily achievable Grandmasters spots going into this tournament due to having more open spots following ETC's retirement, and the lack of previous results from non-GM players. In the end, no Americas players were able to reach the top 8, nor could anyone already near the top finish high enough to overtake the frontrunners, leaving the pre-tournament leaders claiming the vacant spots.
The esports year concludes with World Championship in December. Don't forget to tune in!
Comments
Earnings reset each year right? (not carry over?)
For example, Alutemu would lose his 48700 points next year?
I don't think Blizzard has confirmed it yet but that's what I expect. If anything, they might use the earnings of the latest three Masters Tours for the first Season's promotion.
This makes sense.
I also think they should reset your point total once you get promoted. For example, Warma used the same earnings (mostly from Jönköping) to get promoted twice in the same year. Seems unfair to DeadDraw.
Couldn't agree more. It's unbelievable how many times DeadDraw has gotten so close but not quite there due to Blizzard's rules.
Gaby seems like an insane kid, first tournament appearance ever and getting to the semi-final. I personally haven't even heard of him before, but it seems casters were hyped about him because of his so many rank 1 Legend finishes (at least once on 2 servers simultaneously) in the previous months.
He's one I'd love to (and seems like will) see in GM sometime in the future.
EDIT: Yes, I stand corrected, obviously me not being aware he existed doesn't actually mean he made no appearance in previous tournaments.
Not really first appearance at least according to d0nkey, he seems to have taken part to all the 2020 tournaments from Arlington onwards, getting a swiss record of 7 wins in Indonesia and Asia-Pacific and 6 in Montreal and below 5 in Arlington and Jokoping.
Huh, I wasn't aware. Thanks.
Sottle said he wasn't on previous tournaments because he was too young to be shown on stream, I just figured that means he made no appearance either. Also, have watched previous masters tournaments and haven't seen him play. Certainly will keep an eye out from now on, though.
I am fairly sure he’s been in the other masters tour events this year- this is just his first top 8 finish if I recall correctly