Blizzard has announced details on this year's Hearthstone Grandmasters events! Let's jump in!
Quote From Blizzard We’re excited to share details on the next two seasons of Hearthstone Grandmasters! Ahead of Season 1, we’ve made a few changes to the overall format and to the path to qualify for the 2021 World Championship. For the first seven weeks of each season, players will compete in individual Weekly Dual Tournaments (details below) to earn points based on total wins. Following the conclusion of Week 7, players will be ranked based on their total-points-earned to determine if they will advance to the Playoffs, survive to the next season, or be relegated out of Grandmasters. Be sure to catch the start of Season 1, only on YouTube, starting on April 9!
Weeks 1-7: Weekly Dual Tournaments
During weeks 1-7, players will compete in a Weekly Dual Tournament format, starting each Thursday, to earn placement in the weekend Top 8 Stage. Players will receive points based on total number of wins each week, which will determine final standings before Playoffs.
- All 16 players in each region will compete against each other off-broadcast in Dual Tournament Group play on Thursday.
- On Friday, the 4 Decider Matches will be played to determine who joins the Top 8 per region, live on YouTube.
- The Top 8 players compete in a single elimination tournament on Saturday, with the Top 4 advancing to Sunday.
- Gameplay format changes every other week:
- Week 1: Conquest
- Week 2: Conquest
- Week 3: Specialist
- Week 4: Specialist
- Week 5: Last Hero Standing
- Week 6: Last Hero Standing
- Week 7: Conquest
Week 8: Playoffs
The Dual Tournaments lead into Week 8 Playoffs, which will qualify one player per region to receive an invite to the World Championship at the end of the year, while four players from each region will be relegated.
- Top 8 players advance to Playoffs.
- Players 9 – 12 are safe from Relegation but are finished with tournament play for the season.
- Bottom 4 players in each region are automatically Relegated.
- The winner of Playoffs from each region are given a chance to compete in the 2021 World Championship. Season 1 champions retain their invites to the World Championship if they are not Relegated in Season 2. Relegated Champions have their invites passed down to the next eligible player, in their region, from Season 1.
Ahead of Season 2, the four open slots per region will be filled by the top points earners from the 2021 Masters Tours. You can follow along with the top players on the new Road to Grandmasters page. Players hoping to earn a spot in Grandmasters and their shot at the World Championship can register for Masters Tour Ironforge Qualifiers on Battlefy. Good luck, have fun, and we’ll see you in the Tavern!
Comments
The fact that Season 1 winners are no longer automatically qualified for Worlds is huge. We saw it twice already, with Feno and SilverName. Especially in Europe, where the skill difference between top GMs and bottom GMs is much smaller, there is a very real chance of a rightful winner in S1 getting screwed over by bad luck in S2, especially now that there's even more of a focus on formats other than Conquest in the first weeks. Can you imagine the salt if another top-tier player like Hunterace or Feno gets relegated because they performed poorly in the specialist weeks, especially if it costs them their Worlds spot? Then again, the main reason SilverName ended up qualifying for Worlds was his performance in the Shamadin meme week. Also, haven't we learned our lesson with Specialist? They better nerf control priest and control warrior into the ground before those weeks cause I ain't watching Armor Up Pass Lesser Heal Pass games that last 45 minutes each.
This at least makes it easier on the production crew and hopefully the players. Would hate to see another situation similar to what happened to Firebat last year where he was playing late and slept through his checkin time bc they were ahead of where they had been compared to previous weeks.
No drops? No interest at all..
They are still pushing specialist? Well lets hope there is no some super control sleeper deck at the top in the new meta...