The Hearthstone esports year 2021 kicks off with the first Masters Tour event taking place online in "Ironforge". Over 400 players from all regions will compete for their share of the glory, $250,000 prize pool, and the prospect of getting an invitation to Hearthstone Grandmasters. You can find everything you need to know below.
Tournament Format
The Masters Tour format from last year has mostly stayed intact, apart from the top 8 portion becoming top 16.
- All games are played as Best-of-5 Conquest.
- 4 decks with 1 ban.
- A total of 9 Swiss rounds, with Top 16 advancing to single elimination.
- Day 1: 5 rounds of Swiss, players with 3 or more wins advancing to day 2.
- Day 2: The remaining 4 rounds of Swiss and the first round of the top 16 single elimination bracket.
- Day 3: Top 8 single elimination bracket.
Notable Attendees
All Grandmasters have been invited to the event but we will have their images up on our weekly posts when Season 1 begins, so it's time for others to have the limelight! The full list of invited players can be found here.
Crane333
DeadDraw
Faeli
Gaby
Hoej
Jambre
Leaoh
Liooon
Orange
Rase
Staz
Syf
Tansoku
Tincho
Turna
XiaoT
Stream Schedule
In case your timezone isn't listed below, check out the sidebar on the official tournament site. It should display the schedule in your local time.
West Coast PST (UTC-8) | East Coast EST (UTC-5) | Europe CET (UTC+1) | Korea KST (UTC+9) | |
| March 12 | 9:00 | 12:00 | 18:00 | 2:00 (March 13) |
| March 13 | 9:00 | 12:00 | 18:00 | 2:00 (March 14) |
| March 14 | 9:00 | 12:00 | 17:00 | 1:00 (March 15) |
Stream
This tournament will be streamed in Hearthstone Esports Youtube channel, as accustomed.
Comments
For once they actually pinned the brackets in Youtube chat. The technology is there!
Thanks for highlighting Faeli, FrostyFeet. I rarely scan through the life-long list of players. I wasn´t sure I wanted to watch, but I always root for this man, so now I´m all in :)
Are there any drops or packs or any freebies for us? If not, what is the interest in this then?
Quality commentary, hopefully some quality gameplay. You can actually learn something about playing certain matchups to help you do better in your own games.
Are we talking about the same game? About Hearthstone? A game based on pure randomness where the important thing is the luck you can have on each moment...
Seriously, there is ZERO interest in seeing a group of people tossing coins in the air just to see who will be the winner of randomness, the one who will be rewarded by such remarkable achievement.
I'm sorry for those who have nothing better to do in their lives.
If you believe it is all about luck and only luck, I would recommend trying your luck at any of the free tournaments that allow qualifying to such events. It's not a bad chunk of money when it's this simple. You might then change your mind after several tries, and consider there might be a little more to it. If some people always manage to get through, they are either doing something right, or are the most luckiest bastards on earth.
Luck is often too important in HS, I don't disagree with that. Not every decision will matter because of it. But that's still far different from tossing coins, you can't quite come up with any decent strategy for the latter.
Technically there shouldn't be much interest in streamers throwing their darts with the random luck game, and yet here we are. Similarly some just enjoy following the competitive scene, even if it's poorly supported and marketed by Blizzard. Maybe you don't, or maybe you haven't tried to give it much of a chance. For me the casters actually add a lot.
I guess no drop since it's on YouTube?
I can't remember Masters Tour ever having drops. Only Seasonal Championships in the past had them, and World Championships continue to have them to this day.
wouldn't it be great to promote every tournament with drops? You get more views nonetheless. No downside at all.
Finally a master tour, its been a while hasn't it.
Jambre and Deaddraw don't even look like those pictures after the CoVid hair growth.