The second Masters Tour event this year took place last weekend with almost 400 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 decks carried their eight respective pilots to the final day.
VoD
You can find the VoDs of the three days of competition below.
Day 1:
- Syf vs blitzchung - Swiss Round 1 (VoD)
- lunaloveee vs Thund3r - Swiss Round 1 (VoD)
- Gaby vs McBanterFace - Swiss Round 2 (VoD)
- Swiss Round 2 (VoD)
- Joaquin vs Viper - Swiss Round 3 (VoD)
- Taesang vs Kranich - Swiss Round 3 (VoD)
- DeadDraw vs Hi3 - Swiss Round 4 (VoD)
- Swiss Round 4 (VoD)
- BabyBear vs Zhym - Swiss Round 5 (VoD)
Day 2:
- Rase vs CaelesLuna - Swiss Round 6 (VoD)
- FiveKSBoat vs Zyrios - Swiss Round 6 (VoD)
- glory vs tholwmenos - Swiss Round 7 (VoD)
- Enrico vs HoHandsGamer - Swiss Round 7 (VoD)
- TrueBee vs xBlyzes - Swiss Round 8 (VoD)
- Swiss Round 8 (VoD)
- Che0nsu vs VirtuozZ - Swiss Round 9 (VoD)
- Swiss Round 9 (VoD)
- Frenetic vs Gaby - Round of 16 (VoD)
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
Priest was the most brought class of the tournament but it was also a common ban target, as it ended up 6th on Battlefy's games played data. Mage and Warrior were also popular and repaid the faith by 52% winrates, whereas the fourth popular kid Valeera was left just under 50%. Out of the rest of the classes, only Druid was able to break that magical threshold with 52% winrate. Anduin and his nemesis Gul'dan were left last with 47% each.
While the event offered bunch of valuable points for those striving to get into Grandmasters, it was the current players of the elite competition who took three of the top 8 spots, backed up by Frenetic reaching top 16. The Chinese also had another strong performance with a similar three-man representation in top 8, with a handful of their compatriots finishing in top 16 or with 7-2 Swiss record.
That left only two players to whom the points gained from top 8 finish actually mattered. Floki, who had no major results before his top 8 finish in Ironforge, was at it again in Orgrimmar and already grabbed onto a GM spot with one hand in the infamously hard-to-qualify Europe. The ladder god Gaby's victory meant that he is topping the Europe list, and has basically guaranteed a place in Grandmasters for next season. J4YOU and Turna are the next two in line vying for a spot but potential relegation of some current GMs could still shake things up (especially if Blizzard kept their questionable "no points reset upon promotion" rule).
In APAC, even relegations seem unlikely to stop trahison from earning yet another GM spot for the Japanese. Flurry, who got relegated last season, could also be in line for a fast return. He would become the first player that has gotten relegated and returned to the elite competition after being away for at least one season. Americas is being Americas again. As it stands, reaching 8-1 in Swiss would be enough to earn a spot. At least Monsanto doesn't have to feel under pressure in Grandmasters as he has an excellent safety net, and if justsaiyan has gotten bored in his esports retirement he could still choose to return and get insta-promoted. The stakes will be high at Dalaran in mid-June for all regions.
| Europe | Points | APAC | Points | Americas | Points |
| Gaby | 44 | Alutemu* | 39 | Monsanto* | 26 |
| Frenetic* | 30 | trahison | 30 | DreadEye* | 16 |
| Floki | 28 | lambyseries* | 23 | justsaiyan | 12 |
| J4YOU | 24 | GivePLZ* | 19 | CaelesLuna | 8 |
| Leta* | 23 | Che0nsu* | 14 | McBanterFace | 8 |
| Bunnyhoppor* | 23 | glory* | 14 | 14 players | 7 |
| xBlyzes* | 23 | Flurry | 14 | ||
| Turna | 22 | XiaoDai | 12 | ||
| cagnetta99 | 20 | Hi3* | 11 | ||
| 3 players | 19 | okasinnsuke | 11 |
Grandmasters promotion standings (*Current Grandmaster)
You can follow the Race to Grandmasters on Blizzard's official esports page (not yet updated with Orgrimmar OR Ironforge results at the time of writing). For full and up-to-date data, visit d0nkey.top.
Hearthstone Grandmasters continues next week with another round of Specialist. Don't forget to tune in!
Comments
This was a great Masters Tour to watch. Extremely happy to see Floki do so well again, and great to see Gaby get his well-deserved GM spot.
Hard to watch all these Mage games. Literally RNG clown fiesta. Deck of Lunacy needs to just be deleted from the game, even if just for the sake of tournaments.
Quite interesting (not to mention entertaining) seeing all the expressions and reactions from Gaby, in contrast to all the robots participating in MT
1) I wouldn't call any established Hearthstone competitor a robot by any stretch; at the very least, they react when they do a mistake or get pushed back by an unlikely outcome. Just think of Viper, Hunterace, Muzzy, etc.
2) There's a reason top competitors (whether in video games, poker, or Olympic sports) don't tend to be effusive: it's a trait that can be exploited by your opponents to cloud your judgment and cause you to make mistakes. If Gaby's parents or team sponsor are smart, they'll get him some coaching to control his outbursts and develop healthy mental habits. Otherwise, he might flame out -- even become depressed or worse -- once his winning streak is over.
Oh so that's why there's a poker face for most hearthstone professionals, makes sense now
Thanks for this! Quick note, under the recap section, the APAC and Europe column headers should be switched :)
I actually meant to do the regions in that order but apparently I had Europe stats open first and just started writing them there :D Switching headers is definitely easier now.