The first Grandmasters season of 2021 came to its end with Playoffs last weekend. 24 players battled it out in the Wailing Caverns meta, and three regional champions were crowned. You can re-live the action with our spoiler-free post below.
Finalists' Decklists
These were the players that reached the final in each region and the decks they brought this week.
VoDs
Here are the links to individual match VoDs in spoilers below.
Day 1 - Group A Matches
———- Asia-Pacific ———-
- #1 Initial Match - glory vs Alan870806: VoD
- #2 Winners' Match - Winner of #1 vs posesi: VoD
- #3 Losers' Match - Loser of #1 vs Surrender: VoD
- #4 Decider Match - Loser of #2 vs Winner of #3: VoD
———- Europe ———-
- #1 Initial Match - Warma vs Bozzzton: VoD
- #2 Winners' Match - Winner of #1 vs Jarla: Part 1 / Part 2
- #3 Losers' Match - Loser of #1 vs Frenetic: VoD
- #4 Decider Match - Loser of #2 vs Winner of #3: VoD
———- Americas ———-
Day 2 - Group B Matches
———- Asia-Pacific ———-
- #1 Initial Match - Alutemu vs GivePLZ: VoD
- #2 Winners' Match - Winner of #1 vs blitzchung: VoD
- #3 Losers' Match - Loser of #1 vs Shaxy: VoD
- #4 Decider Match - Loser of #2 vs Winner of #3: VoD
———- Europe ———-
- #1 Initial Match - Thijs vs Viper: VoD
- #2 Winners' Match - Winner of #1 vs Rdu: VoD
- #3 Losers' Match - Loser of #1 vs xBlyzes: VoD
- #4 Decider Match - Loser of #2 vs Winner of #3: VoD
———- Americas ———-
Day 3 - Semifinals and Finals
Results
The results in full can be found here.
Discussion
Anduin lost his place at the top on the Playoffs week as Warrior surpassed Priest as the most popular class. Even more surprising was the fact that the usually rather unanimous Europe had the widest range of classes represented with only Shaman not getting picked. Meanwhile Americas brought no Hunters, Shamans, or Warlocks and just one Druid and Paladin. APAC went even further with no Hunter, Paladin, or Shaman and only one Druid, Mage, and Warlock, effectively making it a four-class tournament.
In APAC posesi completed his comeback from the early season struggles in the best possible fashion. The Japanese was second to last in point standings with mere 2 points after Week 3 but performed very strongly on the second half of the season, getting weekly tournament victories on Weeks 5 and 7 and ending up as the #1 point earner of the region. He and blitzchung were able to back up their regular season finishes by reaching the final, where posesi was able to clutch the victory after a tightly contested series.
If APAC final saw the top 2 seeds pitted against another, in Europe it was the opposite. Frenetic and xBlyzes, latter of whom barely made it to the Playoffs to begin with, were able to dig themselves out of the losers' bracket and into the grand final by beating the top seeds Jarla and Rdu in their respective semifinals. In the end, xBlyzes failed to get a win with his Rogue after leading 2-1 in the series, prompting the visibly emotional Frenchman to ragequit the deciding match when Frenetic had unavoidable lethal on board.
In Americas the Playoffs-qualified LatAm players rose to the occasion as all three were able to reach the championship Sunday. Rami94 beat Fled and Nalguidan beat muzzy to set up an all-Argentinian final. The more experienced Nalguidan was able to take the victory over his compatriot and reach the World Championship for the first time in his rather successful career. Rami94 can still keep his head high as he went from one game away from relegation in the second season of last year into one game away from a World Championship spot now.
The regional champions heading to World Championship 2021.
The esports year will continue with Masters Tour Dalaran in two weeks! Don't forget to tune in!
Comments
As I posted in YouTube chat at the time, people encouraged Gaby and cheered him on when he was showing off during the recent Masters Tour ("So refreshing to see a major competitor not act like a robot"). xBlyzes' reaction is the other side of that coin, and in my opinion, neither is healthy. Yes, they are young, but they still remain top-level athletes, and if they want to have a lasting career, they sorely need some mental/emotional coaching as soon as possible -- just like regular young athletes. Otherwise, they are liable to implode and self-destruct once they hit a streak of disappointing results.
Playoffs were crazy. I've been really impressed with Blitzchung this season (those Token Druid Specialist weeks were amazing) so I'm very happy he managed to get so far, even if he didn't manage to win it all.
Also really happy for Frenetic, going from danger of being relegated to winning it all. His lineup was just immaculate, punishing all the greed he accurately predicted the other players would bring. Gotta love it when somebody brings Face Hunter.
In America's I'm a bit sad that Rami didn't end up winning, since I really like his energy and deck choices, but props to Nalguidan. He deserves it based on that Arcane Intellect play alone. He's also been grinding at the highest level for years so I'm happy that he now gets to prove himself and represent Latin America on the big stage. Also, mark my words: there will be no NA representation at World's this year. LatAm is just too good.
All in all, a very fun tournament. Hope they learn from it for the second season (specialist still sucks), and looking forward to Dalaran.
I didn't had a high oppinion on Blyzes and it was confirmed.
Poor sportsmanship by xBlyzes. It’s one thing to do that on the ladder, but the Grandmaster Playoffs? It just makes him look like a petulant child, and disrespectful to Frenetic.
xBlyzes rage-quitting has made for quite a story on some gamer sites. It's apparently seen as quite rude as Frenetic had to wait for confirmation from the admin that he won.