The third 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.
Blizzard is seeking feedback from the event so if you have time, you can answer their survey here.
Top 8 Decklists
These decks carried their eight respective pilots to the final day.
Gaby's Decks
HSKeDaiBiao's Decks
Leaoh's Decks
okasinnsuke's Decks
OmegaZero's Decks
reqvam's Decks
ShuiMoo's Decks
SuperFake's Decks
VoD
You can find the VoDs of the three days of competition below.
Day 1:
- killinallday vs CaelesLuna - Swiss Round 1 (VoD)
- tom60229 vs DimitriKazov - Swiss Round 1 (VoD)
- Viper vs Maverick - Swiss Round 2 (VoD)
- Rdu vs Hi3 - Swiss Round 2 (VoD)
- Kranich vs languagehacker - Swiss Round 3 (VoD)
- Swiss Round 3 (VoD)
- Alutemu vs Leaoh - Swiss Round 4 (VoD)
- BabyBear vs Syf - Swiss Round 4 (VoD)
- cagnetta vs Briarthorn - Swiss Round 5 (VoD)
Day 2:
- Jay vs Impact - Swiss Round 6 (VoD)
- grr vs Dizdemon - Swiss Round 6 (VoD)
- OmegaZero vs okasinnsuke - Swiss Round 7 (VoD)
- Monsanto vs ShuiMoo - Swiss Round 7 (VoD)
- Gaby vs LeandroLeal - Swiss Round 8 (VoD)
- Pascoa vs Bunnyhoppor - Swiss Round 8 (VoD)
- DeadDraw vs BabyBear - Swiss Round 9 (VoD)
- Swiss Round 9 (VoD)
- SuperFake vs hirosueryouko - 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
No major changes in tournament strategy as Priest continued to reign as the most popular pick (as well as ban target). Warrior was not far behind and Demon Hunter, Rogue, and Druid rounded up the runaway top 5 classes. Shaman saw both action and success this weekend as the 40-ish players bringing it piloted Thrall to a clear victory in Battlefy's stats with 56% winrate. The top 2 picks also justified their status with 50+% winrates whereas Mage and Warlock faltered to 47%, latter seeing almost no play as well. Paladin was the least popular class in the tournament and its bafflingly atrocious 32% winrate would suggest that omitting Uther was the right move for any successful lineup.
The Chinese were once again performing well and taking the valuable promotion points from many GM hopefuls half of the top 8 was Chinese. Three of them made it to top 4 as well before setting up an all-Chinese final, with ShuiMoo taking home the victory over OmegaZero.
Let's get to promotion talk then. In APAC, trahison's points lead was easily enough to get him into Grandmasters even if Dalaran's result wasn't something he'd be particularly proud of. The relegated lambyseries was also able to stay at a repromotion spot, whereas Hi3 wasn't as okasinnsuke's second top 8 this year meant that Japan would get two new players in the elite competition. The Koreans Flurry and grr are tied in points for the fourth spot but grr should get it if higher Swiss finish makes the difference (he's also ranked higher in Blizzard's graphics).
Three of the promoted players in APAC.
In Europe, Gaby evidently missed the memo of having secured his spot by winning last time out in Orgrimmar, and was at it again in Dalaran with a top 8 finish. Another player that made his (re-)promotion certain was Bunnyhoppor, who potentially-but-not-necessarily needed points to get back into GM and did it with style by finishing first in Swiss with a 8-1 record (although as it happened, he wouldn't have needed the extra points). Despite other Europeans reaching top 8, their lack of previous results meant that they could not catch Floki or J4YOU in points even by winning the tournament, and the point leaders before Dalaran all ended up getting promoted.
The promoted players in Europe.
If APAC had to settle the last spot by tiebreakers then boy oh boy, Americas sure did it as well as once again Americas failed to get a single player in top 8. CaelesLuna and McBanterFace's respective 8-1 finishes in Ironforge Swiss were enough to get them promoted, while the other two spots were a proper tiebreaker fiesta (14 players at 7 points). The Brazilian Pascoa was agonizingly close of breaking the deadlock but his back-to-back 3-2 losses in the final two rounds of Swiss kept him away from extra points that would've promoted him instantly. LeandroLeal, his compatriot who beat him on the final round to reach top 16, also fell on the final hurdle, leaving it all to tiebreakers. If Blizzard's graphics are correct, Eggowaffle and DimitriKazov would be the promoted players, and at least the former has tweeted about becoming a GM.
Next up in the esports year is the second Season of Hearthstone Grandmasters starting in July. Don't forget to tune in!
Comments
Arguably the best part of the broadcast - chill Dalaran music and virtual shots of the city during the intermissions (I'm not nostalgic, you are nostalgic!). Also throwing in that Rise of Shadows cinematic in there was a small stroke of genius, got to honor the theme.
I have yet to watch many hours of Day 2 and 3, so it will probably be nigh impossible to dodge all spoilers, but definitely enjoying all the casting as I follow the matches - even more than I thought I would. Always good to have Sottle and Jia around, and TJ seemed to be back in solid form.
Has something happened to TJ? Far as I know this was not a good year for him; every time he casts it seems so awkward its unbelievable I'm looking at the same person from years back.
I think he's just really suffering under the purely remote format, quite different from casting at a caster desk. However I've always found him to be one of the weaker casters, it's just more clear when you put him next to actually very good casters like Jia, Darroch and Sottle.
I wouldn't exactly say he's one of the weaker casters, just so happen that his performance this year has been shit, in fact it might have began exactly when the lockdown started.
He used to be fairly good with the play by play, and tends to crack jokes and laughs every now and then. But for some reason he hasn't been doing that, even when he's casting with guys he has chemistry with, like Sottle and Frodan. Not sure what the hell happened to the man, but he's incredibly awkward nowadays.
I don't know if it was anything personal or professional on his side, but yeah, exactly - seemed like a shadow of former self. Looks like I'm not the only one who had noticed and got that impression. This was the first time this year I felt we got closer to ol' good, relaxed, witty TJ. Back when he was soaring with Frodan (who is also not the same, far less invested in HS and having a lot of slips, technical or otherwise) and Admirable.
The only thing I do know for sure is that TJ used to be a crucial part of that Blizzard Esports team and in-house production they've since dissolved, giving over everything to ESL. As he did tweet about it back in the day. So maybe that did cause some lasting bitterness and discouragement.