The very first Masters Tour event this year took place last weekend in Arlington, Texas. Over 250 hopeful players battled it out over three days for their share of the prize money and, perhaps more importantly, for the prospect of getting invited to Hearthstone Grandmasters.
Top 8 Decklists
These were the players that survived the nine Swiss rounds and made it to the final day.
Alan870806's Decks
AyRoK's Decks
bloodyface's Decks
brimful's Decks
Felkeine's Decks
TIZS's Decks
totosh's Decks
xBlyzes's Decks
VoDs
You can find the VoDs of the tournament games in full below. Timestamps have been provided (by HSEsports) in spoilers below the videos if you're only interested in certain matches.
Timestamps for Day 1:
- BoarControl vs woziny - Swiss Round 1 - 51:53
- myr vs Zhym - Swiss Round 1 - 2:29:16
- Hoej vs MokraniChile - Swiss Round 1 - 2:55:35
- Odemian vs Rdu - Swiss Round 1 - 3:42:22
- Firebat vs Surrender - Swiss Round 2 - 4:17:48
- Bozzzton vs Turner - Swiss Round 2 - 4:34:55
- topopablo11 vs Viper - Swiss Round 3 - 4:59:58
- NAGON vs StormFever - Swiss Round 3 - 6:30:43
- AyRoK vs Faeli - Swiss Round 4 - 6:51:54
- bloodyface vs Bozzzton - Swiss Round 4 - 8:32:37
- Bunnyhoppor vs rdu - Swiss Round 5 - 8:51:46
Timestamps for Day 2:
- bloodyface vs iGsyf - Swiss Round 6 (25:48)
- Jay vs NaySyl - Swiss Round 6 (1:26:30)
- Impact vs TIZS - Swiss Round 7 (2:14:21)
- Felkeine vs Uraharai - Swiss Round 7 (2:37:47)
- hunterace vs killinallday - Swiss Round 7 (3:53:53)
- Faeli vs Jarla - Swiss Round 7 (4:23:43)
- Eddie vs Impact - Swiss Round 8 (4:49:11)
- Felkeine vs sleepii - Swiss Round 8 (5:54:05)
- brimful vs GivePLZ - Swiss Round 8 (6:24:28)
- killinallday vs totosh - Swiss Round 9 (6:37:21)
Timestamps for Day 3:
Day 3 Matches
- Alan870806 vs bloodyface - Quarterfinals (23:54)
- brimful vs xBlyzes - Quarterfinals (2:07:11)
- AyRoK vs totosh - Quarterfinals (3:35:20)
- Felkeine vs TIZS - Quarterfinals (5:31:53)
- Winner of QF1 vs Winner of QF2 - Semifinals (6:32:23)
- Winner of OF3 vs Winner of QF4 - Semifinals (8:16:38)
- Winner of SF1 vs Winner of SF2 - Finals (9:15:35)
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
The first tournament after the release of Descent of Dragons has now concluded, so let's look at the stats to see how the classes fared based on Battlefy's stats. Druid was a popular pick for the tournament due to its prominence in the ladder but it performed horribly, tying for the last place with Priest with a overall 45% winrate. In stark contrast, the ladder struggles of Mage were nowhere to be seen as the class had the strongest overall performance with Rogue, ending at 54% winrate. The top two had only one class each against which their winrate dropped below 50% (Hunter and Mage, respectively).
This was also the first tournament after Blizzard switched all their esports to be streamed on Youtube. Although I don't have any solid numbers to give, it's safe to say it wasn't a massive success based on the number of viewers (which usually sailed between 3000-4500 whenever I was watching). It remains to be seen whether people will find the stream better in time or will Blizzard only have their Google money to comfort for the loss of interest in esports. As a coincidence, this was also the Masters Tour with least participants so far, with "only" 258 registered players.
I'll put the result based discussion in spoiler in case someone wants to see the games first.
The esports year has just begun. The next stop: Bali, Indonesia.
Comments
I think it's fair to say that this shows once again how important a healthy local comptetitive esports scene is. There are tons of French LAN tournaments, which also manage to get pretty high viewership. The only other country with a comparable Hearthstone esports scene is China, which showed during the Global Finals, where the Chinese players wiped the floor with most other competitors.
The thriving local scene also helps cultivate a huge French fanbase, which allows for more sponsorship money for the players, relieving them of the need for another job on the side, giving them more time to practice. If nothing will change from Blizzard's side in how they facilitate local competitive Hearthstone leagues and events, expect the French dominance to continue.
Masters Tour has begun? I didn't know that since I haven't seen it on twitch lol
Its exclusive on youtube now, presumably for that sweet google cash
That's the joke.