The 3rd and final installment of the 2019 Hearthstone Masters Tour takes place this weekend in Bucharest, Romania. Over 300 players will battle in the 3-day event for their chance at a portion of the $500,000 purse. With an initial purse of $250,000, Blizzard doubled the winnings after community purchases of the Masters Bundle.
To earn a spot in the event players had to qualify through specially regulated Masters Tour Qualifier events, or be invited by Blizzard for prior achievements or earnings. Click here for a complete list of invited players.
With six players being relegated at the end of Season 2 of the Grandmasters, the stakes couldn't be higher. The two players from each region with the highest earnings in this year's Masters Tour events earn themselves an invitation to the 2020 Seasons of the Grandmasters.
The event takes place October 18-20 with the action kicking off each day at 11:00PM PT/2:00AM ET/6:00AM GMT/8:00AM CEST.
Twitch Drops
Twitch Drops will once again be active for the event. The format remains the same: we'll be rewarded with 1 Saviors of Uldum pack after watching for three total hours. A second pack is rewarded for reaching six total hours. Each hour Blizzard will give out 1,500 Classic packs to random viewers. As always, be sure to head over to Twitch and link your Blizzard account before watching,
Quote from Blizzard
Hearthstone is headed to Bucharest Romania for the final Masters Tour event of 2019! We know not everyone can join us in person, so we’ve got a gift for those watching from home.Tune into the Masters Tour Bucharest steam on the eligible channels listed below for three hours (consecutive or non-consecutive) during the following time frames to earn a Saviors of Uldum Card Pack. Tune in for a total of six hours and we’ll grant you another one! Finally, we’ll drop 1,500 Classic Card packs every hour on the hour, distributed to viewers at random.
Tournament Format
Each match will be played with a 4-deck, best-of-five Conquest format with a ban.
- Day 1 will consist of five rounds of Swiss pairings. Any players collecting 3 losses will be removed from the field.
- Players with at least 3 wins on the first day will advance to Day 2. This will feature four more rounds of Swiss.
- The top 8 players head to Day 3 and compete in a single elimination tournament to crown a champion.
Relegations & Top Earners
With 6 players losing their seats in the Grandmasters, contestants in Bucharest find themselves with a huge opportunity to earn a spot in Hearthstone's most exclusive league. Below are the relegated players and current top earners for each region.
Americas
- Relegations - StrifeCro & Rase
- Top Masters Tour Earners - Torph ($3,500), Empanizado ($3,000), Flamekilla ($3,000)
*Dog is actually the top earner from the Americas Region. He previously withdrew from the Grandmasters.
**Gallon is the second highest earner at $25,000. He is a current Grandmaster.
Europe
- Relegations - Orange & Fenomeno
- Top Masters Tour Earners - Felkeine ($50,000), Fhym ($25,000), Magoho ($10,000)
Asia-Pacific
- Relegations - Bloodtrail & Pathra
- Top Masters Tour Earners - Posesi ($10,000), Sooni ($7,500), Narina ($4,000)
What's Next?
The 2019 Grandmasters and Masters Tour will come to an end with the conclusion of Bucharest. The Global Finals at BlizzCon will wrap up Hearthstone's year of competitive eSports. Outside of the Global Games, the only major tournament to be announced thus far will be Masters Tour: Arlington which runs from Jan. 30 - Feb. 2.
i'm glad the ORAT did good in this tournament, maybe next year he will qualify to GM, that would be awesome
Disappointed with Hunterace, after failing to get to the finals twice in a row now failing to go over quarterfinals in a masters tour... Guess I'll have to go and root for my second-favourite player from now on, not sure who that is yet though.
is that what you call failing ???
he is the most consistent player in the world and current world champion WTF
He wanted to get to the world championship (I wanted it as well), he didn't get there = he failed to get to the finals both seasons, which is exactly what I said and I stand by it. I'm sure his 17 win streak in GM got him plenty of money, but that wasn't the ultimate goal.
I never said he isn't one of if not the best player in the world, and he's still my favourite and I'll root for him next year in GM. The fact is he won't even appear in the championship this year to defend his title and that's disappointing for me and I'm sure, him as well. Losing in the money time after getting first place in your group (or 8-1 in swiss) is a real shame.
Why Fenomeno is relegated? Wasn't he like no. 1 in first grandmaster's season? I fell like he is actually robbed.
yes, but sadly in season two we have relegation and he performed really poorly
so relegation for him
Crybois in comments are making my day.
The matches aren't even fun to watch as an RNG-fiesta, it's like watching any random legend level player stream but it lasts twice as long. If you want to learn, hey great good for you enjoy more power to you, but as entertainment these streams are extremely lacking.
To make these more entertainment friendly they have to reduce the time for action of the players. There are two ways to achieve this:
1) Reduce time for action for each turn at a fixed value - say 15% from what is the current time now
2) Make a time bank - you are given 10 seconds each turn and any time left is saved to your time bank. The faster you play first turns, the more time you will have at later turns when you have to think more.
I personally favor the second option.
I like your idea, this is why I don't watch most of the games live, I just hate when there is a super easy turn and they take 1:15 to think about killing the cards, life and everything in between. I enjoy watching they misplay because the rope is burning and the animations take too long. I would favor the second option too because even if a super long turn is created, it probably is needed as well.
The second option is inspired by how the poker clients work. Basically they won't let you "delay" the game, because they'll lose rake (money) when everyone plays slower meaning less hands per hour.
In HS however the shorter games would mean people are acquiring gold faster so this might be a problem for them and that could be a reason why we are forced with such huge turn times on ladder. Even some bots are exploiting the large time for thinking and act at the very last moment so that you quit if it's non-ranked game and re-que.