Masters Tour Expansion - 6 Events This Year - Changes to Grandmaster
Blizzard posted about some changes to the Masters Tour, mainly that there will be 6 events this year, up from 3. There's also going to be changes to the Grandmasters competition: Players will now play within their Region for the first few weeks, after which they get divided up into divisions, in which they play the last couple of weeks. In Week 8 there will be Playoffs where 1 player per Region will qualify for the World Championship.
Read the full details below:
Quote from BlizzardIn 2019, we had three incredible Masters Tour events in Las Vegas, Seoul, and Bucharest. Thousands of you participated in Masters Qualifiers for your chance to play in these events, and we’re excited to announce there will be even more Masters Tours to play for in the months to come…six to be precise!
Yes, we’re doubling the number of Masters Tour stops in 2020—with USD $250,000 in base prizing guaranteed for each! Like last year, a crowdfunding initiative will bolster the prize pool of the Masters Tours beyond that. These events have yielded some of the most exciting and fun moments in Hearthstone, mixing the top tier of players with the up and comers. We’ve seen consistency from relatively unknown competitors, and witnessed a few usurpers topple veteran Grandmasters on stream.
We’re excited to share that ESL/DreamHack will be the trusted vendor for Hearthstone Master Tour events next year. Here are the locations and dates for most of the Masters Tour events in 2020:
- Masters Tour #1 – Arlington, Texas – 1/31 – 2/2
- Qualifying Period: 10/3 – 11/24
- Masters Tour #2 – Bali, Indonesia – 3/20 – 3/22
- Qualifying Period: 12/12 – 1/26
- Masters Tour #3 – Jönköping, Sweden – 6/12 – 6/14
- Qualifying Period: 2/6 – 3/29
- Masters Tour #4 – TBD Asia-Pacific Location (July/August)
- Qualifying Period: 4/2– 5/24
- Masters Tour #5 – Montreal, Canada – 9/11 – 9/13
- Qualifying Period: 6/4 – 7/26
- Masters Tour #6 – Spain – (December)
- Qualifying Period: 8/6 – 9/27
Grandmasters & Relegation
Grandmasters will be back in 2020 for two more epic seasons, with the first starting in April and the second in August! It will still be eight weeks of play, but with a different structure. For the initial weeks the format will rotate and all 16 players in each of our three regions (Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific) will compete against each other, earning points based on their placements. These points will be used to determine two divisions in each region.
Subsequent weeks will consist of round-robin play within the divisions, much like the previous seasons of Grandmasters. This leads into the Week 8 Playoffs, which will qualify one player per region to the World Championship at the end of the year.
Regarding promotion and relegation—three players per region will be relegated at the end of Grandmasters 2020 Season 1, with the three top prize money earners from the first three Masters Tours of 2020 replacing them.
We hope these changes will make Hearthstone Grandmasters fun and engaging for viewers and our pros alike. We’re excited for the new year and hope to see you at an upcoming Masters Tour!
No Las Vegas stop this year :(
Could someone tell Blizzard to calm down on the "excitement" word XD?
I like that there are more relegation spots. Forces grandmasters to stay on top of their game.
Personally, I find the seiko incident disappointing.
This just make no sense, any format can be competitive, especially an official format like wild.. there should have a robust wild competitive scene even if the focus is on standard..
Yes, it make sense. Just as ARAM, URF and other game modes are not supposed to be competitives formats in League of Legends, for example. Wild, Arena and another random game mode shouldn't compete with Standard, it's just for fun.
wild is not meant to be a competitive format.
Would be fun if they gave a damn about wild too. How about some tournaments in that format? The prices can be adjusted to fit the interest (and the interest for the format will grow).
great stuff! lets go HS 2020 will be the best year
Online tournaments, like this: https://battlefy.com/hsesports/hearthstone-masters-qualifier-indonesia-8/5dd2eebb1e95f55148ebbd20/info?infoTab=details
How are the participants of the Masters Tour selected exactly ? How do you qualify ?
Online qualifiers.