The 2020 edition of the Hearthstone Grandmasters got started this weekend. 48 of the best players in the world began the eight week event with a total of $500,000 and a ticket to the World Championship on the line. The action featured a drastically overhauled format which saw players start with Swiss Rounds on Wednesday and Thursday. Players were then divided into groups and completed the Group Stages on Friday and Saturday. This led to a 4-man single elimination tournament for each region which wrapped up Sunday.
As expected, the weekend was largely dominated by the presence of Hearthstone's newest class: Demon Hunter. Almost all lineups revolved around either winning with Demon Hunter, or countering it. Warlock, Druid, Warrior, and Priest also saw high representations in the tournament Meta. With a round of nerfs already announced, it will be interesting to see how next week's Meta shapes out.
Video Recaps
Since we are posting our article close to the ending of Day 3, not all of the matches have been put onto YouTube yet, so check the official Hearthstone Esports YT Channel for the uploads later here!
- Asia-Pacific Week 1 Finals: Ryvius vs Surrender.
- Full Friday Recap, All Regions.
Results
Americas
Europe
Asia-Pacific
Road to Playoffs
You can see below how the Grand Masters is going to work for this stage and the next 2 weeks. It starts with the points being given out, where everyone that even made the weekend play will receive 3 points. We then have the graphic displaying how the Divisions and the road to the playoffs will work.
In every Region the players will be divied up according to points from the first 3 weeks. Meaning the Top 8 points players will go into Division A and the Bottom 8 points players will go to Division B. They then fight it out within their Division over the next 4 weeks before the Playoffs and Relegation matches will be played.
- First place: 6 points.
- Second place: 5 points.
- Third and Fourth place: 4 points.
- Fifth through Eighth place: 3 points.
- Ninth through Twelfth place: 2 points.
- Thirteenth through Sixteenth place: 1 points.
According to the above, it is pretty safe to say that this weekend's winners, Empanizado, BoarControl and Ryvius have made great strides towards being in their Region's Division A, with all of them getting 6 points.
Decklists
Americas
Empanizado's Americas Grandmasters Season 3 Winner Decks:
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Minion (19)
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Ability (8)
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Weapon (3)
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bloodyface's Americas Grandmasters Season 3 Runner-Up Decks:
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Minion (13) |
Ability (15)
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Weapon (2) |
Loading Collection |
Europe
BoarControl's Europe Grandmasters Season 3 Winner Decks:
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Minion (20)
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Ability (9)
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Playable Hero (1) |
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Silvername's Europe Grandmasters Season 3 Runner-Up Decks:
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Ability (29)
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Playable Hero (1) |
Loading Collection |
Asia-Pacific
Ryvius's Asia-Pacific Grandmasters Season 3 Winner Decks:
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Minion (13) |
Ability (16)
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Playable Hero (1) |
Loading Collection |
Surrender's Asia-Pacific Grandmasters Season 3 Runner-Up Decks:
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Minion (18)
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Ability (11)
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Playable Hero (1) |
Loading Collection |
Unpopular opinion: I think the switch to Youtube will take a little longer to settle in with people, but I don't think it will end up that badly for Blizz.
Broadcast today had up to around 8k viewers (I saw it at 7900 something), compared to the like 30k or so you'd see on Twitch. But that was with Twitch drops enabled. So how many people were actually watching and how many were just AFK grinding packs?
I think with more people getting used to the matches being on YT that more people will tune in. 8k viewers for a fairly meaningless first week of a tournament series doesn't seem so bad in this regard.
Does it still sound like the audio is recovered from the other side of the door in a high school bathroom?
No idea. Never had that problem myself. Audio always seemed fine.
There's a whole bunch of games already on YT fromt he past 3 days so should be easy to check if it's still the case for you.
Sorry for my bad nescience but what happened that twitch is not able to stream HS tournaments?
All esports events of any Blizzard game will be exclusively broadcasted on Youtube for this year.