The 2020 edition of the Hearthstone Grandmasters went into its third week 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.
This weekend saw a different format than last week: Conquest with 10 decks and 6 bans. The way it works is that both players bring 10 decks, and both players ban 6 decks of their opponent. They then choose to play a deck of the remaining decks to play with and every time they win with a deck it gets eliminated. Once either players loses with 3 decks, they lose the match. It's a format where obviously the strongest decks all get banned, which leaves the perceived weaker decks in the meta to fight for who is best. It lead to a lot of Shaman and Paladin this week!
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 2 Finals: glory vs Posesi.
- Europe Week 2 Finals: Swidz vs Bunnyhoppor.
- Americas Week 2 Finals: Nalguidan vs Monsanto
- Full Sunday 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 first 3 weeks in general. 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.
The results of this week has lead the following players to make it to the "winners" group A of their respective Regions:
Americas
- Gallon
- Eddie
- bloodyface
- justsaiyan
- Nalguidan
- lnguagehackr
- Monsanto
- Empanizado
Europe
- Swidz
- Bunnyhoppor
- Jarla
- Silvername
- Boarcontrol
- Hunterace
- Felkeine
- Seiko
Asia-Pacific
- glory
- Surrender
- kin0531
- posesi
- Flurry
- Ryvius
- Alutemu
- che0nsu
Decklists
Americas
Nalguidan's Americas Grandmasters Season 3 Winner Decks:
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Minion (25)
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Ability (3)
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Weapon (2) |
| Loading Collection | ||
Monsanto's Americas Grandmasters Season 3 Runner-Up Decks:
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Minion (21)
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Ability (6)
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Weapon (2) | Playable Hero (1) |
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Europe
Swidz's Europe Grandmasters Season 3 Winner Decks:
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Minion (22)
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Ability (6)
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Weapon (2)
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| Loading Collection | ||
Bunnyhoppor's Europe Grandmasters Season 3 Runner-Up Decks:
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| Minion (2) |
Ability (28)
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| Loading Collection | |
Asia-Pacific
glory's Asia-Pacific Grandmasters Season 3 Winner Decks:
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Minion (16)
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Ability (12)
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Weapon (2) |
| Loading Collection | ||
Posesi's Asia-Pacific Grandmasters Season 3 Runner-Up Decks:
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Minion (17)
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Ability (12)
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Playable Hero (1) |
| Loading Collection | ||
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Posted May 9, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)And there it is:
Paladin 6
Mage 3
Shaman 6
Druid 6
Hunter 3
Warrior, Rogue, Priest, Demon Hunter, Warlock, all no representation.
So is this telling us that the rest of the classes are broken and got banned
or
that they aren’t up to par and can’t compete.
It’s a positive note that 50% of the classes made it in, but the fact that 3 of them were chosen by every player shows a disparity.
Diversity is either a problem or it's not viable as shown here.
However, these tournaments shape the meta I've seen this happen since the first deck-list for physical CCG's were posted.
So BLIZZARD is this a blatant enough view for you to see how the meta can be addressed for non-tournament play?
And for the player base, now you know what to look for on ladder. Build accordingly.
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Posted May 5, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)Decent chance a former champion could be relegated. Firebat, Tom60229, and Pavel all in Division B.
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Posted May 5, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)Yeah, because if you were playing for a $500,000 prize pool, you'd go for a creative meme deck...
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Posted May 5, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)Japanese HS PogChamp
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Posted May 4, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)Help me out here. I'm looking at Grandmasters divisions A and B, and it seems it's better to be the first seed in B than the last seed in A? Place 7-8 in group A will go to relegation, while place 1 in group B will go to playoffs. So whoever just ended place 9 ('best of the rest') might be better of than those who ended in place 8? It's really confusing me...
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Posted May 5, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)They will play the 7 other players in their own division the next 3 weeks. Seeds don't really matter if you play everyone. There is no auto relegation in Division A. The worst 2 in division A after 3 weeks will have to play a relegation playoff to stay in Grandmasters with players from Division B. So basically 3 get relegated 7-8th place division B and one more from a playoff. So Division B could have 2 or 3 players relegated. Division A can have 0 to 1 players relegated.
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Posted May 4, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)Can we ban the Asia server and have them host their own grandmasters separate?
No one wants to see that and we shouldn’t be allowing them to participate. Especially the Chinese with the pandemic and countless human rights violations. If they had their way there would be no tournaments at all or even video games for that matter. Any way that we can push them out I support
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Posted May 4, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)I agree. But on the other hand we have the US with their ongoing and countless human rights violations since 1980 (and earlier) still on board.... So we should kick both.
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Posted May 4, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)Yeah, I'm going to build one of those decks and crush the ladder with it. If Grandmasters play such decks, they must be good.
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Posted May 4, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)Hm... Swidz's "Highlander Hunter" looks suspiciously like a Warlock..
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Posted May 3, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)Great work on this post heaps of deck lists...
but realistically these decks don't exist cuz the power level is pure trash and the Demon hunter is 1/3 of all crap on ladder it's like a mini meta of
WHAT WOULD THIS LOOK LIKE IF DH was NEVER RELEASED. it's basically trash good post not directed at U but it's just stating the facts that with 10 decks 6 bans and all DH decks all banned it's pretty obvious
no don't come back with me with the oh u can build around DH
Cuz the moment u queue and build counter decks to DH U"RE already admitting that's a problem so it already is see the logic of using your brain there?
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Posted May 3, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)Yeah some of these decks are kinda useless if your goal is to be very successful on ladder and play the absolute best deck.
But for people who enjoy a particular class or who want to play something else than constant DH and Rogue, this is basically a look at what is somewhat the best set up for Shaman and Paladin.
It was also a fun look to see what the top level pros do with these decks, what choices they make and how they approach their games with these classes.
It's kind of like watching a formula 1 driver** take your granny's old Ford Fiesta*** into a race and seeing just what can be done with them. It's not ideal from a best of the best perspective, but it's fun to watch and kind of educational.
Translations for our American readers:
**Nascar Driver
***Ford Ecosport
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Posted May 4, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)In our case, one driver takes a Ford Fiesta to a formula 1 race, loses terribly and then proceeds to open a salt thread about how formulas are unbalanced and should be banned.
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Posted May 3, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)5 same decks, no innovation, boring af