Season Two of this year's Grandmasters starts tomorrow. The tournament features the same format as last season, which we've recapped below. 48 players will compete -- including 10 brand new Grandmasters -- for a total of eight weeks. Prizing for the Season includes $500,000 and of course the right to compete at this year's Hearthstone World Championship!
- Venue: Online
- Broadcast: Hearthstone Esports YouTube Channel
- Stream Times: Broadcasts begin at 2AM PT/5AM ET/11AM CEST w/ the Asia-Pacific Region, followed by the EU Region and closed by the Americas Region
- Dates: Friday, Saturday, Sunday - August 14th - September 6 and September 18 – October 11, 2020. The break is for the Masters Tour Online: Montreal Tournament.
- Casters:
- Asia-Pacific: Jia “Jia” Dee and Darroch “Darroch” Brown
- Europe: Simon “Sottle” Welch and Alex “Raven” Baguley
- Americas: Dan "Frodan" Chou and TJ "Azumo" Sanders
- Prize Pool: $500,000 USD
Format Changes
As we previously mentioned, the 2020 Grandmasters features the same format as last season. The first three weeks will be made up of Swiss Rounds. The last 4 weeks will be Round Robin. We've broke down the entire Season below.
Weeks 1-3: Swiss/Group Stages
- Each Region will compete in several rounds of Swiss off stream earlier in the week.
- The Top 8 finishers from each Region will play in a dual tournament format Friday-Saturday, with the Top-4 being played Sunday.
- Format changes each week:
- Wk. 1: 7 Rounds of Swiss, Conquest w/ 1 Ban
- Wk. 2: 7 Rounds of Swiss, Four Deck Last Hero Standing w/ 1 Ban
- Wk. 3: 9 Rounds of Swiss, Bo3 Specialist
Week 4-7: Round Robin
- After the first three weeks, players will be split into two divisions per Region based on point accumulations. Division A will consist of the Top 8, while Division B will consist of 9-16.
- The two divisions will compete in Round Robin style play over the four weeks. Standings from this four week period will determine playoff participants, and who will be relegated from Season 2.
- Format for the Round Robin will be: Bo5 Conquest, Four Decks w/ 1 Ban.
Week 8: Season One Playoffs
- Top 6 from Division A automatically advance to the Playoff portion.
- Top 4 from Division B compete in a "play-in" Round with the winners joining the Division A winners.
- The 7th and 8th placed players in Division B at the close of Round Robin are automatically relegated from Season 2 of Grandmasters.
- Final relegation will be determined via a 3-match Play-In involving the 7th and 8th placed from Division A, and 5th and 6th placed from Division B.
- The winner of each Region's Playoff advances to the World Championship.
The Grandmasters
| Asia-Pacific | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Flurry | Shaxy | tom60229 | Alan870806 |
| Bankyugi | Kin0531 | Surrender | blitzchung |
| Ryvius | TIZS | glory | posesi |
| Alutemu | DawN | che0nsu | Tyler |
| Europe | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Felkeine | Zhym | Viper | Bunnyhopper |
| AyRoK | Warma | Rdu | BoarControl |
| bozzzton | Silvername | Seiko | Jarla |
| Swidz | Casie | Thijs | xBlyzes |
| Americas | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| justsaiyan | Eddie | muzzy | Empanizado |
| ETC | fr0zen | Zalae | bloodyface |
| Briarthorn | Nalguidan | Monsanto | Killinallday |
| Lnguagehackr | NoHandsGamer | Firebat | Rami94 |
Asia-Pacific Region GM's
Europe Region GM's
Americas Region GM's
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Posted Aug 14, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)Killinallday will be killin' em all day.
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Posted Aug 13, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)The company don't promote the game for woman and we all know that many girls don't play cardgames, even if it's occurring a change in the last few years, the female community hasn't grow big in the last years. I've seen 2 or 3 girls playin this game and just 1 competitively! so, they should start to bring more woman to the game with maybe an expansion designed around female characters (not all of them) but something like that it's a start.
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Posted Aug 14, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)Don't get it the dislikes...many alfa males on this nerd site? Doubt so, cardgames are for betamales and low profiles after that
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Posted Aug 14, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)I really don't think that there isn't a lot of women playing, I just think we're not as vocal about it because, as you've so beautifully stated, "we all know that many girls don't play card games" - it isn't seen as a women's hobby, so even if we do play, we don't take it as seriously or we understate how much of a hobby it really is, even to ourselves. That keeps many women from even thinking about going pro.
I actually think that Hearthstone is great at being gender-neutral and catering to a wide audience. The whimsical card art is fun and vibrant, not at all male-centric, and there are plenty of fun, interesting female characters. I appreciate your sentiment though!
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Posted Aug 14, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)it's time to change the mentality. By the dislikes I can see clearly that many boys and adults never had an education to respect woman or see them as equal.
Hope this change by the years.
Even if it's not a hobby for woman (wasn't) now we see more and more girls playing the game...they should bring some kind of event promoting more female inclusion on it.
This is not a SJW talk...this is real.
We all have sisters, mothers, wifes and so on...why this hatred towards woman community and the whole talk about it?
And, more girls would make the community more diversified and beautiful =)
Too many fat machist nerds already hahahaha
Edit: Horace pointed about being vocal...I'm being real vocal about it.
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Posted Aug 13, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)nohandsgamer going to ruin the competition without touching his mouse.
shitty format of Post thx to iPad
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Posted Aug 13, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)I wish it was that simple
"ah yeah sure you're free to compete" and then immediately the gaming environment becomes a safe place for women to join, but both of us know is not that simple, so yeah, we should be sad for not having any female representation at GM bro
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Posted Aug 13, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)No female GMs in any region? Wow. That hurts.
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Posted Aug 13, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)They are free to compete and earn their spot in GM. Pathra was a female GM in season 1, so no, women are not persecuted by the Hearthstone community.
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Posted Aug 13, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)You guys forget our reigning world champion is a she
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Posted Aug 14, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)There's a difference between "persecuted" (a word I did not use), and simply commenting that it sucks that there aren't any women out of 48 competitors. Something that you and the other eight people who downvoted me apparently need to learn.
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Posted Aug 14, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)I've only been back six weeks, tops, so I would have no way of knowing that; just like the whole idea of a Grandmasters tourney is new to me.
(If I'd been here, I'd probably be cheering all over the relevant news post. ;) )
Thank you for the information. I appreciate it. ^_^
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Posted Aug 13, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)Why would there be Twitch Drops on a YouTube channel?
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Posted Aug 14, 2020 (Scholomance Academy)Retard much ? Rl???