Season 2 of the Hearthstone Grandmasters 2020 saw its first 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 the same format as last season, 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 first weekend saw the most familiar format in Hearthstone Esports: Best of 5 Conquest, 4 decks with 1 ban. The way it works is that both players bring 4 decks, and both players ban 1 deck 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 and can't be used again. Which means that winning with each of your 3 non-banned decks will get you the series win.
Firebat Controversy
Firebat was disqualified from his Semi Final Top 4 Americas for failing to show up on time for his match with Muzzy, which happened an hour ahead of schedule. He was apparently also fined $1000 for not showing up on time. Many people on twitter reacted to the news with surprise and anger.
Firebat had played a game 5 hours beyond the schedule last night and his opponent from that match, bloodyface, added "Ngl if I beat firebat yesterday I probably would’ve overslept too. America’s has the most variable time schedule since we depend on everyone else to finish. Hope we can find a better way to accommodate these scenarios in the future :/"
The whole affair was a black mark on what was otherwise a great weekend of competitive Hearthstone.
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: Che0nsu vs Bankyugi.
- Europe Week 1 Finals: xBlyzes vs RDU.
- Americas Week 1 Finals: Muzzy vs Lnguagehackr
- Full Sunday Recap, All Regions.
Results
Americas
Firebat was disqualified from his Semi Final Top 4 Americas for failing to show up on time for his match with Muzzy. See for more details and quotes above under "Firebat Controversy".
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.
According to the above, it is pretty safe to say that this weekend's winners, Bankyugi, xBlyzes and Muzzy have made great strides towards being in their Region's Division A, with all of them getting 6 points. We will publish the standings after this week with our Preview post next Thursday!
Decklists
Americas
Muzzy's Americas Grandmasters Week 1 Winner Decks:
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Minion (14)
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Ability (16)
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Lnguagehackr's Americas Grandmasters Week 1 Runner-Up Decks:
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Minion (18) |
Ability (11)
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Playable Hero (1) |
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Europe
xBlyzes' Europe Grandmasters Week 1 Winner Decks:
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Minion (14) |
Ability (15)
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Playable Hero (1) |
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RDU's Europe Grandmasters Week 1 Runner-Up Decks:
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Minion (14)
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Ability (16)
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Asia-Pacific
Bankyugi's Asia-Pacific Grandmasters Week 1 Winner Decks:
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Minion (15)
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Ability (12)
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Weapon (3)
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Che0nsu's Asia-Pacific Grandmasters Week 1 Runner-Up Decks:
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Minion (10) |
Ability (20)
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Firebat brought a Paladin deck, which went something like 7 wins, 18 losses over the course of this week and got most of its wins against Druids.
I think that may be why we feel Paladin is strong, because it had a good match up against the other deck that is prevalent in the meta. It clearly did not match up that well against what the GM's brought.
But yeah, we did not get to see Firebat's Paladin deck in the Top 4, cause bullshit. A shame, for sure.
If any competitive event fined me for being late, I'd just leave the event and tell them good luck in collecting.
Well that's not really an option for Firebat. This Grandmasters thing pays Firebat and other GM's a minimum, even if they lost every single match they played, of several thousand dollars. And if they make it to later stages or the playoffs, then they get even more as a bonus. Firebat can't walk away from this unless he's willing to give up thousands in potential income, over a 1000 dollar fine.
Blizzard has him by the balls, more or less.
EDIT: and that's not counting all the future promotion stuff and gigs Blizzard would hire him for, like Card Reveals and Streamer events. The income from that probably dwarfs this GM stuff.
He basically has to play nice or else.
My guess is that it isn't Bliz clawing back money already in Firebat's pocket, but something that'd come out of his next paycheck.