Hearthpwn

The Second Season of the Hearthstone Grandmasters 2020 went into its fourth 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 season saw the same format as last season which saw players start with Swiss Rounds and are now divided into groups and completing Round Robin stages.

This weekend saw the tried and true format of 4 Deck Conquest 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 and every time they win with a deck it gets eliminated. Once either players wins with 3 decks, they win the match.

Video Recaps

Since we are posting our article close to the ending of Day 3, not all of the matches may have been put onto YouTube yet, so check the official Hearthstone Esports YT Channel for the uploads later here!

• Asia-Pacific Week 3 Feature: Surrender vs Bankyugi.
• Europe Week 3 Feature: Rdu vs xBlyzes.
• Americas Week 3 Feature: Eddie vs Bloodyface
• All The Recaps: All Regions.

Road to Playoffs

The Grandmasters started with 3 weeks of Swiss, where everyone scored points. Those points lead to players being divided into Groups A and Groups B. In every Region those Groups will fight in a Round Robin style over the next 4 weeks before the Playoffs and Relegation matches will be played. Who gets to go to the Playoffs and Relegations will be decided as shown in the graphic below.

Decklists & Recap

Americas

Our featured match between Eddie and bloodyface, as all match ups we have for you today, was a match up between the no's 1 and 2 of their respective Region after Swiss play. The series started with bloodyface on his Bomb Warrior and Eddie on the Guardian Druid deck he brought. Both players had their moments, but with the sheer amount of bombs bloodyface put in Eddie's deck and a clutch Blastmaster Boom with both players on fairly low health, it lead Eddie to simply concede before seeing the bombs get drawn. Game 2 was an interesting back and forth until bloodyface shadowstepped a Blackjack Stunner with the intent to sap a Mountseller back into Eddie's hands...except he didn't actually have a secret up or available when he played it and it whiffed. He did the concede of shame immediately after, apparently unable to live with the shame of his (very rare) misplay.

Things didn't improve for bloodyface. Next up he swapped to his Tempo Mage deck versus Eddie on his Highlander Priest. In this match up it's usually important for the Mage to get their burn lined up and kill the Priest before value generation and their more late game approach and bloodyface didn't really get that plan off the ground. Eddie had a horrible starting hand but drew into answers and could then start to use his high cost starting hand to throw down threats. It was all too much for bloodyface in the end.

Down 2-1 bloodyface needed to win Game 4 to extend the series. He swapped to his Rogue deck versus Eddie on his Mage deck. It was not Eddie's more famous Tortollan Mage deck, but a more usual Tempo Mage deck. This game turned into a strange one when both players decided to start playing it as a control match up. After a very long and interesting back and forth bloodyface was running out of cards and options and health. He created a nice 10/10 Edwin, but Eddie answered with an Archmage Antonidas and 2 cheap spells, giving him lethal in hand with 2 Fireballs for the next turn. bloodyface saw no options left and conceded, giving Eddie the 3-1 series win.

Eddie's Americas Grandmasters Season 2 Decks:

bloodyface's Americas Grandmasters Season 2 Decks:

Europe

Our Europe featured match between Rdu and xBlyzes was played through in lightning speed, considering both players have a Priest deck in their line up. Rdu started the series off with his Priest, against xBlyzes' Guardian Druid. xBlyzes lean version of Guardian Druid made some aggressive pushes against Rdu, but Rdu kept his cool, kept clearing and eventually ran xBlyzes out of resources for the concede. Game 2 was a quick affair where xBlyzes did have the draw he needed with his Druid against Rdu's Tempo Mage and Rdu never managed to get his burn plan going.

Game 3 saw Rdu go to his Rogue deck and xBlyzes swapping to his Demon Hunter. It took me longer to type this all out than the game lasted. Rdu dug through his deck aggressively with Secret Passage, found an Edwin and played it and xBlyzes was staring at 15 damage facing him while on 22 health. He then added 3 more damage to it by playing Magtheridon, but it was honestly his only reasonable chance to clear the 10/10 Edwin. It just helped Rdu get lethal instead. It brough Rdu to match point, needing only one more win.

The 4th game of the series saw Rdu back on his Tempo Mage against the Demon Hunter from xBlyzes. The game was over quickly again. xBlyzes had a great start, bringing Rdu down to 11 health on turn 5, but Rdu followed it up with an even nuttier Sorcerer's Apprentice into Evocation turn that allowed him to not only take back board control but put an 8/8 Mana Giant on board for free. Things did not improve for xBlyzes. He managed to kill everything except the Mana Giant, which was promptly turned into 2 even bigger threats with Conjurer's Calling for lethal the next turn. Rdu won this match up between the top 2 ranks 3-1.

Rdu's Europe Grandmasters Season 2 Decks:

xBlyzes' Europe Grandmasters Season 2 Decks:

Asia-Pacific

The Asia-Pacific featured match between Surrender and Bankyugi started off with a bang, with both players bringing out aggressive decks, Surrender on his Painlock and Bankyugi on his Stealth Rogue. Surrender was in control from the first turn, but a clutch Secret Passage from Bankyugi brought him to 1 HP! This was mostly for show however as Surrender already had lethal on board himself and it was either do or die for Bankyugi. With Surrender on a 1-0 lead the match up turned to Surrender on his Druid and Bankyugi remaining on his Rogue. The match was over in the blink of an eye. Bankyugi drew into the absolute nuts and Surrender, while having a good hand, was just too slow to establish anything.

The next game was an absolute monster that lasted 30 minutes. It had Surrender on his Rogue deck and Bankyugi on his Galakrond Priest. Long match ups usually mean value generation starts being important, which is typically the forté of the Priest deck, but unfortunately for Bankyugi, Surrender also had value generation with pretty much every turn. He kept Bankyugi in reactive mode throughout, always having to react to Surrender's plays and never quite establishing anything for himself to become the agressor. In the end Bankyugi played a desperation Deathwing but it only lead to easy lethal for Surrender, who was now up 2-1 and 1 game away from victory.

The next game saw Bankyugi swap onto his Highlander Mage, versus Surrender on his Druid. Yet again Surrender was the initiator and yet again it was Bankyugi having to react to Surrender's plays throughout. The Mage deck is made to stall though, and stall it did, turn after turn, until it seemed that maybe Surrender might run out of plays and Bankyugi might be able to turn things around. But that was precisely the moment Bankyugi's luck on timely draws ran out. He never drew his Puzzlebox and he never drew the Reno hero card he desperately needed and in the end was staring down a 19/18 with Windfury Speaker Gidra and conceded. Surrender won the match up between the top 2 ranks 3-1.

Surrender's Asia-Pacific Grandmasters Season 2 Decks:

Bankyugi's Asia-Pacific Grandmasters Season 2 Decks: