We've reached the final week of the first Season of Grandmasters 2020. For 24 players, this weekend's matches will be all about trying to get a spot in World Championship, but for 12 less fortunate it will be fighting for their place in Grandmasters. You can find everything you need to know below.
Results from Thursday's Matches
Good old Blizzard. Some matches were already played on Thursday offstream, most of them being Division B pre-Playoffs matches. If you're interested, the results are in a spoiler below.
Asia-Pacific
- DawN beat FroStee 3-0 in a placement match to earn the 5th place in Division B (for Relegation match purposes).
- tom60229 beat blitzchung 3-1 to reach the Playoffs.
- Shaxy beat Tyler 3-1 to reach the Playoffs.
Europe
- Bozzzton beat Viper 3-1 in a placement match to earn the 3th place in Division B (for pre-Playoffs purposes).
- Swidz beat Bunnyhoppor 3-1 in a placement match to earn the 3th place in Division A (for Playoffs grouping purposes).
- Rdu beat Viper 3-1 to reach the Playoffs.
- Bozzzton beat Casie 3-2 to reach the Playoffs.
Americas
- Zalae beat Fr0zen 3-0 to reach the Playoffs.
- Firebat beat muzzy 3-2 to reach the Playoffs.
This Week's Format
This weekend's matches will be split between Relegation matches and Playoffs matches. Both will work with the same format:
- Best of 5 Conquest.
- Each player brings four decks, and one deck is banned before each match.
The relegation bracket will work as follows:
- Match 1: Bottom two players of Division A go head-to-head, the winner is safe.
- Match 2: The loser of Match 1 faces the player who finished 5th in Division B, the winner is safe.
- Match 3: The loser of Match 2 faces the player who finished 6th in Division B, the winner is safe and the loser is relegated.
The Playoffs will have the usual format:
- Eight qualified players have been split in two groups.
- Both groups play through a Double-Elimination bracket, with top 2 of each group advancing.
- The top seed of each group (i.e. top 2 of Division A) starts with one win and the bottom seed (i.e. players from Division B) with one loss.
- Top 4 Single Elimination to decide the champion.
For the entire competition format, check out the spoiler below.
Quote From Blizzard Weeks 1-3: Swiss into Group Stage
During weeks 1-3, players will compete in matches in a Swiss format on each Wednesday and Thursday to earn placement in the weekend Group Stage. Points from these weekend rounds will be used to determine two Divisions in each region for round-robin weeks. Different gameplay format each week.
- The 16 players in each region will compete against each other off broadcast in 7 Swiss rounds during the week.
- On Thursday, after Swiss play has completed, the field is cut in half based on standings and the Top 8 per region will play in a dual tournament format live on YouTube across Friday and Saturday, with the top-4 finals played out on Sunday.
- Gameplay format changes every week:
- Week 1: Conquest with 1 Ban
- Week 2: Four Deck Last Hero Standing with 1 Ban
- Week 3: Ten Deck Conquest with 6 Bans
Weeks 4 - 7: Round Robin
Weeks 4 –7 will consist of round-robin group play within the two divisions in each region—much like the previous seasons of Grandmasters.
- Following weeks 1-3, players will be sorted into two divisions based on their points standings. Division A is comprised of the top-8 point-earning players, and Division B will be point total ranks 9-16.
- The two divisions compete in round-robin group play over four weeks. The standings at the of conclusion of these weeks will determine who will go on to compete in Playoffs, and who will be relegated from Season 1.
- The format will stay consistent during round-robin weeks:
- Bo5 Conquest (4 decks, 1 ban)
Week 8: Season 1 Playoffs
Round-robin weeks lead into Week 8 Playoffs, which will qualify one player per region to the World Championship at the end of the year, while three players from each region will be relegated.
- Top 6 from Division A automatically make it into Playoffs.
- Top 4 from Division B compete in a play-in round to determine who will join the top 6 from Division A in a dual tournament bracket for Playoffs.
- The 7th- and 8th-placed players in Division B at the close of round robin are automatically relegated from Season 1 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 Playoffs from each region will qualify to the Hearthstone World Championships later this year.
Stream Schedule
Please note that there might be some downtime between regions depending on how the matches progress. Approximate individual match schedule can be found here.
West Coast PDT (UTC-7) | East Coast EDT (UTC-4) | Europe CEST (UTC+2) | Korea KST (UTC+9) | |
| June 5 | 2:00 | 5:00 | 11:00 | 18:00 |
| June 6 | 2:00 | 5:00 | 11:00 | 18:00 |
| June 7 | 4:00 | 7:00 | 13:00 | 20:00 |
You can find the current standings and more on the official tournament site.
Asia-Pacific Grandmasters
Playoffs
Relegations
Europe Grandmasters
Playoffs
Relegations
Americas Grandmasters
Playoffs
Relegations
Watch Live
You can watch all the action on the official Hearthstone Esports Youtube channel. If you want more Grandmasters content, check out the short videos about last week's matches made by the casters.
Recap of last weekend with Raven.
Top 5 Moments with Darroch.
This week's video not yet published.
Mull It Over with Jia.
This week's video not yet published.
Hot Takes with TJ and Sottle.
This week's video not yet published.
Comments
I find it strange that the top 4 of the division B round-robin are automatically safe from relegation, whereas the 7th and 8th of division A (who scored higher than every person in division B during the first 3 weeks) each has to win one additional match to survive. Granted, they are given more chances than the 5th and 6th of division B, but it still seems unfair that the top 4 of division B face no risk whatsoever.
I think Paladin and Shaman need to be more competitive for variety purposes in tournaments (other than ladder).
And/or DH, Rogue, Warrior need to be slightly less competitive.
I mean, as a spectator, I'd like to see more cards in these games.
Visual brackets would have been nice, since blizzard doesn't provide them...CardID or NameBADCARDNAME
PlayHearthstone does have all the brackets involved, you can find those here. Probably should've linked those to the post itself too but I was used to having no brackets in Round Robin.
Good ol' blizzard indeed...
Thanks for the info!