The first big week of Hearthstone Grandmasters 2020 Season 2 has arrived! With the Swiss phase concluding, the players will be split into two Divisions after this week. You can find everything you need to know below.
This Week's Format
This week the format has changed from the previous weeks: it's Specialist time.
- Best-of-three Specialist.
- 9 Swiss rounds are played off-stream on Wednesday and Thursday with top 8 of each region advancing.
- Top 8 will be divided to two groups, which play through a double elimination bracket, top 2 from each group advances.
- Top 4 play through a single elimination bracket to decide the winner.
Players will be gaining points based on their performance, and at the end of this week, the Grandmasters will be divided to two Divisions based on these points. You can check the current point standings here.
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 each Wednesday and Thursday of the week to earn a 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. There will be a different gameplay format each week.
- The 16 players in each region will compete against each other off broadcast in 7-9 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: 7 Rounds of Swiss, Conquest with 1 Ban
- Week 2: 7 Rounds of Swiss, Four Deck Last Hero Standing with 1 Ban
- Week 3: 9 Rounds of Swiss, Bo3 Specialist
Weeks 4 – 7: Round Robin
Weeks 4 – 7 will consist of round-robin group play within the two divisions in each region – much like Season 1 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 conclusion of these weeks will determine who will move onto the Playoffs, and who will be relegated from Season 2.
- The format will stay consistent during round-robin weeks:
- Bo5 Conquest (4 decks, 1 ban)
Week 8: Season 2 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 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 from each region in Season 2 Grandmasters Playoffs will advance to the Hearthstone World Championships later this year.
Stream Schedule
West Coast PDT (UTC-7) | East Coast EDT (UTC-4) | Europe CEST (UTC+2) | Korea KST (UTC+9) | |
| August 28 | 2:00 | 5:00 | 11:00 | 18:00 |
| August 29 | 2:00 | 5:00 | 11:00 | 18:00 |
| August 30 | 4:00 | 7:00 | 13:00 | 20:00 |
You can find all the matches, results, and decklists (even for the Swiss portion) on the official tournament site.
Asia-Pacific Grandmasters
Alutemu
Bankyugi
Che0nsu
DawN
Flurry
Ryvius
Shaxy
Surrender
TIZS
Tom60229
Tyler
blitzchung
glory
kin0531
posesi
Europe Grandmasters
AyRoK
BoarControl
Bozzzton
Bunnyhoppor
Casie
Felkeine
Jarla
Rdu
Seiko
SilverName
Swidz
Viper
Warma
Zhym
xBlyzes
Americas Grandmasters
Briarthorn
ETC
Eddie
Empanizado
Firebat
Fr0zen
Justsaiyan
Monsanto
Muzzy
Nalguidan
NoHandsGamer
Rami94
Zalae
killinallday
languagehacker
Watch Live
You can watch all the action on the official Hearthstone Esports Youtube channel. If you want more Grandmasters content, the caster videos have made their return for this Season as well.
Recap of last weekend with Raven.
Top 5 Moments with Darroch.
Mull It Over with Jia.
Hot Takes with TJ and Sottle.
Chinese Grandmasters Playoffs
But wait, there's more! This weekend is also the home to Chinese Grandmasters Playoffs, where the top 4 Gold Point earners (from March to June period) and the 4 players from Gold Team Championship's Season 1 with the most match wins will battle it out for a spot at the World Championship later this year.
There will be no English streams for the event, but it can be followed via various Chinese streams like huya, douyu, or bilibili. The matches will begin at 1 AM EDT/7 AM CEST/1 PM CST on both 28th and 29th August. The decklists for Group A and Group B were tweeted by ZelKnow.
Comments
Always a Bunnyhopper and Monsanto fan.
So the last year’s world champion needs to go through playoffs to qualify for the World Championship event? Seems fair
Quick Division calculations post-Swiss (current point totals in parentheses):
As always, since both the maths and the qualifying logic were made by me, major errors in either or both are possible.
I had a quick look through the qualification results. It seems the main classes are Priest, Mage, Druid and Rogue. I saw two Warlocks as well, but while some people brought Warrior, I didn't see anyone who qualified with it (but I wasn't very thorough). In any case, it won't be all mirrors like the season when Specialist was introduced, so that's a relief.
I also saw some different names: for example in EU, Rdu and xBlyzes who did very well in the first two weeks didn't qualify, while Silvername qualified as #1 this time while not qualifying on previous weeks. Also in other regions there were new faces present and familiar faces absent.
Quick class stats for qualified players (by me so mistakes are not impossible):
Priest mirrors
viper qualified with zoo. So there's at least one warlock
Priest mirrors. Let's hope each of them were sensible enough to bring a win condition somewhere as an alternate.