Hearthstone revealed that it's going to expand the Masters Tour in 2020. Back in 2019, Blizzard held three Masters Tours, which were in Las Vegas, Seoul, and Bucharest. All of these events resulted in what was clearly some of the most fun and exciting moments in Hearthstone, especially as they managed to feature top tier competitors along with up-and-comers.
For this year, there's going to be double the number of Masters Tours. Not only that, all six events are set to offer at least $250,000 in prizes along with crowdfunding initiatives in order to increase the prize pool of each Masters Tour.
Starting this year, Hearthstone said it's partnering with ESL and DreamHack. Below is the most current information on Masters Tours for this year:
- Masters Tour #1 – Arlington, Texas – 1/31/20 – 2/2/20
- Qualifying Period: 10/3/19 – 11/24/19
- Masters Tour #2 – Bali, Indonesia – 3/20/20 – 3/22/20
- Qualifying Period: 12/12/19 – 1/26/20
- Masters Tour #3 – Jönköping, Sweden – 6/12/20 – 6/14/20
- Qualifying Period: 2/6/20 – 3/29/20
- Masters Tour #4 – TBD Asia-Pacific Location (July/August)
- Qualifying Period: 4/2/20– 5/24/20
- Masters Tour #5 – Montreal, Canada – 9/11/20 – 9/13/20
- Qualifying Period: 6/4/20 – 7/26/20
- Masters Tour #6 –Spain Location (December)
- Qualifying Period: 8/6/20 – 9/27/20
Grandmasters & Relegation
Meanwhile, Grandmasters is back in 2020 with two more epic seasons. The first season begins in April with the second one starting in August. Each season consists of a total of eight weeks of play, but comes with a new structure. For the first four weeks the format is going to rotate with all 16 players in each of the three regions of Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific competing against each other to earn points based on placements. The points are then used to determine two divisions in each region.
After that, the next three weeks then consist of round-robin play within the two divisions, similar to the previous seasons of Grandmasters. That leaves the eighth week for the Playoffs, where one player from each of the regions gets to qualify for the World Championship, which takes place at the end of the year.
In terms of promotion and relegation, three players for each region are relegated at the end of Grandmasters Season 3. The top three prize money earners from the first three Masters Tours of 2020 move up to Grandmasters to replace them.
