In the Hearthstone esports scene, the Grandmasters is where the World Champion is crowned. For 2020, that title went to Kenta “glory” Sato who also took home $200,000 in prize money. There’s no question that players around the world are excited about the new season.
Even before the new season starts, Hearthstone announced the changes to the overall format of Grandmasters, along with how to qualify for the 2021 World Championship.
You can get an idea of how the Grandmasters work in the video below:
Old Format
Under the current format, a season has eight weeks with Weeks 1 to 3 done under the Swiss format and Weeks 4 to 7 in a Round Robin format. After that, Week 8 has matches that eventually lead to the championship.
Weekly Dual Tournaments
Under the new format, there are still eight weeks per season. However, during the first seven weeks, players now participate in what’s known as Weekly Dual Tournaments and then earn points based on their total wins. Here are the details of these weekly tournaments:
- All 16 players in each region compete against each other off-broadcast in Dual Tournament Group play on Thursday.
- On Friday, the four Decider Matches are played to determine who joins the Top 8 per region.
- This is streamed live on YouTube.
- The Top 8 players compete in a single-elimination tournament on Saturday, with the Top 4 advancing to Sunday.
- Gameplay format changes every other week:
- Week 1: Conquest
- Week 2: Conquest
- Week 3: Specialist
- Week 4: Specialist
- Week 5: Last Hero Standing
- Week 6: Last Hero Standing
- Week 7: Conquest
Weekly Playoffs
After seven weeks, the Dual Tournaments advance to the Week 8 Playoffs. Details of this event are:
- The top eight players advance to Playoffs.
- Players 9 to 12 are safe from Relegation but are finished with tournament play for the season.
- The bottom four players in each region are automatically Relegated.
- The winners of the Playoffs from each region are given a chance to compete in the 2021 World Championship.
- Season 1 champions retain their invites to the World Championship if they are not Relegated in Season 2.
- Relegated Champions have their invites passed down to the next eligible player, in their region, from Season 1.
In addition to the new format, the Grandmasters is also using points to see who qualifies. This was revealed back in January when Hearthstone first revealed its 2021 roadmap. Read more about that here.
What do you think? Is this new format better?
