Today was definitely an eventful day. We’ve got a lot of information about the upcoming expansion, as well as massive Battlegrounds changes. Patch 20.8 also released today, bringing multiple Battlegrounds and Duels balance updates. However, announcements wouldn’t be complete without knowing more about the competitive side. And so, a new season of Grandmasters was also announced.
The first matches of the Season 2 will start on August 13, which means that players will have only a week to prepare for it after the new set launches. Those early tournament matches are always pretty interesting and require quick adapting from the players, because meta changes very quickly during the release week.
This season will feature some interesting changes. Players will no longer compete in Specialist format, which wasn’t very well-received by the viewers. Instead, they will alter between Conquest and Last Hero Standing formats each week, with Finals being played in Conquest.
Talking about Finals – those will happen between October 8 and 10, and will be incredibly important, since it will be the last chance to qualify for the 2021 World Championship. Interestingly, players who qualified during Season 1 have to try extra hard to hold their spots – if they are relegated, their World Championship spots will pass down to the next best players from Season 2, which would be a huge blow.
We also welcome 12 new Grandmasters (4 from each region), promoted after the first season’s worst performers were relegated.
There’s no info about YouTube drops yet, but I suspect that we’ll hear about them closer to the season’s start. (Update: Yep, it’s confirmed that drops will be there and we’ll hear more about them in viewer’s guide in August – that’s great to hear).
Learn more in the official blog post below:
Hearthstone Grandmasters 2021 started with a blast, providing some of the most intense matches we have seen in years! New stars emerged in every region, and the advent of weekly seasonal tournaments set new heights for players to aspire to in their quest to join the Hall of Champions. As we go into the second half of the year, we look toward Season 2 of Grandmasters, and cannot wait to get the next phase of competition started.
SCHEDULE
With the announcement of United in Stormwind, we can’t wait to see how Grandmasters bend the new expansion to their will on the journey to the World Championship. Season 2 will officially begin on Thursday, August 12, when all 48 players battle in the fresh Alliance-based meta in the Week 1 tournament. Players that make it through the first round will compete on broadcast Friday, August 13 through Sunday, August 15, only on YouTube.
WEEKLY FORMATS
We’re keeping things consistent for Grandmasters 2021 Season 2, with a primary focus on improving weekly formats. In 2019, we introduced Specialist as a simplified replacement for Conquest that would still require high-level strategy from players—while we are happy with the Specialist format itself, it hasn’t proven to be the all-encompassing mode we had hoped. Specialist succeeds in the high-level competitive thinking we aimed for, but with individual matches often lasting several hours, the community enjoyment of watching top players has suffered. Though we plan to revisit Specialist in the future, we are removing it from the next season of Grandmasters. In its place, we will be alternating between Conquest and Last Hero Standing—the formats players and viewers are most familiar with, and that still provide high-level competition.
Week 1 – Conquest
Week 2 – Last Hero Standing
Week 3 – Conquest
Week 4 – Last Hero Standing
Week 5 – Conquest
Week 6 – Last Hero Standing
Week 7 – Conquest
Week 8: Finals – Conquest
NEW GRANDMASTERS
The conclusion of Season 1 forced us to, sadly, say farewell to the bottom four players from each region. Yet, the top four Masters Tour Points-earners from Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe have been promoted to Grandmasters! These 12 new players will compete over seven weekly tournaments for their shot to compete in the Season 2 Finals, where the winner of each region will advance to the 2021 World Championship.
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
The Season 2 champions will advance to the 2021 World Championship, where they will face the top two Chinese players from the China Gold Series as well as the Season 1 regional champions. However, the Season 1 champions—Nalguidan, Posesi, and Frenetic—must avoid relegation to hold onto their invites, otherwise they’ll pass down to the Season 1 runner-ups. The pressure is higher than ever for everyone this season, and it’ll all come down to which players can master the all-new United in Stormwind expansion and earn their spot in the 2021 World Championship!
Be sure to follow us on HS Esports Twitter to let us know your thoughts on the Grandmasters format and give us feedback on what you like, enjoy, love, and really love, so we can keep improving Hearthstone Masters in 2022 and beyond! Thanks, and we’ll see you in the tavern.
Bunnyhoppor is back in GM already? Nice!