Blizzard has just shared their plans for Masters Tour events in 2020. Last year, we had three events in total – Las Vegas, Seoul and Bucharest. This time they’re doubling the amount of events to six – starting in January with Arlington, Texas and another one coming roughly every 2 months. Given that the qualifying periods for those events last for ~1.5 months, it will be a busy year for competitive players.
Each of the events comes with a base prize pool of $250,000, and just like last year they will be boosted trough crowdfunding. We don’t have any details yet, but I assume that we’ll have one or two bundles, which sales might double the prize pool (at least that’s how it worked last year).
Grandmasters will also be back, with two seasons in 2020 – first starting in April and second in August. The format will, however, be different than last year. Instead of fighting in small groups against players from the same region, players will at first fight cross-regions, which will then determine the groups placing in each region. I suspect that we’ll learn more about the format shortly before the April season starts.
What’s important for Grandmasters is that this time relegations will be more severe – three players per region will be out each season, meaning that in 2020 a total of 18 Grandmasters will be replaced by top earners from the Masters tournaments. I’m still not a fan of tying the GM promotion to money prizes, because they’re very, VERY top-heavy (and in a ~300 players tournament, getting #4 finish three times in a row is a bigger feat than getting #1 once, while the money prize for the former is lower than for the latter – at least that’s how it worked last year).
You can read more (including a non-complete list of 2020 Master Tour stops) in the official blog post below!
In 2019, we had three incredible Masters Tour events in Las Vegas, Seoul, and Bucharest. Thousands of you participated in Masters Qualifiers for your chance to play in these events, and we’re excited to announce there will be even more Masters Tours to play for in the months to come…six to be precise!
Yes, we’re doubling the number of Masters Tour stops in 2020—with USD $250,000 in base prizing guaranteed for each! Like last year, a crowdfunding initiative will bolster the prize pool of the Masters Tours beyond that. These events have yielded some of the most exciting and fun moments in Hearthstone, mixing the top tier of players with the up and comers. We’ve seen consistency from relatively unknown competitors, and witnessed a few usurpers topple veteran Grandmasters on stream.
We’re excited to share that ESL/DreamHack will be the trusted vendor for Hearthstone Master Tour events next year. Here are the locations and dates for most of the Masters Tour events in 2020:
- Masters Tour #1 – Arlington, Texas – 1/31 – 2/2
- Qualifying Period: 10/3 – 11/24
- Masters Tour #2 – Bali, Indonesia – 3/20 – 3/22
- Qualifying Period: 12/12 – 1/26
- Masters Tour #3 – Jönköping, Sweden – 6/12 – 6/14
- Qualifying Period: 2/6 – 3/29
- Masters Tour #4 – TBD Asia-Pacific Location (July/August)
- Qualifying Period: 4/2– 5/24
- Masters Tour #5 – Montreal, Canada – 9/11 – 9/13
- Qualifying Period: 6/4 – 7/26
- Masters Tour #6 – Spain – (December)
- Qualifying Period: 8/6 – 9/27
Grandmasters & Relegation
Grandmasters will be back in 2020 for two more epic seasons, with the first starting in April and the second in August! It will still be eight weeks of play, but with a different structure. For the initial weeks the format will rotate and all 16 players in each of our three regions (Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific) will compete against each other, earning points based on their placements. These points will be used to determine two divisions in each region.
Subsequent weeks will consist of round-robin play within the divisions, much like the previous seasons of Grandmasters. This leads into the Week 8 Playoffs, which will qualify one player per region to the World Championship at the end of the year.
Regarding promotion and relegation—three players per region will be relegated at the end of Grandmasters 2020 Season 1, with the three top prize money earners from the first three Masters Tours of 2020 replacing them.
We hope these changes will make Hearthstone Grandmasters fun and engaging for viewers and our pros alike. We’re excited for the new year and hope to see you at an upcoming Masters Tour!
I’m excited for more Masters Tours! I love following those events!
first thing first. I’ve read all about it in blizzard site, but no info about twitch drops?
second thing out of topic.
will we have some card reveal schedule on those 35 new cards?
It’ll be nice to have both.
anyway. can’t wait for the next 3 weeks.
thirdly, out of topic again. how ’bout info on Lunar festival?
I’m pretty sure that Twitch drops will be there, but they talk more about them closer to each event. Masters Tour Arlington starts January 31, so we should learn more about drops a few days before that most likely.
We actually don’t know how the card reveals will look like for the upcoming 35 cards. Maybe they will do community reveals again, or maybe they will have a single reveal stream (because 35 cards ain’t that much). Either way I hope that we’ll get more info soon
And to answer your Lunar Festival question, it started early in February last year, so I would assume that there’s still a ~month or so until it happens.
But yeah, the next month or so should be packed with action, news, events etc. 🙂
alright. thanks for clearing things up.