Hearthstone Grandmasters

Hearthstone Grandmasters is the premier level of tournament play in Hearthstone, consisting of two eight-week seasons where 48 of the world's top Hearthstone players compete, coming from three regions — 16 each from the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions. Hearthstone Grandmasters ends in a global finals at the end of the year, where the top two competitors from each region, plus two Gold Series Champions from China, come together to battle for a share of colossal prize money and for the prestigious title of Hearthstone World Champion.

With this new top-tier competitive scene, Blizzard entertains players and fans alike with the international broadcast of all Grandmaster games on their official Hearthstone Esports YouTube channel. Hearthstone Grandmasters showcases many interesting, shocking, and eye-bulging plays from players every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 2am to 8pm PDT.

For specific broadcast times, see the Broadcast times section below.

Hearthstone Grandmasters 2020
Hearthstone Grandmasters 2020 is the second year of the Hearthstone Grandmasters program. It consists of two seasons: Season 1 from April 15 to June 7, and Season 2 from August 12 to October 11. It is the first year to see a marked change in the roster of players from previous Grandmaster seasons.

In this year, relegation policy was changed such that 3 players were relegated every season, instead of the 2 in the last season of the previous year. Also, the main match format was changed from Shield-Phase Conquest to the original Conquest format used in the Hearthstone Championship Tour system prior to the advent of the Hearthstone Masters system at the start of 2019. Furthermore, the structure of the two 8-week seasons has dramatically changed into the following structure:
 * Weeks 1-3 consist of three weekly Swiss competitions with a different match format used each week. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, players each play 7 Swiss rounds against each other off-broadcast. On Friday and Saturday, two Dual Tournament series for the Top 8 are broadcast live, with the final Top 4 Single Elimination series broadcast live on Sunday. After every Sunday, players are awarded points based on their weekly placement. After the three weeks of competition, points are totaled and players are ranked and assigned to Divisions A and B according to their point totals. This assignment divides the 16 players of each region into two groups of eight, with Division A housing the better-performing players and Division B containing the lower-performing players.
 * Weeks 4-7 are played in a Round Robin format, where each player in each Division plays 7 rounds against every other player in their Division.
 * Week 8 consists of a series of matchups that starts off by selecting the top 6 players of the Round Robin in Division A and the top 4 players of the Round Robin in Division B. The 4 players in Division B hold a Single Elimination play-in bracket to determine the two players that will be promoted into the Top 8 final bracket. Afterwards, two Dual Tournament series are held for the resulting Top 8, and then a Single Elimination series is held for the final Top 4, producing at the end the final winner of the season for that region and thus the players to advance to the Hearthstone World Championship for each region.
 * At the end of the season, the two bottom-ranking players in Division B for each region are automatically relegated. A short relegation series will also be played in each region to determine a third person relegated from Grandmasters for each region. As a summary, if outcomes of matches were determined randomly, a player in Division B would have an average 34.375% chance of being relegated, and a player in Division A would have an average 3.125% chance of being relegated, thus making the first three weeks of a Grandmasters season in 2020 very important.

For all rules and regulations, please check out the official website: Rules and policies - PlayHearthstone.com

Season 2


Hearthstone Grandmasters 2020 Season 2 consists of a tournament structure where players compete in mainly best-of-five matches using a variety of match formats in the comfort of their own homes. Season 2 will officially run for 9 weeks from Wednesday, August 12 to Sunday, October 11, with an intermission week for Masters Tour Montreal on September 11-13.


 * Swiss rounds:
 * Week 1: Conquest, 4 decks with 1 ban
 * Week 2: Last Hero Standing, 4 decks with 1 ban
 * Week 3: Specialist, 3 decks, best-of-three
 * Round Robin rounds:
 * Weeks 4-7: Conquest, 4 decks with 1 ban
 * Playoffs and final relegation series:
 * Week 8: Conquest, 4 decks with 1 ban

For more details, please check out the official viewer's guide: 2020 Season 2 viewer's guide.

The following tables show the Swiss points earned by players during Weeks 1-3 in Grandmasters 2020 Season 2.
 * Results

The following tables show the Round Robin player scores for Weeks 4-7 in Grandmasters 2020 Season 2.

New contender in Grandmasters 2020 Season 2

Old contender in previous seasons

Top Hearthstone Competitive Points earner during the 2018-2019 HCT Transition Period

Top prize-money earner in 2019 and prior

Legends spot in 2019


 * Notes
 * Gallon posted on Twitter at the end of July 2020 that he was retiring from Grandmasters so that he could start his new line of work at Blizzard as a Final Designer in Hearthstone. Consequently, his spot in Grandmasters was filled in by a fourth player from the Americas region, killinallday, who had won the next largest sum of prize money in previous Masters Tours, as per tournament rules.

Season 1
Hearthstone Grandmasters 2020 Season 1 consisted of a tournament structure where players competed in best-of-five matches using a variety of match formats in the comfort of their own homes. Season 1 ran for 8 weeks from Wednesday, April 15 to Sunday, June 7.


 * Swiss rounds:
 * Week 1: Conquest, 4 decks with 1 ban
 * Week 2: Last Hero Standing, 4 decks with 1 ban
 * Week 3: Conquest, 10 decks with 6 bans
 * Round Robin rounds:
 * Weeks 4-7: Conquest, 4 decks with 1 ban
 * Playoffs and final relegation series:
 * Week 8: Conquest, 4 decks with 1 ban

For more details, please check out the official viewer's guide: 2020 Season 1 viewer's guide.

The following tables show the Swiss points earned by players during Weeks 1-3 in Grandmasters 2020 Season 1.
 * Results

The following tables show the Round Robin player scores for Weeks 4-7 in Grandmasters 2020 Season 1.

a Winner of respective regional Playoffs, thus qualifying for Hearthstone World Championship 2020

b Runner-up

c Player from Division B who made it into Top 8 within Playoffs

New contender in Grandmasters 2020 Season 1

Old contender in previous seasons

Top Hearthstone Competitive Points earner during the 2018-2019 HCT Transition Period

Top prize-money earner in 2019 and prior

Legends spot in 2019


 * Notes
 * Amnesiac posted on Twitter in December of 2019 that he was retiring from Grandmasters, citing his intentions to move on towards other things beyond Hearthstone. Consequently, his spot in Grandmasters was filled by a third player from the Americas region, PapaJason, who had won the next largest sum of prize money in the previous 2019 Masters Tours, as per tournament rules.


 * Links
 * 2020 Season 1 Americas: &ensp;YouTube playlist &ensp;Liquipedia
 * 2020 Season 1 Europe: &ensp;YouTube playlist &ensp;Liquipedia
 * 2020 Season 1 Asia-Pacific: &ensp;YouTube playlist &ensp;Liquipedia

Hearthstone Grandmasters 2019


Hearthstone Grandmasters 2019 was the first year of the Hearthstone Grandmasters program. As a testbed year, players were promoted into the Grandmasters program based primarily on Hearthstone Competitive Points earned during the 2018-2019 Transition Period in the previous 2018 Hearthstone Championship Tour tournament system, as well as on lifetime earnings and other criteria such as contributions to the Hearthstone community.

The Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions each had 16 Grandmasters, eight within a Division A and another eight within a Division B, for a total of 48 Grandmasters. Each set of 16 Grandmasters participated in two competitive Seasons during the year within their respective regions: Season 1 from May 17 to July 14, and Season 2 from August 23 to October 13.

During a Season, the 8 players in each of the 6 Divisions played members of the same Division twice, in a Double Round Robin format. In the eighth and last week of the Season, the top-scoring 3-4 players of each Division moved on to an end-of-season Playoffs. In the Playoffs, the 6-8 players in total participated in two Dual Tournament brackets, each bracket played by two designated Groups of 3-4 players. This resulted in 2 winners from each Group, and the 4 winners in total moved on to a Single Elimination bracket where they battled it out to determine the ultimate winner for the entire region. The winners of the three regions advanced to the Hearthstone Global Finals where the Hearthstone World Champion was crowned. Because there were two Seasons, 6 players were eligible to advance to the Global Finals. A final two players were selected to participate in the Global Finals from China's two Gold Open Series Playoffs, which took place on July 20 and October 6, for a total of 8 players for the Hearthstone Global Finals.

In Season 2, the new rule of player relegation was introduced to kick out underperforming players from Grandmasters. Following the conclusion of Season 2 playoffs, the top cash prize-earners from the 2019 Masters Tours replaced the bottom-finishing 2019 Grandmasters for the upcoming 2020 Grandmaster season. This allowed new players of talent to mix into the initial set of Grandmasters for the first time.

For all rules and regulations, please check out the official website: Rules and policies - PlayHearthstone.com

Hearthstone Global Finals 2019
Hearthstone Global Finals 2019 was the sixth year of the Hearthstone World Championship. The competition finale took place on November 1-2 at BlizzCon in the Anaheim Convention Center in California. Eight players came together to battle for a share of $500,000 in prizes and for the sixth title of Hearthstone World Champion.

The tournament format used was Shield-Phase Conquest with a ban. The eight players played in two Dual Tournament groups before facing off in a final top 4 Single Elimination bracket. All matches were played in a best-of-three series, except for the semifinals and finals which were played in a best-of-five series.

Winner: VKLiooon (China)
 * Results

In the grand finals, VKLiooon from China faced off against bloodyface from the USA in what squared out to be a one-sided duel, with Liooon going 3-0 against the American player. In winning the Global Finals, VKLiooon also became the first woman ever to become Hearthstone World Champion.

VKLiooon had an outstanding career in Season 1 of 2019 Hearthstone esports in China, placing Top 6 at three of the four live events in Season 1, and going a perfect 7-0 in the Season 1 playoffs to qualify for the BlizzCon Global Finals. In China, there are two seasons, four live events in each season, with two major tournaments taking place in each live event: (1) a 'Masters Group' tournament consisting of 64 elite players, and (2) a 1024-person open bracket tournament. After her stellar performance at BlizzCon, she shared a story of how two years ago, a guy had once told her that she did not belong in a line to sign up for a tournament, simply because she was a girl, but it was evident that she did belong because she was standing where she is now. She also concluded by saying that "if you want to do it and you believe in yourself, you should just forget your gender and go for it."


 * Links
 * Official 2019 Hearthstone Global Finals tournament page
 * Official viewer's guide
 * Official conclusion blog post
 * 2019 Hearthstone Global Finals - YouTube playlist
 * 2019 Hearthstone Global Finals - Liquipedia

Season 2
Hearthstone Grandmasters 2019 Season 2 consisted of a tournament structure where players competed in best-of-three and best-of-five Shield-Phase Conquest matches in the comfort of their own homes. Season 2 ran for 8 weeks from Friday, August 23 to Sunday, October 13.

For this second season, Divisions A and B in each region had their 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th place finishers from Season 1 swapped to prevent repeating player matchups that existed in Season 1.

A number of quality of life changes were also implemented:
 * The 4th place winner from each division was included in the end-of-season playoffs. Previously in Season 1, only the top 3 players from each division were promoted into playoffs. Similar to the previous season, the 1st place finishers of each division were given an automatic win over their 4th place Group member, given as an advantage going into playoffs.
 * The semifinals of both Grandmasters playoffs and Masters Tour events were changed to best-of-five. Previously, these were held as best-of-three series.
 * Deck submission times were standardized across all three regions.
 * The match schedule was changed to consist of 16 matches every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Previously, it was 15 Friday, 15 Saturday, and 18 Sunday. Later on in the season, Saturdays began to have a few more matches than the other days, known as "Super Saturdays".

Unlike in the first season, Season 2 established the new rule of player relegation, whereby the 6 players who finished in last place in their respective Divisions were consequently dropped out of Grandmasters. In July 2019, tournament organizers were also looking to change relegation policy even further, considering increasing the maximum number of relegation/promotion spots per season, for the upcoming 2020 Hearthstone Grandmasters year.

The following tables show the Double Round Robin player scores for Weeks 1-7 in Grandmasters 2019 Season 2.
 * Results

a Winner of respective regional Playoffs, thus qualifying for Hearthstone Global Finals 2019

b Runner-up

New contender in Grandmasters 2019 Season 2

Top Hearthstone Competitive Points earner during the 2018-2019 HCT Transition Period

Top prize-money earner in 2019 and prior

Legends spot in 2019


 * Notes
 * Gallon replaced Dog in the Americas region since Dog opted out of competing in Grandmasters after the conclusion of Season 1. Dog cited the large time commitment and his inability to stream while Grandmasters streams were live as the main factors in him opting out. Gallon was ushered in because he earned the most amount of money in Masters Tours thus far, so Gallon was the prime candidate for replacing Dog according to the official rules.
 * Blitzchung was removed from Grandmasters near the end of the season following a review of one of his winner's interviews in which he expressed support to the Hong Kong protesters. This action was deemed by tournament overseers to violate the 2019 Hearthstone Grandmasters Official Competition Rules section 6.1, considering it as behavior that was unrepresentative of Blizzard or Hearthstone Esports. Blitzchung was put on hold from all Hearthstone competitive play for a duration of one year and had his total prize money reduced to $0 USD for the entirety of Grandmasters Season 2. Additionally, the two casters who were present at the time were also fired. The announcement of this ruling caused many people to post on Reddit saying that they were quitting Hearthstone entirely due to this incident. Within a day's time, this incident also reached the ears of the New York Times, Fox News, US state senators, and Polish TV.


 * A week after the incident, the president of Blizzard Entertainment issued an apologetic statement to the public on the ruling of Blitzchung and the two casters, whereby all of Blitzchung's prize money was reinstated to him and his ban from Hearthstone esports was halved from a period of 12 months to 6 months. Furthermore, the cessation of working with the two casters was also rescinded, but they were still prohibited from working with Blizzard for the same 6-month period. The president reaffirmed that Blizzard Entertainment was still dedicated to their core values of "Every Voice Matters", "Think Globally", "Lead Responsibly", and "Play Nice; Play Fair" when it came to esports. Even though the president still made it clear that Blitzchung violated tournament rules by derailing his winner's interview into a political statement, the president also acknowledged that they were in the wrong to penalize Blitzchung and the two casters so harshly, saying that they were not appropriate penalties. It was also briefly stated that their ruling had no involvement with their relationships with China. In ending, the president in his letter assured that the company would still "always [be] listening and finding ways to improve [because] it is part of [their] culture".


 * Some of the major events that transpired over the week following the incident were as follows:
 * The official ruling post - PlayHearthstone.com
 * Blizzard suspends hearthstone player for supporting Hong Kong - Reddit
 * FYI the Blitzchung story was removed from worldnews after reaching the top of r/all with 53k upvotes - Reddit
 * I play HS everyday. I climbed to Legend several times. I spent more than $10k. As a HKer, I quit HS without consideration. - Reddit
 * Player since 2014, I quit today. - Reddit
 * How ‘bout them core values? - Reddit
 * Blizzard's Official Weibo Account Just Posted An Apology - to China - Reddit
 * Brian Kibler steps down from casting BlizzCon amid Blizzard's blitzchung handling - InvenGlobal
 * Kripp's response to the Blizzard/Blitzchung situation - Reddit
 * Stepping down from the mod team - Reddit
 * Taiwanese Caster Who Got Fired by Blizzard in Tears: "Hardwork goes in vain. Banned from Overwatch as well. Casting opportunities gone." - Reddit
 * Admirable steps down from Grandmasters Cast - Reddit
 * American university forfeits all their games by saying that it's hypocritical they weren't punished yet Blitzchung was - Reddit
 * Toast’s Thoughts on the Hong Kong situation - Reddit
 * Official response and statement from the president of Blizzard Entertainment - Blizzard.com


 * Links
 * 2019 Season 2 Americas: &ensp;YouTube playlist &ensp;Liquipedia
 * 2019 Season 2 Europe: &ensp;YouTube playlist &ensp;Liquipedia
 * 2019 Season 2 Asia-Pacific: &ensp;YouTube playlist &ensp;Liquipedia

Season 1
Hearthstone Grandmasters 2019 Season 1 consisted of a tournament structure where players competed in best-of-three and best-of-five Specialist matches in the comfort of their own homes. Season 1 ran for 8 weeks from Friday, May 17 to Sunday, July 14.

In this first-ever season of Hearthstone Grandmasters, player relegation did not exist, meaning that no players could be eliminated from Grandmasters. Furthermore, the 1st place finishers of each division were given an automatic win to compete with their 2nd and 3rd place Group members as an advantage going into end-of-season playoffs.

The following 48 players comprised the initial set of first-time-ever Grandmasters for the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions.
 * Results

The following tables show the Double Round Robin player scores for Weeks 1-7 in Grandmasters 2019 Season 1.

a Winner of respective regional Playoffs, thus qualifying for Hearthstone Global Finals 2019

b Runner-up

Top Hearthstone Competitive Points earner during the 2018-2019 HCT Transition Period

Top prize-money earner in 2019 and prior

Legends spot in 2019


 * Notes
 * ETC made it into the roster as the 16th player for the Americas region because he was a top Hearthstone Competitive Points earner during the 2018-2019 Transition Period. However, the 16th spot was initially stated to be reserved for the Americas player with the best placement at the HCT 2018/2019 World Championship, which took place in Taipei from April 25–28.
 * Viper made it into the roster as the 16th player for the European region because he placed 2nd place at the 2018/2019 Hearthstone World Championship. The 16th spot was initially stated to be reserved for the European player with the best placement in that championship, which turned out to be Hunterace in 1st place. Viper was also a top Hearthstone Competitive Points earner during the 2018-2019 Transition Period.


 * Links
 * 2019 Season 1 Americas: &ensp;YouTube playlist &ensp;Liquipedia
 * 2019 Season 1 Europe: &ensp;YouTube playlist &ensp;Liquipedia
 * 2019 Season 1 Asia-Pacific: &ensp;YouTube playlist &ensp;Liquipedia

Broadcast times and channels
Hearthstone Grandmasters is broadcast live every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 2 AM to 8 PM PDT on the official Hearthstone Esports Youtube channel:

All official YouTube language streams are listed below:
 * Youtube.com/HearthstoneEsports &mdash; English
 * Youtube.com/HearthStoneZHTW &mdash; Mandarin
 * Youtube.com/HearthstoneKR &mdash; Korean
 * Youtube.com/channel/UCrR37g6dpxX4kUitZR8b4YA &mdash; Japanese
 * Youtube.com/HearthstoneBrasil &mdash; Portuguese
 * Youtube.com/hearthstonelatam &mdash; Latin American Spanish
 * Youtube.com/EmpirePlay &mdash; Arabic
 * Youtube.com/GameplaneEsportsHearthstone &mdash; Russian
 * Youtube.com/HearthstoneFR &mdash; French

Trivia

 * Players are free to use deck tracking software during online matches.
 * Players are not allowed to be advised by other people during their matches.
 * Players are not allowed to collude to fix matches.
 * After the Blitzchung incident in October 2019, winners' interviews stopped taking place for the rest of Grandmaster matches in 2019 and beyond. However, special catch-up interviews started taking place with players during Season 2 of Grandmasters 2020 outside of normal broadcasting times.
 * In January 2020, Activision Blizzard and Google announced a multi-year strategic relationship in which YouTube became Hearthstone's exclusive streaming platform for esports instead of Twitch.