Hearthstone fans who enjoy watching the Masters Tours are in luck this year as it has been announced that they are set to expand throughout this year. Last year, Blizzard held three Masters Tours. One in Las Vegas, the other in Seoul, and one in Bucharest. These saw thousands of players participate in the Masters Qualifiers in hopes to progress to the Masters Tours.
The Hearthstone esports team will be doubling the number of Masters Tours throughout 2020, meaning there will now be a total of 6 taking place, all with at least $250,000 in the prize pool. There are also plans to use crowdfunding initiatives to increase the prize pool of each Masters Tour, but more information surrounding this will be revealed at a later date.
Grandmasters will be back this year for two more seasons, the first season taking place in April and the second in August. These seasons will consist of 8 weeks of play but will have a new structure for the first 4 weeks, with the format rotating with all 16 players in each of the three regions. These players will be competing to earn points based on placements which will be used to determine two divisions in each region.
Similarly to the previous seasons of Grandmasters, weeks 5, 6, and 7 will consist of round-robin play within the two divisions. This leading to the playoffs that take place in week 8 where one player from each region will qualify for the World Championship at the end of the year.
Last year was a busy year for the Hearthstone scene as one of the Grandmasters seasons led to the banning of Blitzchung for voicing support for the protests in Hong Kong. The banning caused nothing but controversy for Blizzard and saw the President of Blizzard “apologizing” at Blizzcon 2019 for the way the situation was handled.
Hearthstone esports has announced the current list of Masters Tours taking place this year, although further information is still to be stated in the coming months. The first is due to take place at the end of this month.
Masters Tour #1
Dates: 1/31/2020 – 2/2/2020
Location: Arlington, Texas.
Qualifying Period: 10/03/2019 – 11/24/2019
Masters Tour #2
Dates: 3/20/2020 – 3/22/2020
Location: Bail, Indonesia
Qualifying Period: 12/12/2019 – 1/26/2020
Masters Tour #3
Dates: 6/12/2020 – 6/14/2020
Location: Jönköping, Sweden
Qualifying Period: 2/6/2020 – 3/29/2020
Masters Tour #4
Dates: July—August
Location: Asia-Pacific Location (TBD)
Qualifying Period: 4/2/2020 – 5/24/2020
Masters Tour #5
Dates: 9/11/2020 – 9/13/2020
Location: Montreal, Canada
Qualifying Period: 6/4/2020 – 7/26/2020
Masters Tour #6
Dates: December
Location: Spain Location (TBD)
Qualifying Period: 8/6/2020 – 9/27/2020
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