by hsdecktech - 5 years ago     show comments

This morning, Hearthstone has announced some major changes to the Grandmasters system ahead of season 2. The announcement also states that Hearthstone will be considering implementing the system for other Hearthstone esports, such as the Masters Qualifiers! However, for now, the changes will only apply to Grandmasters (which do not have the same time considerations, or even the complexity considerations, as do the Masters Qualifiers).

Anyway, without any further ado, here are the changes:

1. Specialist BEGONE!

Major credit where it is due: the Hearthstone Esports team has consistently stated that they would be open to changing Specialist if it were not working out for them, and it appears they have made good on that promise. Specialist was interesting when it was first pitched, because it was new, but people were immediately concerned that it would result too often in one top deck seeing disproportionate amount of play. Those fears were quickly realized, first with everyone playing Midrange Hunter last meta, then with the infestation of Control Warrior, then with everyone playing Lackey Rogue, and, most recently, with Cyclone Mage being the most prevalent deck. There was definitely a lot of jockeying in between those meta-shifts, but even then, some players felt like one-deck formats were not as interesting to build for or watch.

So, Specialist will be replaced by a modified form of Conquest, best-of-three with a ban–the format that was used for the few years prior to Specialist being implemented. The modification is that before the ban-phase there will be a “shield phase,” during which each player will select a deck they want to protect from the other player’s bans.

This is a huge change to the Conquest we know, because it means that you can no longer build a deck guaranteeing that you don’t have to play a specific matchup. In old Conquest, there were three primary strategies: 1) just play the best decks in the general metagame; 2) ban a specific deck and then play the best decks once that deck is out of the meta; and 3) target a prominent deck in the meta. With this change, strategy 2 is no longer really viable. We are excited to see how that will change the meta, but presumably it means we get a lot more of strategies 1 and 3.  This will likely cut down on deck diversity a bit, but at the same time, will allow players to still “specialize” in a particular deck that they know for a fact they will not have banned. It may result in everyone just bringing the same four decks, but at least 4 decks is more than what we have seen most Specialist metagames settle into.

2. Miscellaneous Quality of Life Changes

In addition to the massive changes to the format, there will be some additional smaller changes to the Grandmasters system. First, each region’s divisions will be mixed up in order to give more diversity in matches. Next, more players will now make the playoffs (four, instead of three) at the end of the season. Semi-finals matches for both Grandmasters Playoffs and Tour Stops will now be best-of-five games, instead of just the finals being best-of-five. Decklist submission will now be uniform across all regions (it was previously based on number of hours prior to the region’s matches starting, which meant that the regions all submitted at different times and that NA and EU could see the APAC submissions before making their own). And, finally, the schedule has been evened out to 16 games per day of Grandmasters broadcasts, instead of having more games on Sunday.

3. Other Possible Changes, Including Regarding Relegation

The Hearthstone Esports team relayed that they have heard people saying that they want more ways to get into Grandmasters. However, out of respect for the players and teams who joined the Grandmasters system, Hearthstone will not be changing the relegations decision for this year. That said, they are open to changing it for next year. They are also looking into whether they want to expand the format and other changes further, including down to the Masters Qualifiers. There is a hint that those changes may be made before the 2020 season, but there are only a few months left before the 2019 competitive season ends at Blizzcon, so it will be interesting to see what, if any, changes they can make on that short timeline. The team promises that more updates on those announcements will come in the weeks to come.

More information about all these changes can be found on the official Rules & Policies page.

Let us know in the comments below what you’re most excited to see!