The final Masters Tour of 2019 came to an end in Bucharest over the weekend. Current Grandmaster, Eddie “Eddie” Lui, is crowned champion after a fantastic performance with his Control line up. Eddie wins Masters Tour Bucharest also as the second Grandmaster to win a Masters event. Beyond his victory, a lot of those players who made the Top 8 will also be getting promoted to Grandmasters next season.
The players battled through nine rounds of Swiss play in a Conquest best-of-five format to make their way into Top 8. Not a single player went undefeated through nine rounds, with six players finishing 8-1. 18 players finished 7-2, but only two of those would be able to advance to Top 8 based on tiebreakers.
So the Top 8 looked as follows (with Swiss record):
Lo Tsz Kin “kin0531” (8-1) vs. “hone” (7-2)
“totosh” (8-1) vs. Jon “Orange” Westberg (8-1)
Eddie “Eddie” Lui (8-1) vs. “SNBrox” (7-2)
Casper “Hunterace” Notto (8-1) vs. Jack “DeadDraw” Bancroft (8-1)
We see three Grandmasters in the Top 8, which is about the proportion of Grandmasters in the field. Specifically we see Eddie, Orange, and Hunterace. Orange really needed to finish in the finals to return to Grandmasters for next season, while the others are still there. Hunterace is maintaining his reputation as the current best Hearthstone player in the world.
Kin would beat hone in their match in a very close 3:2 set. Kin was able to reach a Zul’Jin turn in his Highlander Hunter against Highlander Paladin in game five which locked hone out of the game.
Totosh and Orange would go also to a game five in which a Priest mirror would decide the set. Totosh reached both an advantage on board and a card advantage. With Orange’s loss in the set, he would not make it back to Grandmasters next season.
Eddie versus SNBrox was not close at all, with Eddie beating him in a clean 3:0 sweep. Eddie powered through with his lineup of Resurrect Priest, Quest Druid, and Quest Shaman. He also had Control N’Zoth Warrior, but it was banned in the set.
DeadDraw would complete an upset of Hunterace in pretty dominating fashion. DeadDraw won 3:1, as Hunterace could just not find the win with his Resurrect Priest against both OTK Paladin and Aggro Evolve Shaman.
The semifinals of Eddie versus DeadDraw and kin0531 versus totosh both went to game five. A great conclusion to the tournament. Eddie’s Quest Shaman would beat DeadDraw’s Control Warrior in game five, and kin’s Highlander Hunter would take another game five over totosh’s Aggro Evolve Shaman.
In the Grand Final, Eddie banned kin’s Quest Shaman, and kin banned Eddie’s Quest Druid. The first game would be Eddie’s Quest Shaman against Control Warrior. Eddie was able to do too much damage, taking game one.
Game two would see Eddie’s Resurrect Priest against Highlander Hunter. Eddie maintained high pressure and kin had to play a reactionary game plan most of the time. The Corrupted Blood’s ruined Zephrys the Great and N’zoth closed out the game.
Game three would be the Highlander Hunter again from kin against Control Warrior from Eddie. Kin was able to maintain a lot of pressure with a Windfury Siamat and take his first win in the set.
Game four would be the final game, but the most exciting. Eddie’s Control Warrior would face the Resurrect Priest of kin. Both decks carry Hakkar the Soulflayer and a way to play two Archivist Elysianas. All Elysianas would be played to beat the Corrupted Bloods, but fatigue still came.
Eddie simply had more resources in the final game and won over $90,000 in prizing. Kin didn’t walk away empty-handed though, as he will be a Grandmaster next season.
Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment via their official website and the PlayHearthstone twitch channel.
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