The regular season of the first Hearthstone Grandmasters season has concluded this week. The Hearthstone Grandmasters 2019 Season 1 Playoff competitors represent the best of the best from each of their respective regions. The season lasted seven weeks but felt somewhat short considering each player only played 14 sets. Without further ado, let’s see who is through to the playoff rounds.
Asia-Pacific
Yashima “Alutemu” Nozomi only needed one win this week to clinch a playoff spot. He did one better than that his week by winning both of his games with Cyclone Mage. This secured the number one seed in Division A for Alutemu and a first round bye in playoffs. He will only need to win one match to advance to the World Championship.
Kim “Surrender” Jung-soo also only needed one win, and got exactly that many this week, making him the second seed in Division A. The four player race in third place ended up with Euneil “Staz” Javiñas qualifying for playoffs. He won both of his matches against the other third place competitors with Midrange Hunter.
Liu “Shaxy” Wei-Chieh won neither of his matches this week but still finishes as the first seed in Division B. Jang “Dawn” Hyun also won his one game needed to clinch this week and finishes as the number two seed. Tyler “Tyler” Hoang Nguyen completed a very nice comeback to close out the season. He won both of his games with Shark Rogue this week to squeeze into that third seed.
The initial playoff matches will be Surrender versus Tyler and DawN versus Staz. The winner of Surrender and Tyler will face Shaxy to determine the first World Championship qualifier from Group B. Then the winner of Tyler and DawN will face Alutemu to determine the first World Champs qualifier in Group A.
Europe
Chris “Fenomeno” Tsakopoulos lost his last two matches of what was an incredible opening season. Despite that, thanks to his outstanding tiebreakers he is still the first seed in Division A. Aleksandr “Kolento” Malsh made sure no one would take his second seed position by winning both of his games this week with Cyclone Mage.
Lastly in Division A, Raphael “Bunnyhoppor” Peltzer did exactly what he needed to do to secure a playoff spot, win out. He accomplished this on the back of Shark Rogue, denying Torben “Viper” Wahl any chance of playoffs.
The tight race in Division B had somewhat of an anti-climactic ending, with none of the top three losing their positions in the final week. Casper “Hunterace” Notto and Linh “Seiko” Nguyen both won out their last two games to finish 10-4, denying four players a shot at the playoffs. This made it so that Jon “Orange” Westberg’s single win against Joffrey “Swidz” Cunat enough for a simple cruise into the playoff rounds.
Orange will face off against Kolento in the first round to decide who will play against Hunterace to determine the first World Champ competitor from that group. On the other side, Seiko will play Bunnyhoppor to see who will advance to take on Feno for the first World Champs spot in Group B.
Americas
Frank “Fr0zen” Zhang had the best season of any player in Grandmasters. He wins both of his final games with Bomb Warrior to go 12-2 in the regular season, leading Division A. Eddie “Eddie” Lui didn’t win a game this week, but he didn’t need to, as he stayed steady in the second seed.
There was a rough path to that third seed but Francisco “PNC” Leimontas ends up coming out on top thanks to a tiebreaker. Cong “StrifeCro” Shu failed to beat Fr0zen this week and misses out on his chance to play in the first Grandmaster playoffs.
Jerome “Monsanto” Faucher defeated David “Dog” Caero in the last week as the two finished 10-4, but Dog still takes the first seed thanks to having better tiebreakers. Ryan “Purple” Murphy-Root was able to overtake Lucas “Rase” Guerra in the final week and snatch away that third seed for playoffs.
In Group A, PNC will take on Monsanto to determine who will face Fr0zen for the first World Championship seat. Over in Group B, Purple will take on Eddie to see who will advance to face Dog for the first seat on that side.
Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment via their official website.
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