With the inaugural season of Hearthstone Grandmasters over, it’s time to look to the future. Season 2 is bringing a slew of changes to the competition’s format including the best-of-three Conquest format. This Hearthstone Grandmasters Season 2 format guide will go through all the changes you can expect when the next season inevitably starts.
Hearthstone Grandmasters Season 2 Format Guide | What’s new?
As stated above, the current Specialist format is being retired and being replaced with a best-of-three Conquest that will have a Shield Phase. So, what does all that mean? Here is a step-by-step list of how this new format exactly works:
- The two competing opponents each bring four decks, each a unique class.
- The Shield Phase will begin the match, allowing both players to choose a deck that cannot be banned.
- With three choices to choose from, each competitor will choose a deck to ban, removing it from play.
- Once the ban is picked, each competitor chooses a deck to play and begins the first match.
- When the first game ends, the deck that wins is removed from the playable pool of decks. After it is removed, both players can choose a new deck to play.
- If the second game ends with a player at 2-0, the series ends.
- If the second game ends with each player with a win, the winning deck of the second game is removed from the playable pool. Each competitor then chooses another deck and plays one more match to end the series.
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There will also be a number quality of life changes implemented to the Hearthstone Grandmasters during Season 2. Each Division from each region will swap the first, third, fifth, and seventh place finishers from Season 1. For a little context, there are three regions (Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific) each with two divisions (Division A and Division B).
In terms of changes that affect playoffs, the fourth-place player from each division will now be eligible to go to playoffs. Additionally, the semifinals for both Grandmasters playoffs and Masters Tour events will now be best-of-five. General changes that will affect the season throughout its entire course include standardizing the time decks are submitted and changing the match schedule to 16 matches a day rather than 15 on Friday and Saturday, and 18 on Sunday.
Lastly, in the Hearthstone Grandmasters Season 1, there were no relegation or promotion spots available. For Season 2, there is now a maximum relegation of two players per region. The people behind Hearthstone Grandmasters are looking to increase the number of relegation spots in 2020 but more information on that will be made available “in the coming weeks.”
