Gallon · @GO_Gallon
27th Mar 2019 from TwitLonger
Thoughts on the grandmaster system
Hey guys,
I have been thinking a lot about the upcoming grandmaster system ever since rumors of the system started late last year, around the time of HCT Philadelphia. I figured since a lot of people are sharing their perspectives on it, I might as well too.
First off, I want to say that competitive hearthstone in terms of player skill is at an all time high. I spent most of last year grinding tour stops, and got used to seeing the same pool of names make the top cut of every event. I also got to personally know some of the best in the world and how they strategized inside and outside of the game, and it often blew me away. A single turn vs Muzzy at HCT Oakland entirely redefined how I perceived the game, and that is not an easy thing to do (ask purple about my stubbornness and he will probably give you an entire speech on it lol) Blizzard could have gone a lot of directions with the Grandmaster League, and from the leaked names I think that the league will faithfully represent the top or close to top level play. You could say most, if not all of the players in the league "earned it" and be correct.
I also think (or at least hope) that the league will provide storylines for some of the lesser known grinders in top level play. It would be excellent to see someone like Jarla, who had a great 2018 results-wise but is still relatively unknown to the casual viewer, gain a fanbase through the league with his execution of control decks. Additionally, the league format should be great for viewers who are into watching hearthstone but couldn't religiously follow the tournament-a-week scene last year.
However, while the format is great for the people in grandmasters and for the viewers at home, it has some serious failings in terms of pro play outside of the league. I may be biased as I personally did not make it in, but I still want to highlight what I think is a deeply flawed system for people who aren't invited.
One of the big issues of the league is that it is the definition of feast or famine. In=excellent, Out=Quite bad. For every "deserving" player in the league, you could probably name two that didn't make it. Clearly a league system has to have a cut off, but the current one relegates a vast majority of the pro playerbase to spiking one of three tournaments in the hopes of making it in. Specialist has it's own set of issues (or at least with the current meta), and just by nature of being a b03 format will lead to higher variance. Many of the players in the league got there through consistent tournament finishes and high ladder results during last year. This is great -- consistently doing well should absolutely be a reason to receive an invite. Why, then, is the only way to make it in now for an aspiring pro (along with many people I would not call aspiring) highrolling a single event? Why is consistency no longer rewarded when that was the whole point of a league, to reward the consistent players?
The secondary issue is tied to the first, but is still important to address. The current system of determining who to add and who to drop is incredibly insular. 14/16 people maintain their status every season. This system doesn't incentivize people inside the league to sharpen their skill, just maintain it, and it really doesn't incentive people outside the league to improve as even the best player in the world would struggle immensely to get in through such a closed system.
Clearly some of my own misgivings stem from the fact that I am not in. After the announcement that some in the league were chosen based on points, I was kicking myself for not trying even harder last year. I could have gotten a better position one month, or maybe won one more game in a tournament, or I could have payed my own way to some tournaments I didn't enter. I was looking forward to proving myself this year by making it into the league with the new system, but I feel like time spent improving in hearthstone will most likely not lead to the result I want of getting into the league, and I obviously wish this wasnt the case.
Now, complaining alone will do nothing and I still plan on trying my hardest to get into the league. In the meantime I had some ideas on how to improve the system -- I do think having consistency being rewarded is a good thing and having a league for the most consistent players is super cool for hearthstone viewership, and this would remain in place. A system that I think would work much better and please a lot more people is a 2-tiered league system. There would still be hearthstone grandmasters, witth a similar structure in place to the current one. There would also be a tier 2 league, hearthstone masters, a much larger pool of players that would play multiple tournaments each season. Winning a masters cup would put you in the next season's tier 2 league, with maybe a cap of 64 or 128 per region per season. The grandmaster tier would also have a higher amount of dropped players each season, with 4 or 8 players being dropped into the tier 2 league (up from 2). As a tier 2 player, you would accumulate results from multiple online and possibly offline events, and the top 4-8 players in a season would advance to grandmasters.
I think that something similar to this would keep a lot less people in the pro community from being upset compared to the current structure.
Those are pretty much my thoughts on the Grandmasters system, good and bad. I still enjoy hearthstone a lot and hope we get the system right at some point to make people excited about competitive hearthstone for many years. Thanks for reading and if you would like to talk about any of the points I brought up feel free to leave a message.