Cydonia · @CydoniaHS
27th Mar 2019 from TwitLonger
Thoughts on Hearthstone Grandmasters announcement
The structure of the Hearthstone Grandmasters system was finally unveiled today. The important stuff is that there are 16 players per region split into 2 divisions, who will play a double round-robin (so 14 matches per player per season) and to quote the announcement, after Season 2 ‘each player who finished last in their respective division will be at risk of relegation’.
I’m already seeing a lot of criticism on twitter to the effect that 2 spots opening this year is not enough, and that there should be as many as 50% of GMs rotating after this year. I’m also seeing concerns that a player with 50% win rate would stay in the league for a long time. Assuming the league houses the very best players in the region, a 50% win rate means you belong, so I see no problem with that.
I thought a lot about what it should mean to be a Grandmaster and the difficult thing, from Blizzard’s point of view, is that this is the only opportunity to directly invite the inaugural players. This is pretty tough since we have 5 years of competitive Hearthstone behind us at this point and countless players made their mark. After this, any player who does well in a single tournament can make it into the league. So while there is almost no chance that any of the 16 chosen players would be undeserving, there is a decent chance that someone who is not among the best players in a region wins Las Vegas and automatically gets into the league.
It also needs to be valuable to be part of the league. There needs to be a way to protect the iconic players from Hearthstone’s history from getting kicked out of the league right away and never making their way back. A league without the consensus best players gets devalued really quickly. There needs to be incentive for players to embrace their status of GM and fully commit to Hearthstone, whether it means content creation, streaming, or competing to the best of their ability. If the GMs had 50% chance to be out after Season 2, I feel this would significantly affect their level of commitment. While there are players who would commit anyway, for example if they are popular streamers or sponsored by large organizations, but there are also players for which there is a big opportunity cost to be in the league if they have to put their career on hold. Also, challengers would not necessarily put in as much effort to get into a league that is not as valuable and prestigious.
Here are a few numbers to illustrate my point. Let’s say there are 500 players per region who have a legit chance of getting a spot in the league next year.
If there are 2 spots available:
Chance to lose your spot: 12.5%
Chance to win a spot: 0.4%
If there are 4 spots available:
Chance to lose your spot: 25%
Chance to win a spot: 0.8%
If there are 8 spots available:
Chance to lose your spot: 50%
Chance to win a spot: 1.6%
In all of these scenarios, it is extremely unlikely to win a spot, and the variations in odds of winning a spot should not affect a challenger’s decision to participate in Open Cups and Masters Tour events. However, as spots available increase, the chance to lose a spot becomes much greater really fast, which would devalue the league immensely. Also I feel that since seasons are only 14 matches long, it is a very small sample size so it is largely random who will be relegated. So once again, having only a few players relegated every year is the surest way to keep the best players in the league for as long as possible.
Assuming Blizzard is not going to change the system again in a few years and this is here to stay, I feel that the amount of spots available is adequate as stability within the league is desirable since it incentivizes GMs to fully commit and creates more hype for the new inductees. The league should also be more interesting to watch for viewers who can become invested in their favorite players without having to worry that they will probably be out of the league (and possibly Hearthstone forever, as I have illustrated that no matter how the league is structured it will be extremely unlikely for any individual to get in without a stroke of luck).
Note that I am not touching on whether the Grandmasters system is a good thing for Hearthstone, just commenting that the structure of the league and how difficult it is to get into makes sense if the goal is to create a hit for the audience as well as prestige for the selected players.