The competition is now finished at the Hearthstone Masters Tour Online Asia-Pacific, and Simone “Leta” Liguori has taken the top spot with an impressive display of dominance over his opponents throughout the weekend. The win brings him one step closer to Grandmaster.
The games began with the Top 8, as Alutemu facing off against OldBoy, winning the match three games to one. Thijs narrowly beat out RNGLeaoh three games to two, while both Bunnyhoppor and Leta defeated their opponents LPXHope and justsaiyan three games to one each.
From this point, Aluytemu defeated Thijs in the Semi-Finals three games to one, and Leta defeated Bunnyhoppor three games to two.
In the finals, Leta was able to dominate Alutemu three games to one and take hope the top price, and $32,500 in prize money.
The weekend competition was filled with great plays but little variety in the meta decks used by each competitor. It would be fair to say that in the end, six core decks saw the most play with minor tweaks between players, if any. This established meta should not be too surprising as we are only a few weeks away from the release of the next expansion, Scholomance Academy, and there is nothing left to discover with the current pool of cards.
For example, each of the Semi-Finalists all brough a version of Highlander Hunter that were virtually identical. Even if there were a card swapped to act as a tech, the core gameplay between each competitor was largely the same. The same could also be said for Tempo Demon Hunter, Galakrond Rogue, Quest Warlock, and Pain Warrior, among others.
The conclusion of competition wraps up the fourth Masters Tour stop in an effort to determine which players can become eligible to take the stop of Grandmaster in 2021, which will have a spot in the World Championship beginning in the rotation for next year.
This leaves only two more tournaments for players to rack up as much prize money as possible to be eligible. The qualifying period for Masters Tour Montreal is already live and ends soon on July 26, with competition taking place from September 11 to 13. Meanwhile the final stop will be at the Masters Tour Madrid, which will take place from December 11 to 13.
The next two Masters Tour stops are sure to be an even more interesting watch than this past weekend because Scholomance Academy will have released and we will be seeing an entirely new meta develop, or so we hope. There is always the possibility that the power level of the next expansion may be too low, in which case the meta would remain functionally identical to what it is now, but time will tell if that is the case as more new cards are revealed prior to the expansion launch in early August.
Source: playhearthstone.com
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