As part of Blizzard’s major efforts in the esports scene this year, the Hearthstone Masters Tour Seoul 2019 happened this past weekend. Some of the best players from around the world gathered to see who would emerge victorious in the second Masters Tour event of the whole year.

Hearthstone Masters Tour Seoul 2019 Day 1 Details

A whopping 324 players from 54 countries around the world gathered in South Korea for three days of intense card battling. The Hearthstone Masters Tour Seoul 2019 event featured nearly half of them returning from the Masters Tour in Las Vegas earlier this year.

Competitors in the tournament battled it out in day one across seven rounds of Swiss matches to see who would end up with enough wins and not too many losses to move onto day two of the event. When the dust had settled, around half of the competitors moved on as 162 players made the cut.

Throughout day one, there were a few hot players who competed with a clean record of nothing but wins across the board. Those players were Martin “Zhim” Prete, Jack “DeadDraw” Bancroft, and the Asia-Pacific Grandmaster Euneil “Staz” Javinas.

The three perfect record players on day one were using the Highlander Mage, Control Warrior, and Highlander Hunter decks, respectively, during their seven wins. It was clear from the start that the Mage class was the most popular of all nine classes with over a third of the players using it.

However, it was found that, despite the less popular class, Priest was stealing the show in the day one competition with the Priest players taking full advantage of new cards from the Saviors of Uldum expansion like Psychopomp, Neferset Ritualistic, and Injured Tol’vir to shake up the meta game.

There were many emotional rollercoasters throughout day one, too, including players like Cong Shu who started out with only one win and two losses with a possible third loss meaning game over for the pro player but getting three wins in a row was just enough to move onto day two of the competition.

For Mage users, the removal of the popular card Yogg-Saron, Hope’s End from the Standard card rotation was unfortunate but its replacement Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron was more than enough to command the meta game and lead some lucky players to wins throughout the day.

Hearthstone Masters Tour Seoul 2019 Day 2 Recap and Top 8 Players Revealed

With those 162 remaining players in the tournament, the Hearthstone Masters Tour Seoul 2019 moved to day two. There, players played more rounds to find out who would move up in the leaderboards for day two. Day two concluded with only the top eight players moving onto the final day.

There was not a single North American player in the top eight finals at the Hearthstone Masters Tour Seoul 2019, despite making up for more than 10 percent of the players in attendance there. To make things even more fascinating, four of the top eight players were from France.

You can find the full list of the top eight players in the competition below along with their Swiss round streaks and which classes they used:

• Shuda “RNGLys” Liu – 11-1 with Hunter in Swiss
• Euneil “Staz” Javinas – 10-2 with Hunter in Swiss
• Théo “Felkeine“ Dumont – 10-2 with Mage in Swiss
• Martin “Zhym” Prêté – 10-2 with Mage in Swiss
• Lionel “Magoho“ Michaud – 10-2 with Warrior in Swiss
• Jack “DeadDraw” Bancroft – 10-2 with Warrior in Swiss
• Gregoire “Un33D” Bodin – 10-2 with Rogue in Swiss
• Sangsoo “Sooni” Nam – 9-3 with Priest in Swiss

What’s interesting about these results is that the class arrangement in the top eight is firmly split between Hunter, Warrior, and Mage. In addition, no one in the competition was able to go completely undefeated in the Swiss rounds as the closest was RNGLys who still lost one match in the process.

Oddly enough, too, Staz was the only Grandmaster left in the running, which put a lot of pressure on the Asia-Pacific pro player who had a solid running thus far. He used his unique Highlander Hunter deck to work well against Mage, Priest, and other Hunter players.

His solid showing in the top eight finals was great considering that the Grandmaster missed out completely on competing in the previous Masters Tour tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada due to a visa issue. The top eight players competed in some intense battles until the finals was the only match left.