Why Hearthstone doesn’t need a Grandmaster

Over the past 5 years, Hearthstone has competed with DreamHack, World Electronic Sports Games, StarSeries and many others. But in March, Blizzard decided it was going to be self-managing and wanted a more steady stream of tournament viewership rather than just sudden crowds at tournaments.

And so we have: Hearthstone Grandsmasters.

Grandsmasters is Blizzard’s attempt to turn Hearthstone into the Overwatch League or any traditional seasonal sport. Each week, the players have several games, totaling two against an opponent in the 14-game season. Blizzard believes this will make Hearthstone more interesting and boost its potential audience. However, it failed. So the question is why?

This format does not help the audience’s viewing experience last longer. Specifically, if someone wants to follow their favorite player, they are forced to wait for the previous games to get to the player they want to watch, but then the audience doesn’t really want to follow either. Usually that shouldn’t cause any problems, but with decks like Bomb Warrior being hugely popular right now, each game can last up to an hour and a half, not to mention a break. At this point, even veteran Hearthstone fans must be bored before such matches.

Even players hate waiting. As a general rule at tournaments, they are not allowed to stream while the tournament is broadcasting. But when players have to wait for their turn to compete and want to level up to practice a bit, as well as stream, but they don’t have the right to do that. Also, even if a player isn’t competing, if their region is live, they’re still not allowed to stream until it’s over.

With Bomb Warrior battles making streams longer, the banning of streams made them uncomfortable. This causes some players, like David “Dog” Caero, to make important decisions. He said he was thinking of taking a break from the tournament in general because he wanted to stream more and didn’t like to wait for the matches to end.

Another reason why Grandmasters failed lies in the new format, Specialist. It is seen as less innovative than the previous Conquest. Specialist only allows one deck instead of four, and the other two deck versions are actually the same as the first, with a difference of only 5 cards.

Most fans love variety, but Specialist doesn’t allow it and it kills off the experience from many audiences. It also limits the fun of competition by forcing players to plow through a deck instead of having the opportunity to try out other lineups and enjoy challenging opponents. Fans would rather watch 16 different potential matchups in one game than repeat matches because the Specialist meta only offers three to four decks – the chances of encountering similar decks are much higher.

Practically speaking, Hearthstone doesn’t have to be seasonal. Hearthstone in its early days became more popular thanks to rising stars, such as James “Firebat” Kostesich, Sebastian “Forsen” Fors, and Jan “Ek0p” Palys – who slowly brought audiences to the tournament streams. Tournaments like DreamHack and World Championship also offer the thrill of a card game. Without this excitement, the game would become almost boring.

For example, in most Hearthstone tournaments, every player is interviewed. As the two confront each other, their interviews are shown. DreamHack always blends interviews into the exciting moments of the game to create a vibrant atmosphere before the game. Grandmasters tried to replicate that with end-of-game interviews, but the players didn’t seem to care much and they sometimes lasted as long as one sentence.

Hearthstone is a game with a loyal fan base and community that needs to be taken care of by Blizzard. And they tried to do it with Grandmasters, but with what is going on, there is a high chance that viewership will drop, eventually fans will gradually lose interest in Hearthstone.