Hearthstone Masters Tour: Murder at Castle Nathria has finally concluded, leaving behind a ton of exciting moments. Around 400 players competed in the tournament to achieve the glory of becoming a champion and get a piece of that $250,000 prize pool. The tournament was played over a couple of days, with each day having something interesting to offer for fans.
Image Credit: Blizzard Entertainment
The Masters started off with eight rounds of Swiss brackets, after which it advanced to top 16 single-elimination brackets. After many, many battles over the course of a couple of days, only two players remained: Sato “glory” Kenta and Shuhei “Tansoku” Omura, both from Japan. Tansoku managed to keep his cool and go all the way to become the champion of this Masters tournament!
Top 16
400 is a huge number of people participating in any tournament. Even reaching the top 16 was quite an accomplishment, as all competitors were successful in both the qualifier and group stages.
The top 16 players were:
- LoveStorm (China)
- Jozelui (Spain)
- Zochi (Republic of Korea)
- MERO (Republic of Korea)
- Zachary “GamerRvg” Kannass (US)
- D0nkey (Croatia)
- Tansoku (Japan)
- Wataru “Posesi” Ishibashi (Japan)
- Stone (China)
- Matty (Czech Republic)
- glory (Japan)
- Smoke (Russia)
- 3woods (China)
- Chewie (Sweden)
- C8763 (Taiwan)
- Ustyacmd (Russia)
All of the matches were at least relatively close, with one exception, which came from the soon-to-be champion Tansoku. In his clash against Posesi, he won three games to zero.
Top Eight
Passing the top 16 barrier, the players got tantalisingly close to winning this Masters Tour event. Compared to 400 players from the beginning, eight seems quite a bit smaller, but keep in mind, only the best players remained.
Even though there were fewer people to battle against and fewer matches to be played, the challenge grew to a new level because of the skill levels of the remaining players. The players who managed to reach the top eight were:
- LoveStorm (China)
- MERO (Republic of Korea)
- D0nkey (Croatia)
- Tansoku (Japan)
- Stone (China)
- glory (Japan)
- 3woods (China)
- Ustyacmd (Russia)
Top Four
Tansoku, MERO, 3woods and glory were the players that battled their way into the semifinals, proving themselves to be the elites of the field. In their semi-final match, 3woods and glory went head to head and needed five games to resolve the issue of who is going to the finals. The match was particularly close, but glory decided that he was not ready to go home yet. He gave it all he had and won by a slim margin of three games to two.
Tansoku versus MERO, on the other hand, was a different story. This match was not as intense, as Tansoku held all the power.. MERO suffered a crushing 3-0 defeat, though it wouldn’t be long before we realised just how powerful Tansoku is.
The Finals
Tansoku and glory were the last two men standing. The games were officially nail biters, especially as they reached a point where the series was tied at two games apiece.
Everything came down to the wire. It was looking as if it could go either way, and it really could have. Ultimately, glory’s Wig Priest had no choice but to surrender. Incredible skill level with just a smidge of good fortune prevailed as Tansoku was crowned champion of this Masters Tour.
With the conclusion of Hearthstone’s Masters Tour: Murder at Castle Nathria, we now look towards the future and upcoming Masters events. The next Masters Tour event is scheduled to occur between October 7th and 9th. That will be the last Masters Tour event this year, so don’t forget to join us again!
