Grandmasters Europe 2019 Season 2 Odds & Preview: Hunterace Listed as Favorite

• Hearthstone Grandmasters Europe begins it’s second season on August 23rd
• 2019 Hearthstone World Champion, Hunterace, opens as the favorite
• The new Hearthstone expansion, Saviors of Uldum, dropped on August 6th and will drastically impact Season 2

In Season 1, Fenomeno earned his ticket to Blizzcon by taking down Seiko 3-0 in the finals. He’ll looked to defend his title as Grandmasters Europe Season 2 begins on August 23rd.

Odds of Winning Hearthstone Grandmasters Europe Season 2

*Odds taken 03/08/19

Taking Down the World Champion

For the past year and a half, Hunterace has been a very dominant member of the Hearthstone community. When you look through his results, he has several victories at Tour Stops throughout 2018. Most importantly, he’s the reigning Hearthstone World Champion after he narrowly beat Viper 3-2 in the finals.

In Season 1 of Grandmasters Europe, Hunterace won his round robin group with a record of 10-4 which included seven straight match victories heading into the playoffs. Throughout the event, he switched classes several times, showing that he has an expertise with all of the top decks at the time.

This should favor Hunterace in Season 2 as the format is changing to Conquest style, where players must be experts in piloting several types of decks. However, just like in the Americas, the new expansion throws a wrench into things as players will have to quickly determine which decks they deem the most powerful.

The German Challenger

Right behind Hunterace in Group B was Seiko. The German Hearthstone pro had an identical record at 10-4 but ended up in second thanks to tiebreaker points. None of that mattered as Seiko was able to defeat Hunterace 2-1 in the semifinals.

In the middle of 2018, Seiko proved to be the best player in Germany after winning the Hearthstone Nationals over h0lysky. Since then he’s struggled at Tour Stops and could only muster a 40th place finish at the Masters Tour 2019 Las Vegas.

None of that takes away from what he did in season one with the Specialist format in place. Even though he has slightly better value than Hunterace, I’d still place money on the more proven player in this situation. Seiko doesn’t have the track record of winning the big, stressful tournaments just yet.

The Throwback Pick

One player that you should always keep an eye on is Kolento. He’s been playing Hearthstone since the very beginning and is known as an innovator of the game. He’s been credited for helping to create the Miracle Rogue deck that was very powerful in the early days of Hearthstone.

His expertise of Hearthstone is obvious even in 2019, as he just won the StarLadder Ultimate Series Season 1 back in March. No matter what tournament he enters, Kolento is always a strong contender to win.

Just like Hunterace and Seiko, he also had a 10-4 record in Season 1 to qualify for playoffs, but lost a close 2-1 set to Orange in the playoffs to finish fifth. In the early days of the new expansion, Kolento should be able to show off his creativity and bring a unique selection of decks. Especially with 7 to 1 odds, I favor Kolento to win Season 2 with all of the changes hitting Grandmasters Europe.

Pick: Kolento (+700)