Have you heard? The Hearthstone Grandmasters 2021 is on! Players from all around the world are jostling for a shot at becoming World Champion. Be it for their deck-building skills, their creative plays, their ability to read a board, or their dashing hats, here are some of the best Hearthstone players in the world right now.

10. Warma 

Enzo “Warma” Floch is a French player with lots of potential and lots more to prove. He took the Hearthstone Grandmasters 2021 tournament by surprise and placed second in the first week of the EMEA rankings, right after Thijs. After working hard at the Masters Tour for most of 2020 for a less-than-ideal place in the 2020 Grandmasters, this year might be his big shot. 

Unless you’ve been paying attention to the Masters series, Warma is an unknown quantity in the 2021 Grandmasters. But if you watched his Demon Hunter, Galakrond Rogue, and Spell Druid making mincemeat of his opponent in the 2020 Masters finals, you can’t be too surprised to find him here. Warma has proved he’s a strong player but is he strong enough for the Grandmasters?

Recent tournament achievements:

Masters Tour 2020 Jönköping 1st Place ($32,500)

Warma’s 2021 Grandmasters game against Jarla:

9. Bunnyhoppor

A choice Bunnyhoppor quote about his own performance at  a World Championship event: “I thought: Wtf dude, missing lethal at World’s... nice.” Germany’s Raphael “BunnyHoppor” Peltzer might have missed lethal a couple of times, but he’s no pushover. He’s an old competitive chess player, an Oxford grad working on his Ph.D. in Chemistry, and one of the top earners in the history of Hearthstone. He at least knows where the tournaments are, and he definitely knows how to play. 

He says: “In order to be really, really good at the game, I would have to invest more of my time than I currently can.” Is there anything else we can add to that? If those aren’t the words of a champion, they’re at least inspiring. BunnyHoppor is a machine and Hearthstone barely figures in his schedule at all.

Recent major tournament achievements:

Masters Tour Online 2020 Asia-Pacific 3rd-4th ($15,000)

BunnyHoppor Highlights:

8. Rdu

Romanian star Dima “Rdu” Radu is a long-time Hearthstone aficionado and winner of quite a few major tournaments. Already competing in 2014, Rdu was in the center of a scandal when in the final match of DreamHack Viagame he received an unsolicited private message revealing the contents of his opponent Amaz’s hand. Rdu called a break and later went on to win the match. Though both Amaz and Hearthstone organizers judged the match had been fairly won, the controversy sparked backlash for tournament-appropriate game modes. 

A steady presence in the Hearthstone competitive community since the beginning, Rdu later became a staple of the game’s streaming community as well. His YouTube channel gives a good overview of his strengths as a pondered, careful player who knows the meta well and how best to adapt to the board’s demands. Until very recently, Rdu’s YouTube content focused around Battlegrounds, but he’s back to constructed as of this writing. Which means this is the best time to check him out!

Recent major tournament achievements:

Grandmasters 2020 Season 2 - EMEA Stage 2 Tournament 2nd Place ($2,500)

Rdu’s Battlegrounds Highlights:

7. Liooon

Xiaomeng “Liooon” Li, playing under the battletag VKLiooon, is a Chinese Hearthstone Grandmaster and the first and only woman Hearthstone World Champion. Liooon started her Hearthstone career as a streamer and later went pro with stellar results. She’s a staunch supporter of more representation for female players in esports, and made that the theme of her victory speech after the 2019 World Championship.

Liooon is a capable, versatile player, and proved it when she went 3-0 against bloodyface - another extremely strong player - with a combination of Evolve Shaman, Malygos Druid, and Highlander Hunter. Her ability to plan ahead for each of her opponent’s decks and apply pressure on the board turn after turn makes her a fearsome powerhouse of a player, comfortable with many styles and types of deck.

Recent major tournament achievements:

Grandmasters 2019 - Global Finals 1st Place ($200,000)

Liooon’s win at the Grandmasters 2019:

6. Surrender

Kim Jung-soo, also known as Surrender, is a South Korean 24 year-old player currently gaming for SK Telecom T1. He’s earned over $300,000 from Hearthstone alone and continues to blaze a path through the opposition as one of the best to play the game. Also, if he becomes World Champion he wants to use the reward money to take his mom travelling. Isn’t that nice?

Combo decks were Surrender’s first Hearthstone love, and he continues to play them even today in the form of the Miracle Rogue he piloted in his Hearthstone Grandmasters games. Currently middle of the pack in the Asia section of the tournament and with a few tough matchups ahead, we’ll see if Surrender manages to stake his claim for World Champion.

Recent Major Tournament Achievements:

A string of 2nd and 1st places in 2020’s Hearthstone Grandmasters ($9,500 collectively)

Surrender Highlights:

5. Lunaloveee

Born in 1993 and playing competitively since 2018, Luna “lunaloveee” Eason, also known as bloodyface, has already won a whopping $300,000 in that short time. The American player is currently 5th in the Hearthstone Grandmasters Americas list, where last year she finished first. But with a few weeks still to go, there’s no doubt Luna still has room to surprise us. 

In the past, Luna has shown her skills against a host of amazing players, such as Eddie, Monsanto, and going toe-to-toe against glory in the 2020 World Championship. This year she’s shooting for the World Championship, and in the coming weeks we’ll see if she’s got what it takes.

Recent Major tournament achievements:

Hearthstone All-Star Invitational 2020 1st Place ($10,000)

Watch Luna’s match against Eddie in 2021’s Hearthstone Grandmasters:

4. Monsanto

Canadian Jerome “Monsanto” Faucher has been a participant in pro tournaments since 2016 and has remained consistent throughout. This charming, quick-witted player is still going strong in the 2021 Grandmasters and the future looks bright. He’s got prep, he’s got decks, and most importantly, he’s got a powerful hat.

Cool-headed Monsanto is at his best when the game is going against him and he has shown an amazing ability to dig his feet in just when everything seems lost. His two major highlights - finding an infinite-value Liadrin-Shadowstep-Kobold Lackey engine and turning the board on a very beefy early Questing Adventurer -  are proof of exactly that. 

Recent major tournament achievements:

Hearthstone World Championship 2020 3rd-4th place ($50,000)

Monsanto Highlights:

3. Thijs

Hearthstone veteran Thijs “Thijs” Molendijk has been a top player, streamer, and youtuber almost since the start. Figuring in all ‘best of all time’ lists, the 26 year-old saw his biggest win in the CN vs EU Championship of 2018. With a great start in the Hearthstone Grandmasters 2021 where he currently ranks 1st in Europe, maybe this year we’ll see Thijs make a claim for World Champion.

Thijs’ skill as a player can be attested by his more than 750 000 Twitch followers. Playing since 2013, this entertainer-slash-competitor was at one point untouchable, playing a variety of inventive decks. What’s more, every time he logs in you can see that even after all these years Thijs is still having fun playing Hearthstone.

Recent major tournament achievements:

CN vs EU Championship 2018 ($204,600.17)

Watch Thijs claw his way back for a win against the top spot in Legend:

2. Jarla

Jaromír "Jarla” Vyskočil is a Czech player and half of Nordavind’s Hearthstone roster, currently ranked 4th in Hearthstone Grandmasters (Season 1). Jarla’s slow, careful playing style pairs up beautifully with his ability to read the meta and prepare accordingly to secure big wins. Last year, he made a valiant effort for the World Championship, but ultimately it wasn’t enough to snatch the title in the final match. 

Jarla is known for his preference for control decks, a proclivity some, including the man himself, have called “predictable”. True or not, this player has shown that allowing his opponents to read him is very different from allowing them to defeat him. After a couple of messy bouts against Warma, Jarla is still well placed in this year’s Hearthstone Grandmasters. Maybe this is his shot at the title?

Recent major tournament achievements: 

World Championship 2020 2nd place ($100,000)

Jarla Highlights

1. glory

Not a lot is known about the current Hearthstone World Champion. Sato “glory” Kenta is a young player from Japan who started out in Hearthstone after he grew bored of Pokémon TCG. He quickly rose through the ranks, and in 2020 he took the World Championship by storm, securing the Championship match 3-2 against Jarla. 

glory has often spoken about how preparedness and diligence are key to his success. He trusts thoroughly recognized, well-performing decks over cutting-edge tech, which gives him a great degree of reliability. One thing you notice watching glory play is his mood: nervous but never paralyzed, and laughing more than he frowns even when the game doesn’t go his way. He’s careful not to let one mistake become two, to stop, regroup, and think when things start to slip. Clearly, the results are there.

Recent Major tournament achievements: 

World Championship 2020 1st place ($200,000)

glory Highlights:

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