Luke Humphries won this trophy last year beating Joe Cullen, Josh Rock, Damon Heta, Danny Noppert and Jonny Clayton to lift the trophy. Cool Hand has a bit of a point to prove this year after being knocked off his perch as the World Number 1 by Luke Littler.

Humphries is still seen as the main challenger to Littler despite the recent rise of Gian Van Veen. I did consider him outright here, but it’s the first time he’s competing at the World Masters and I think he could have an awkward first round tie against Ryan Joyce - who is an excellent finisher and could cause van Veen problems over a short format.

Humphries begins his Masters defence against Dave Chisnall, who has been steadily dropping down the rankings over the last few years and underwhelmed at the World Championships, bowing out to Ricardo Pietreczko in the second round. I don’t think Humphries will have too many problems with dispatching Dave Chisnall, setting up a last 16 tie against either Luke Woodhouse or Martin Schindler.

I’m really interested to see how Humphries approaches this year, he’s also defending the Premier League title so he has plenty to fight for and should be motivated to get the year started on a positive note with the early rounds likely to give the world number two plenty of encouragement and momentum.

I’ve been really impressed with Michael Van Gerwen over recent World Series events with the Dutch number two picking up the Bahrain Darts Masters trophy and getting to the final of the inaugural Saudi Darts Masters.

We can’t read too much into these events as they aren’t too much of a step up from exhibition matches and don’t require qualification, but what was notable from Van Gerwen was his overall demeanour. He looks slimmer and more focused on his game ahead of a big year for the former World Champion in which he defends a large portion of his prize money.

He kicks off his tournament with a clash against Damon Heta with the winner set to take on either Chris Dobey or Jermaine Wattimena. Despite his issues away from the oche last year, I still think that Van Gerwen has the most quality of this quartet and should be able to battle his way through to the quarter final stages from this draw.

That would set up a potential quarter final against either Clayton or Price depending on who comes through that section of the draw. Van Gerwen has won the Winmau World Masters on five different occasions so he isn’t lacking in experience, he went out in the last 16 to Dimitri Van den Bergh last year which was a little bit of foreshadowing for how his season would eventually pan out - but he looks prepared to be back amongst the best this year.

Nathan Aspinall is one of my favourite darts players due to how much of a scrapper and fighter he is. Aspinall always finds a way to be competitive, even if his overall quality isn’t to the same level as his opponent. This often results in Aspinall overachieving and I think he’ll be motivated to prove some people wrong here after being left out of the Premier League.

I was surprised that Aspinall was left out of the eight man selection for the Premier League as he always competes well in the competition and had a solid year - picking up three European Tour titles, the most of any player last year. These trophies show that Aspinall can find a way to go deep in these tournaments and I think set play will suit his tendency to scrap in games as he’ll constantly be just a step or two behind his opponent.

He kicks off his tournament against a qualifier who will be drawn to face him after the preliminary round on Wednesday evening. He does have a potentially difficult clash against van Veen in the round of 16 if he gets past the qualifier, though it is worth noting that the Dutchman has never played at the World Masters before and Aspinall gave him a good game in the Bahrain Darts Masters.

Aspinall reached the quarter finals of the World Masters last year, exiting to Dimitri Van den Bergh, and should be motivated to put a run together at this years’ tournament in a bid to earn back some confidence after missing out on Premier League inclusion.