Hearthstone Esports: Americas Falter, Europe Returns to Form, Asia and China Stay Strong

Today’s first Hearthstone World Championship match at BlizzCon pitted the Chinese players Hamster and Jasonzhou against each other. You may recall that Hamster garnered some attention for being the only player to bring Paladin and Priest decks to the tournament. While his deck choices might’ve raised some eyebrows early on, they served him well during the Opening Week Group Stage. He achieved a resounding 4-0 victory against his former mentor Bbgungun. Hamster started off strong in today’s first game, raising hopes that he’d continue his winning streak into the Semifinals. But things took a turn in game 2 when Hamster’s Paladin deck came up against Jasonzhou’s Shaman. Relying on a small number of powerful late-game cards, Hamster struggled to come up with reliable early game plays. Jasonzhou had a strong hand from the start, and quickly took out his opponent from 25 health courtesy of a well-timed Bloodlust with plenty of minions on the board. Hamster wasn’t able to recover from there. While he managed to snag one victory with his Paladin deck with a fortuitous Ragnaros, Lightlord draw, Jason’s Warlock, Druid, and Warrior decks all countered him aggressively. Unfortunately, Hamster didn’t even get to play his Priest deck today. If the first series of the day went more or less as expected, the second was the exact opposite. Amnesiac, the 16-year old American wunderkind of the Hearthstone pro scene, was widely seen as a favorite for winning the entire Championship. Pavel, meanwhile, had struggled through an elimination match in the Group Stage and almost lost everything in the subsequent series before pulling off a spectacular 4-3 reverse sweep. Amnesiac came out swinging in the first three games. Game 2 quickly went in Amnesiac’s favor after an early Ragnaros play took out massive chunks of Pavel’s health. Pavel recovered from a shaky start in game 3 thanks to a well-timed Barnes draw, but Amnesiac drew into a double Abusive Sergeant combination soon after, allowing him to deal a massive amount of damage in a single turn and kill Pavel off. With one game to go to secure his spot in the Semifinals, Amnesiac was left with his Malygos Druid deck—one of the most popular decks in the tournament. Pavel definitely had a mountain to climb, but the Russian player never gave up and began to mount his comeback. He won games 4 and 5 with his C’Thun Warrior and Malygos Druid decks by quickly shutting down Amnesiac’s most powerful minions. He seemed like he was done for in game 5 when Amnesiac played his Malygos, leaving Pavel with no clear counterplay. But on the next turn, Pavel’s Babbling Book gave him the exact answer that he needed in the form of a Polymorph. On the subsequent turn, played another Babbling Book giving him a Firelands Portal to directly deal with Amnesiac’s Emperor Thaurissan. Pavel’s incredible comeback continued in game 7 when used Gadgetzan Auctioneer to cycle into the Sap that he needed to shut down Amnesiac’s Sylvanas and end his tournament run. Game of the Day: Having tied the series after going 3-0 down, Pavel pits his Malygos Rogue against Amnesiac's Malygos Druid". In the third series of the day, South Korea’s Che0nsu squared off against Canada’s Cydonia. Che0nsu brought Cydonia down to very low health quickly in the first game, but Cydonia’s Warrior managed to stabilize thanks to two smartly-played Brawls and a N’Zoth draw that gave him a taunt minion just when he needed one the most. Unable to respond to the newly-filled board, Che0nsu was forced to concede. The next four games went much better for Che0nsu. His Warlock secured game 2 after drawing into a Doomguard for lethal. He kept his forward momentum going in the next three matches with his Mage, Druid, and Hunter. Cydonia seemed like he had a fighting chance in game 4 with his Hunter, but the player’s big gambles unfortunately cost him a lot of health, and Che0nsu was able to burn his opponent’s last 8 health down with a strong combo of spells he’d saved up in his hand. The final series of the day pitted Americas player HotMEOWTH against Ukraine’s DrHippi, and was the shortest and most decisive match-up of the day. HotMEOWTH brought an unconventional Blood Warriors deck to the table in game 1, and he wasn’t able to execute his strategy successfully against DrHippi’s more conventional Warrior build. In each of the subsequent games, HotMEOWTH continued to queue into his Warrior, but failed to string together the answers to DrHippi's continued threats and ultimately losing the series 0-4. Tune in tomorrow starting at 10:30 a.m. PDT to see Jasonzhou take on Pavel, and Che0nsu take on DrHippi prior to the Grand Finals.