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After eight rounds of competition this Sunday, Sweden finally took the throne off of Netherlands as we saw an all-Swedish final in GosuCup #11. The viking battle saw Legendaren meet WhtPwdr in the final match and crushing him 3-0 for the $100.
Sweden also triumphed in the second GosuCup tournament we ran this weekend - the SSD special over on the NA server. Fighting to win his team-mate Ignite a nice hard drive, MYM Semijew went 10-3 is a series of tough matches that included his fellow MYM players Skip and ThijsNL as well as DKMR's Hosty in the grand finals.
GosuCup #11 standings
1. 
Legendaren
2. WhtPwdr
3. 
qvzl
4. 
Deathfollower
5-8. 
Sturmey
5-8. 
Chacruna
5-8. 
ThijsNL
5-8. Gradefor
GosuCup NA standings
1. Semijew
2. 
Fyrst
3-4. ThijsNL
3-4. Fury
5-8. 
SpiffyStache
5-8. 
Kwyang
5-8. 
Kambras14
5-8. Isokaas
As mentioned, this was a big weekend for Sweden. Two champions and one runner-up sky-rocketed them to second place in the nation standings, surpassing Germany and Russia by a lot. In fact, they would've even beaten the Netherlands but the Dutchmen held their leadership position thanks to ThijsNL and Gradefor.
With 30 and 27 points, respectively, the Netherlands and Sweden are now way ahead of the opposition, leading with more than 10 points to the rest in the top three - Germany and Russia. All other countries in the top 10 are between 10 and 16 points so even small gains here and there can change the standings in that range but several big results will be needed to topple the leaders.
Nation standings (Top 10)
1. Netherlands - 30 points (-)
2. Sweden - 27 points (+2)
3. Germany - 16 points (-1)
3. Russia- 16 points (-)
5. Denmark - 14 points (-1)
6. 
Poland - 13 points (-2)
7. 
Portugal - 12 points (-)
8. 
Italy - 11 points (-2)
8. United Kingdom - 11 points (+2)
9. 
Greece - 10 points (-)
#1: Legendaren
#2: WhtPwdr
#3: qvzl
#4: Deathfollower
#5-8 (at random): Sturmey, Chacruna, ThijsNL, Gradefor
#9: Saeb
#10: WybityBark
#11: Daxt
#12: 
Elf
#13: Lalah
#14: 
BreizhPunisher
#15: Modernleper
#16: Cavariel
Saeb brought a total of give decks this Sunday. Although he mostly relied on his Handlock, he also had Ramp Druid as another stable control deck, a Zoo, a tempo Rogue against Hunters and Shaman for Shaman mirrors.
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| [deck linked]655[/deck] | [deck linked]656[/deck] | ||
| [deck linked]651[/deck] | [deck linked]652[/deck] | [deck linked]653[/deck] | |
"I've always loved Mage and I think it's viable"
Well, first of all, congratulations are in order! How does it feel winning a GosuCup?
It feels great! I had my hopes of winning but there were definitely some names there that I thought would be a quite hard match up even if I have faced most of them before.
Yeah, I see the tournament logs and you sliced through WhtPwdr in the grand final and weekly cup powerhouse ThijsNL in top 8. Were those the most difficult matches for you?
ThijsNL was the one I thought would be the toughest match, I know he's a great tournament player and I've never faced him anywhere outside ladder before. I managed to get some good draws and didn't really make any major mistakes which got me a rather comfortable 3-1. These games were the most intense ones in the tournament for sure!
You went for two control decks to win the tournament. Why choose Warrior and Handlock over the extremely popular Miracle Rogue?
The decks I chose were the ones I had the most experience with. I had miracle Rogue as a backup plan but I didn't want to start with it. I won my games by only having to show two decks at most and in the matchups I lost a game I just didn't feel like miracle would be as strong as Warrior or Warlock.
These specs are also shaping up to be very consistent in other tournaments as well. We see Warrior performing splendidly in Gentlemen Cup while Handlock had some nice games in the recent Deck Wars finals and is a strong deck overall. Would you say these are the go-to control decks at the moment, or there are other options like - maybe - Shaman or Druid that outshine them?
Right now there are a lot of viable decks for tournaments. I would say that Shaman is for sure one of the top tournament decks.
As there are so many control decks and miracle Rogues in tournaments, Handlock is possibly, in my opinion, the strongest deck. Warrior control is just a solid deck which can perform against almost anything.
MORE: Winner's decklists from Deck Wars S1 Finals
When you say Shaman, would you point to the dropped popularity of Hunters as the reason for class's rise?
Definitely. Hunters were controlling the meta for a long while, both on ladder and in tournaments. Popularity started to drop a bit with the KitKatz warrior and some other viable decks, that together with the nerf made Hunters almost disappear. As this was Shamans’ worst matchup they are at some sort of peak right now before Hunters start to come back.
With the meta slowing down, do you think otherwise underused classes will gain more popularity, like Priest maybe, or even Paladins and Mages?
I've always liked Mage and I think it is viable, both as a complete burst style aswell and perhaps a comeback for the freeze style. I think Priest has always been a choice for tournaments, although not a popular one. Paladins is the class I feel struggles most at the moment.
[deck linked style=float:left;margin-left:-30px;margin-right:15px;margin-bottom:10pxl]667[/deck] I want to discuss the Mage and Paladin a bit more since different players have different takes on it. Let's start with the Mage: I am seeing a lot of burst decks on the ladder and Alchemixt even brought one to Deck Wars so we know it has some future. As for the Freeze Mage, our past winner Saeb thought it won't be viable in a Miracle Rogue meta. Why do you think it can work?
I can't really say I have tried it out a lot but I know that a few players has reached pretty decent spots in tournaments recently with it, even in this one. I think Chacruna played a freeze version which did really well. The meta is changing to be very versatile but I think there are differences with which decks are viable in ladder as opposed to tournaments. Decks can have a few terrible matchups in a tournament while a ladderdeck has to be consistent in almost every matchup.
MORE: GosuCup #10 winner interview and champion decklists
Saeb also thought reverting some of the earlier nerfs to Mage will greatly help the class jump back into public's eye. Do you agree? What would you do?
I disagree with nerfing or buffing cards to fast. The meta is constantly evolving and there are already mages seen on top ranks. It might have been a mistake to nerf all the freeze cards at once but almost everytime something gets nerfed it takes a while for people to adapt and build new versions. Mage is not a top tier class but I wouldn't put it at the bottom either.
Paladin is there then.
I'd say so yeah. Paladin is just not viable in my eyes. They just do what other classes do but a bit worse. Even with the new card introduced in Naxx I just don't see them as one of the decks I would chose for a tournament, even less for laddering.
What would you have designed in place of Avenge?
Some early minion that allows them to get through to the later parts. If they can get there without spending to much I think they definitely have a shot!
I saw recently that several players made it to legend with Paladin, though, using mostly rush builds and abusing the Divine Shield mechanic as well as Divine Favor. Can this be the new aggro deck on the block?
It's not a terrible deck I just feel like there are other aggro versions that do it better. A lot of Paladin aggros rely on Divine Favor for card draw which I feel is very unreliable. An aggro Warlock, for example, can just pump out more because of their insane hero ability.
Our #10 winner also told us that this is the most balanaced Hearthstone has ever been. Is that the case in your eyes?
Yeah it is for sure! I see new decks in top tier level everyday, which is great.
Do you have high hopes for Naxxramas? Several players I've interviewed are liking the Deathrattle-centric design but some have expressed the concern that it won't develop the metagame that much, at least judging by the cards shown so far.
I have really high hopes, there really is a need for more cards to experiment with. The meta will always change and if you add new cards a lot of options for new decks appear. There still are a lot of cards that haven't been shown yet so I definatily think we will see meta defining decks that are yet to be built!
Would you've liked to see more cards than just 30?
Well, 30 feels ok for an expansion. I just hope that the expansions will come a bit more often. I feel like this is a part where great players seperate themselves from good ones.
Alright, let's put the in-game talk aside for a moment. What's next for you in terms of competitive Hearthstone? Pursuit of a fullt-ime career or you just like to keep it as a hobby?
Me and my team have our goal set for the just announced Dreamhack tournament. Hopefully I can get a few more online tournaments placement before that. It is hard to get your name out there and since a lot of the bigger tournament have invite only you need to constantly perform when you have an opportunity.
MORE: $25,000 on the line for DreamHack Summer
This invite-only policy will hopefully not last for too long, though. I speak to a lot of players daily and there are skilled players who regularly crush tournaments but never seem to come into the spotlight...
I sure hope so.
Well, I think we can bring this to a wrap! Any last words you want to say from our podium?
Thanks for a great tournament! A big thanks to my team Inovacio and especially my teammate Ztumpan for our deck testing sessions.
"I really like the current meta - it's sort of balanced with a large pool of decks used"
Congratulations on winning GosuCup SSD NA Special! It was a small cup but it was attended several big names nonetheless. It feels good I imagine, even if the prize wasn't hard cash?
Thanks. Ye it feels good since I promised my team mate Ignite that I would win him the SSD hard drive.
Oh, so where did Ignite hide then?
Good question.. At least I got to use an NA account that was not free to play for the first time.
So, you brought a Warrior and Miracle along, largely regarded as the most consistent decks at the moment alongside Handlock and the newly-rising Shaman. Did you choose them because you feel confident with them or simply because they are so strong?
Since I'm poor I don't have all the cards on any of my accounts so I never get to play miracle so I felt like going with it when I had the chance. The warrior deck I only had to use against my two teammates Skip and Thijs in one game each and that was purely for counter purpose.
I see it in the newspapers tomorrow - MYM players poor, team captain Blackout not found for commentary.
Haha I'm pretty sure it's just me, to lazy to find a job. *laughs*
Speaking of Miracle, this is basically the deck to beat in the current meta. I don't think I asked Legendaren (winner of GosuCup #11) so I'll ask you - how does one survive the Rogue onslaught nowadays?
Most decks that counters miracle Rogue basically just outrush them to prevent the miracle from happening… Some variations of control Warrior are a solid way of countering Rogues as well since they have a limited amount of damage
What would you personally suggest? I've been running tokens myself but I see resurgence in face Hunters and even burst Mages, as weird as that sounds.
Facehunter is a good anti meta deck since it counters Handlock, Shaman and can counter miracle (which are the most played decks at the moment). But I personally prefer to counter miracle with control Warrior since it's more reliable than most rush decks that depends a lot on good draws. Token druid is also a valid option.
I'd like to move away from the metagame talk, as we had plenty of that with Legendaren and rather talk to you about competitive Hearthstone. You're representing MYM, which is shaping to be one of the strongest teams in Hearthstone at the moment. For those who don't know - how did the team come to be?
From the beginning there were two teams, Reason Gaming and Denial E-sport if I remember correctly, when thoose two teams split up some of the players formed Team Phoenix. I later on joined Phoenix and we picked up a couple of more players, Blazingglory and ThijsNL and after a lot of time spent into practice and tournaments we all showed good achivments and MYM picked us up.
Was it you who approached MYM or did they come to you?
We were looking for an organisation and when MYM contacted us it was a no brainer, I mean, who wouldn't wanna represent one of the greatest organisations in E-Sport, if not the best.
They certainly have a lot of history behind them. Which leads me to my next question - MYM was among the first really big names that picked up a Hearthstone team, yet it wasn't until Gentlemen Cup that we truly saw you guys compete. What's the reason for that? Were there no intentions to pursuit Fight Night appearances or something?
We are obviously looking towards all team leagues out there, but thus far ESGN has only picked up teams with known streamers and since we are still a new team with players performing very good in weekly tournaments like GosuCup and Zotac, the fame are just beginning to grow. Fight Night would be a great next step after Gentlemen Cup.
In individual tournaments you are indeed doing splendidly - we had you winning GosuCup NA, Skip and Ignite fought in ZOTAC this Saturday and ThijsNL is probably the player with the most top 4 finishes in weekly cups. Now, though, you have something huge to look forward to - DreamHack's $25,000 tournament in June. How are the preparations going?
I'm really excited about Dreamhack and it is looking like the really big prizepools are starting to come for Hearthstone now making all thoose hours of practice worth it. The preperations is going very well and I'm happy to have a team with this much talent to practice with!
They're changing the format now, to feature group stage into playoffs. Do you think this is optimal for a two day event or they should've tried to implement a more card-friendly format like swiss?
I prefer the swiss format like most players do but they have atleast implemented double eliminations so it seems like they learned from Bucharest. The thing I do not like is the ratio between invited players and qualified players, I think they could atleast have made it 50/50.
One would argue that it shouldn't even be 50/50, rather have it all qualifier winners but I guess Hearthstone is not there yet...
It's still very new to competitive gaming and this way they attract a lot more PR and viewership. Let's just hope that in the future the very best players are the most famous ones.
The last DreamHack came just after the meta got stale around the Sunshine Hunter and many of the games were all and the same. Do you fear DH Summer will suffer the same fate?
I really like the current meta, it's sort of balanced with some exceptions and there is a big pool of decks being used. What I fear is that Blizzard will release the Naxxramas patch with new cards days before or during Dreamhack wich makes most of the practice with current decks useless.
Do you really think they will launch Naxx that soon? I think someone suggested it will be towards the end of June, to match Naxxramas' release date (the original raid).
I don't have any additional information than the common player so that might aswell be true, but even if they release it at the end of June it will impact other Dreamhacks and major tournaments, but that's another story.
Alright, I think we can bring this to a wrap! Any final words to my skype camera?
One of my teammates need a new laptop so perhaps a Gosucup Laptop Special to come?
Oh, that one will be rigged for GosuCrew purposes. We poor.
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