Today is the last day of the Blizzcon NA qualifers and the hopes 8 players all rest towards a single goal. Qualifying for a chance to compete in the Hearthstone World Championship. With a combined prize pool of $250,000 and venue that promises the most epic showcase of competitive Hearthstone, it is a tournament that none of these players want to miss. There has to be some perks to being named the Hearthstone World Champion, Right?
You can find a complete re-cap of the day 1 matches as well as some of the standout decks that performed well in the links above. For match re-caps of todays playoffs, you are in the right place!
Game 1: Ramp Druid vs Shaman
Hyped chose to ban Firebat's Hunter deck while Firebat banned Freeze mage. Smart bans from both players, as both of those decks are suited for sweeping an opponent without a specific answer against it. This match was in Firebat's control for almost the entire game, but Hyped patience and solid decision making even when starring down a full board against his nothing proved invaluable, as his Ramp druid finally picked up speed and squeeked out a very narrow comeback to win the match. Firebat played about as well as he could, and perhaps was a bit too cautious.
Game 2: Ramp Druid VS ZooLock
Zoolock does well versus most everything with the right series of draws, so it doesn't surprise me that Firebat chose this deck. Hyped would of much prefered to be playing Freeze Mage vs this deck, and you can tell he preffered playstyle is one that favors the deck. For example, in his opening hand, he mulliganed a Swipe, which against Zoolock is somewhat questionable. Hyped has no problem playing at low life totals, so I assume the decision was made thinking that his Druid deck would either draw another Swipe or stablize quickly enough.
It didn't stablize however, and Firebat took the series off a pretty fantastic series of draws.
Game 3: Priest vs Zoolock.
Priest didn't have a chance this game. It looked promising after Hyped drew an early Holy Nova, but all of Firebat's minions soon became out of kill range thanks to x2 Defender of Argus. Hyped even got particularly lucky when Firebat discarded Doomguard off of Soulfire, but Zoolock was too fast and Priest was too slow.
Notable decisions of play include turn three when Hyped decided to heal himself with hero power over using Mind Steal.
Game 4: Miracle Rogue vs Zoolock.
Hyped is running a different version of miracle rogue that looked to answer the Leeroy Jenkins Nerf by focusing more on board control and less on mass removal. The result is a rogue deck that doesn't fair well vs Zoolock. Despite this, Hyped drew nearly every removal spell he had, including a one of Perditions Blade that looked promising. On top of all of this, Firebat discard his Doomguard again off of a soulfire. Despite all of this, Zoolock proved to resilent and too fast for Hyped to handle.
Firebat expected the win vs Ramp druid, but I think this series really took a turn for the worst for Hyped once his priest deck performed so poorly. Congrats to Firebat, the first American to qualify!
Result: Firebat wins 3-1 vs Hyped.
Game 1: Rogue vs Ramp Druid
Spectral Knight is a very good card vs specific decks. Rogue is one of those decks. StrifeCro was lucky enough to draw 2, and after Stunner used Deadly Poison Hero Attack, and a Bade Flurry to kill it in response, StrifeCro simply played another. This second Spectral Knight survived untouched for three turns, helping Stunner fall to only 8 health. The explosiveness of Rogue eventually came through, and for a moment it looked like StrifeCro was only 1 turn away from death.
StrifeCro used that 1 turn to draw a Druid of the Claw charged into Stunner’s face to win the game.
Game 2: Ramp Druid vs Ramp Druid
Stunner must been pretty confidant in his Druid vs Druid matchup to choose the mirror vs the godfather of Druid himself! It seems that for his confidence, Stunner was rewarded with a turn 1 coin Wild Growth, which is a strong pay made doubly so in the mirror.
This advantage rippled throughout the rest of the match, allowing Stunner to take advantage of a very strong series of draws, including double Ancient of Lore and Cenarius. Like most Druid games, Stunner finished it with a Force of Nature.
Game 3: Ramp Druid vs Hunter.
Both players drew respectively well and the match quickly turned into a battle for board control. It is refreshing, as a lot of the matches this tournament have been face races. A long match between Hunter and Druid doesn’t have that often, so it was interesting to see two forces at work: the inevitability of StrifeCro’s Hunter hero ability against the explosive burst damage potential of Stunner’s Druid deck.
Eventually though, the Hunter hero ability reigned supreme, as despite having similar board states, the Stunner never drew Force of Nature and his health just dropped lower and lower until he died.
Game 4: Priest vs Hunter.
Priest hits a comfortable stride when gets enough cards in hand and makes it to late game. The inevitability from Hunter becomes much weaker, and in this game we saw just that. Props to StrifeCro for making the game much closer than it should of been. His allocation of damage and ability to find ways to win was on full display, despite being behind for the majority of the match.
Stunner eventually took full control of the game and StrifeCro solemnly Kill Commanded his own face to end the match.
Game 5: Priest VS Priest.
Both players start off with very similar hands, drawing both Circle of Healing and Auchenai Soulpriest. A very surprising choice by StrifeCro was to Mulligan an Injured Blademaster, a decision that would haunt him as he entered his turn 3 with nothing to play. Stunner however, had no such problem, and kept a Dark Cultist in his opening hand.
Both players assumed positions of extreme defensiveness. So much so that StrifeCro did nothing but Hero power heal him self for 4 turns. A decision that Stunner punished heavily after a series of perfect draws, including a Loatheb that crippled StrifeCro’s greedy stalling. No longer able to use the SoulPriest combo, he was forced to take major damage. 6 Hp!
Though in an impressive series of control plays, StrifeCro managed to bring it back and pull out a win!
Game 1: Control Warrior VS Ramp Druid.
DeerJason is only of the few players to play Warrior this tournament, and I still contend that it is a good meta game call. The match started with a series of equal trades, only DeerJason’s weapon use, while bringing value, brought him closer and closer to combo range. DTwo smelled blood and continued the face damage and was rewarded by an extremely timely Force of Nature top deck, after having two Savage Roars stranded in his hand for the majority of the game. DTwo takes game one.
Game 2: Control Paladin vs Ramp Druid
Dtwo starts with an very strong series of turns. Starting with a turn 1 coin into Wild Growth followed by a turn two Shade of Naxramas. DeerJason wasn’t hurting for good draws either, drawing double Consecration and True Silver Champion. From here, the same danger DeerJason saw in the first match haunted him here- use of weapons give value but make you more vulnerable to burst damage. Burst damage Dtwo had in his happen.
But what’s this? Dtwo, kill in hand, misplayed and incorrectly sequenced his combo attack, leaving Deerjason with 1 hp. DeerJason played a Tirion Fordring and threatened to take back the game, but Dtwo got lucky, drew an answer, and his mistake was neutralized. Dtwo takes game 2.
Game 3: Midrange Shaman VS Ramp Druid
DTwo’s Druid deck runs a Ragnaros which is very unique. This game, it turned out to be very underwhelming, as DeerJason in response simply flooded the board with totems and other minions, lessening the impact of Rag’s fireballs. However, Despite DeerJason’s Midrange deck take prominent board control towards the end of the game, yet another victory was decided by drawing Force of Nature with Savage Roar in hand.
DeerJason had the opportunity play safer and kill a 5/5 Loatheb for free, but decided to go face instead. I think we are seeing time and time again that the way to lessen the sting of Savage Roar is by clearing minions at every possibility. Regardless of the misplays, congrats to Dtwo! Onward to Blizzcon.
Game 1: Handlock vs Handlock
TidesofTime is a known control player, so he should feel right at home in Handlock vs Handlock. It appears that TidesofTime is running a Big Game Hunter as well, which gave him an early advantage, but Tarei also had a trick up his sleeve. One copy of acidic Ooze that was saved for the sole reason of destroying the weapon created by LORD JAXRAXAS OF THE BURNING LEGION. Talk about a meta call!
There isn’t much to say about this game that watching it your self won’t tell you. Very skilled game by both players. At the end of the day INFERNALS were too much for Tarei to handle.
Game 2: Handlock VS Hunter.
If there was ever a deck that punishes Handlock, it is Hunter. TidesofTime is especially comfortable playing at low life totals, so Tarei gets an A+ on deck choice. Tarei put on the aggression quickly, but the last 10 health of a Handlock is always the hardest to damage, and this match was no exception.
Fantastic finish and very close game. Leper Gnome’s Death Rattle ability won the game for Tarei and the inevitability of Hunter proved… well inevitable.
Interesting moment: When Freezing Trap couldn’t be played, as it would of given TidesofTime the ability to replay an Earthen Ring Farseer or Defender of Argus
Game 3: Control Priest VS Hunter.
TidesofTime had a very powerful turn 4, drawing multiple cards and taking clear control of the board. From that point, Tarei was behind on cards and board every turn of the game. Using Hero power and an Eagle Horn Bow to put out some solid damage, Tarei threatened lethal on some plays. He needed to do it faster though, and through some extremely cautious play, TidesofTime took game three.
Game 4: Control Priest vs Miracle Rogue
TidesofTIme knew he had to put pressure on Tarei in order to win this game, and even though Priest isn’t the most aggressive deck, TidesofTime managed to draw the aggressive portion of his deck and take Tarei down to lethal HP. Things were looking so clear cut, that even one of the casters called it.
But Tarei is playing Miracle Rogue. 22 damage in one turn. That is how Tarei managed to save his chance at BlizzCon 2014
Game 5: Control Warrior VS Miracle Rogue.
Ragnaros is a fickle minion. In this game, he had two choices. Should I send TidesofTIme To Blizzcon 2014, or Tarei? After considering it, he decided that TIdesofTime has had his time in the sun, and he wanted to see more out of Tarei in the future. Satisfied with his decision, Ragnaros threw his fireball at the face of Tarei, purposefully missing the Gadgetzan Auctioneer
Congratulations Tarei!
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