Adrian "Lifecoach" Koy is riding a high wave of momentum. Last night, the Nihilum frontrunner 4-0'd Dignitas' Keaton "Chakki" Gil in the ROOT Invitational, putting himself to a 7-0 record in March.
Chakki and Lifecoach met in the grand finals of ROOT Gaming's inaugural Hearthstone tournament after having little trouble with their opposition. Both went out of the preliminary round 4-0 and the only real fight they received was in the quarter finals of the main bracket. In the semis, Chakki steamrolled through Aleksandr "Kolento" Malsh, dealing him his fourth loss in the last five games, while Lifecoach overcame now former world #1 player Cong "StrifeCro" Shu with 3-1.
The finals was an interesting sight to behold, particularly because of Chakki's choice of decks. Usually known to be a one favoring the aggressive style, Chakki had this time went to the diametrical opposite, bringing three fatigue decks.
The strategy of the Dignitas player sounds odd on paper but in practice proved very successful. Fatigue decks are known to be excellent against other control decks for their ability to burn out their threats, as well as the hugely popular nowadays Oil Rogue due to its many heal and taunt mechanics. Knowing that the format was Conquest, Chakki's plan suddenly made perfect sense - he didn't need all of his decks to be good against everything. He needed them to automatically win against that one articular deck type, not allowing it to take a game.
This worked wonders in the quarter finals against Drew "TidesofTime" Biessener. The Cloud 9 player took a 2-0 lead but as he went down to his control Mage, he fell into Chakki's trap. The fatigue combo of Mage, Druid and Warrior tired TidesofTime out of the tournament.
Similar thing happened in the semi finals against Kolento. The Ukrainian had a Rogue in his line-up and tried to score wins with it twice, only to end in unfavorable matchups, facing the many heals of Warrior and Druid.
Unfortunately for him, Chakki's plan had an obvious flaw - being so one-sided in terms of archetypes meant that if a player's line-up was great against these kind of decks, it would likely be a clean sweep. And that's what happened in the finals. Chakki tried to get ahead by using his only "normal" deck - a midrange Warlock - but the Paladin/Druid/Warlock/Mage line-up of Lifecoach were impenetrable.
The 4-0 win in the finals puts Lifecoach on a 7-0 record in March. Combined with his 6-1 in February, the German is on 92,85% win-rate in the last two months.
Decklists:
Lifecoach: Druid • Warlock • Mage • Paladin
Chakki: Warlock • Druid • Mage • Warrior
StrifeCro: Hunter • Paladin • Rogue • Warlock
Kolento: Rogue • Paladin • Mage • Druid
More tournament decks can be found in our deck section!
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