In spite of the myriad of accomplished players, it was local Spaniard Jacobo “Jac0b0” Sanchez who took the lion’s share of the prize purse.
Eleven established names were invited to Bilbao, Spain for the first edition of the GameGune Hearthstone tournament. With €25,000 on the line, the event should’ve been the one to watch this weekend.
Despite the high quality of attendees and the big prize pool, GameGune failed to provide an English stream and viewers had to choose between watching the games in Spanish, German, Russian or French, a practice that also continued into the final day of the playoffs.
Regardless, this was a happy weekend for one Jacobo “Jac0b0” Sanchez. The Spanish player of Phantom Alliance went through a number of tough opponents, including Thijs “ThijsNL” Molendijk, Gareth “Cipher” Rouse, Jon “Orange” Westberg and Jan “Ekop” Palys before he could spar 2014 World Champion James “Firebat” Kostesich in the grand finals.
For Firebat, this was an opportunity to add a fourth LAN gold to his achievements shelf, following the Blizzcon cup last year and the back-to-back Gfinity championships in March and April. Despite falling short of the GameGune first place, however, Firebat banked close to $6,500, raising his total earnings upwards of $150,000.
This is also the first major tournament win for Jac0b0 and his team. Additionally, GameGune is the second major tournament in a row to be won by a local underdog after PGL Tavern Tales went to Romania’s Hanniballz2.
