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Welcome to the first issue of our weekly cup overview column. This regular feature will return in the middle of every week, summarizing the results, and more importantly, winners' decklists from the weekly tournaments around the globe.
Our first edition starts small - with GosuCup and 2P Open taking a break for the holidays or to make space for bigger events, we only have reports on ZOTAC EU/NA and the weekend Managrind tournaments, also for EU and NA both.
Future editions, however, will expand beyond those brands. We'll be reaching to the winners of the ESL 1on1 cups as well as the champions of the $500 NESL cups as well as any other winners of known regular tournaments we can find.
This weekend's ZOTAC cups marked a franchise precedent of one player winning both EU and NA in the same day. For ThijsNL of the Netherlands and member of MYM, this was the best Easter present he could get.
Thijs started in the NA cup and sliced through DKMR duo of Brad and BorN to cash his first $100 for that Sunday. He then moved to EU and overcame Managrind's Forsen and ROOT Gaming's Xixo to bank some more money and become the first player in ZOTAC HS history to win back-to-back cups in the same weekend.
Time to look at Thijs' decks. For Europe, the Dutchman relied mostly on control or mid-range decks, using a standard Druid, a control Warrior and an explosive Windfury Shaman. Those were mixed in with a cookie-cutter rush Hunter. Nope, no Savannah Highmanes, just an old-school to-the-face Hunter.
As his collection on the NA server is smaller, Thijs went for cheaper to build but nonetheless strong decks. The Hunter makes a return, accompanied by a tempo Rogue (considered one of the best counters to Savannah Hunters at the moment) as well as the ubiquitous Warlock Zoo, a deck with almost too many tournament wins at this point.
In Europe's Managrind, German player Chrylo came out as the winner, defeating Rauffi, Flamestick and WhtPwdr along the way. His deck of choice was a rarely encountered rush-down Druid, which uses not only the Force of Nature/Savage Roar combo but also cards like Amani Berserker, King Mukla, Scarlet Crusader and even a single Demolisher.
In NA, the throne went to TerrenceM after victories over Margrave and Stealthlord in the semi and grand final. Terrence also rocked a Druid deck but didn't go as wild as his EU colleague, but rather sticking to a very orthodox Watcher Druid. Last card in the deck shown below is a second Ancient of Lore.
Now, the decks (Chrylo's on the left, TM's on the right):
This weekend, both our own GosuCup and Hearth2P's NA were not held. We decided to give GosuCup a break for the Easter holidays while Hearth2P's were busy running their EU vs CN Masters qualifiers.
Of the two, GosuCup will return this Sunday at the usual 14:00 CET for a Limited edition, meaning only free, common and rare cards will be allowed. Registrations are already open. Hearth2P's Open, however, will skip another edition to make space for the EU vs CN grand finals.
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