The past year in Hearthstone, Yevgeniy "Neirea" Shumilin wasn't one of the players with an outstanding record. But what had been a rough year for him turned out to have a very positive twist at the end. After securing a top 23 spot in the European Region he swept through the qualifiers, defeating players such as Dima "RDU" Radu and Gerardo “Gera89” Di Pietro, of which the latter one would also make it to the European Qualifiers. Just after Neirea had secured his ticket to the World Championships at BlizzCon, Matthieist spoke with him about his career, deckbuilding and RNG.
Congratulations on qualifying. How do you feel?
I feel great, of course. I mean, I qualified!
The past year hasn’t been the greatest year for you, tournament-wise. How do you look back on that?
I think sometimes I was unlucky, but I definitely brought wrong decks to tournaments as well. Partially this is because of the conquest format, which denies the mind games. You primarily have to focus on your own decks and your own strategy.
What format would you prefer?
The Viagame Housecup format is one I really like. It’s probably the best format for players, but it’s difficult to implement in open tournaments, which can be an issue. I think the Viagame format is also better for viewers, because they can actually see the thought process of players. It’s a great way of learning the strategies of a player. Other than that, I think Last Hero Standing is also a much better format than Conquest.
What do you think of the whole process of qualifying for BlizzCon? Is it fair?
For the viewership, this is probably the best format. Not for all the players though, in my opinion. The players who worked all year and got into the top ranking should have more of a benefit. Maybe a top 16 tournament for some seeding spots in a Round Robin format. There is some room for improvement, but the current format is definitely not bad. It’s actually pretty good.
"The players who worked all year and got into the top ranking should have more of a benefit at the Blizzcon qualifiers."
Apart from BlizzCon, the Archon Team League was the biggest tournament of the year, but Team Liquid didn’t really perform well there. What are your thoughts on this?
I think I personally performed quite well, having the best win rate with Druid and Rogue I believe. But saying that, I can’t really blame my team mates. They played strongly as well. I think it was our strategy that failed in the tournament, and not our plays. We were close to the win so often, but got reverse-swept three times in the regular season, if I recall correctly. In our defence though, it is so unlikely that Druid or Patron Warrior fail to win four matches in a row. To be honest, in the first few weeks we came very well prepared for our opponents. In the last two or three weeks, however, we had wrong picks like Mech Shaman, which ended up being the main reason of our elimination against Nihilum.
Your Road to BlizzCon went quite smoothly though, with you finishing in the top 23 of collected HWC points.
Yeah but RDU surpassed me with only five points, which denied me the top 8 position. That really felt bad, to have more than 200 points but not having a spot in the top 8. Though it turned out well for me in the end. I’m here now, and I’m super happy.
Let’s talk a bit about one of your favourite classes, Rogue. It’s in a bad position right now, with only Oil Rogue as the somewhat viable competitive choice, but even that’s not a top tier deck. What does Rogue need?
[card]Emperor Thaurissan[/card] and [card]Dr Boom[/card] simply killed Rogue. [card]Piloted Shredder[/card] did as well. Those cards usually don’t fit in a typical Rogue deck, since it’s focused at making tempo plays and not at playing big minions. A strong 2-drop is what Rogue needs now. A really strong one. Nowadays you usually just use your hero power on turn 2, and that’s it. Your opponent, however, plays something like a [card]Shielded Minibot[/card] and then it’s already hard to come back. The newer minions are sticky, and Rogue doesn’t always have an answer to that.
What about a whole new archetype, say Control Rogue?
To make something like that happen, you need at least five new cards. Also you’d need a way to heal yourself. There is of course the [card]Antique Healbot[/card], but that’s a suboptimal choice. Rogue is all about tempo now, and by playing the Healbot you lose tempo. So yeah for a completely new archetype Rogue would need several new, strong cards.
Players are sometimes seen with remarkable tech choices in their deck. An example could be players who add a [card]Living Roots[/card] to their Midrange Druid, just to have some early tempo. Do you think this kind of tech choices is a good thing for the game?
My stance on this is that you have to use as few tech choices in your deck as possible. That way your deck is as consistent as it can be. Living Roots gains you tempo for one turn, but if you play this card you’ll be out of cards very soon. You need to have better mana usage in your deck.
"When building a new deck, I try to change the meta with it."
Doesn’t it get boring to always play the same thing?
Well I do play different decks, with different classes. When building a new deck, I try to change the meta with it. That worked out well for a small amount of time with my Malygos Warlock. Currently I’m working on a Midrange Warrior, with which I was top 20 legend for almost two weeks. It didn’t work out well when I played against my professional colleagues though, so it’s not polished enough yet.
Could you tell us a bit more about this deck? How you play it, what the build is etc.
It’s very similar to the Control Warrior, but the strategy is different. You just play what you can on your turn, and spend less time on removing the opponent’s board. It has a [card]Varian Wrynn[/card] in it, so that if your board gets removed you immediately have a new one. Unfortunately the deck doesn’t perform well against Secret Paladin though.
Any other ideas you have for future decks, which could change the meta?
A Fatigue Warrior would be nice to make. The current deck which Zalae and Firebat play isn’t polished enough in my opinion. It takes tons of matches in which you play every match-up to optimize a deck, and that takes a lot of time. When I first got my hands on a Malygos Warlock decklist, it was still in a bad shape and it took me quite some time to figure out the best list.
What are the steps you take when composing a completely new deck? Take us with you on the road to building something completely new.
At first I put together the core of the deck, because this is your starting point. Then I look for cards which support the cards I chose. After that comes the hardest part, in which you try to figure out the right tech choices in your deck. I had so many different cards in the Malygos Warlock, like [card]Ancient Watcher[/card] even, it’s absolutely crazy.
"There are two types of RNG: healthy RNG and unhealthy RNG. Nearly all the RNG that happens early game is unhealthy RNG in my opinion."
Players such as TidesOfTime are known for creating wacky decks that are extremely fun. What’s your favourite wacky deck?
I really liked the OTK Warrior days. At the moment it’s not strong enough to be viable, but I love the days when it was good. Just on turn six you could do twenty damage to your opponent’s face, it was crazy. Especially against Handlock it was so good, and it was really fun.
The last subject I want to touch on is RNG. It is an ever recurring theme in Hearthstone, and there are a lot of different opinions regarding the randomness. What is yours?
I think there are two types of RNG: healthy RNG and unhealthy RNG. Nearly all the RNG that happens early game is unhealthy RNG in my opinion. It can really decide which way the game is going, take [card]Knife Juggler[/card] for example. Healthy RNG is the more late game oriented RNG. [card]Ragnaros the Firelord[/card] is a card which has healthy RNG in my opinion. To play it, you already need to have made it to the late game. It’s a strong card, but it can also be removed fairly easily and it doesn’t generally decide the outcome of the game by itself. [card]Piloted Shredder[/card] is decent, with one of the only unhealthy aspects being the possibility of dropping a [card]Doomsayer[/card] or a [card]Patient Assassin[/card]. The change I think is necessary, is to make it a 3/3 because now it has the stats of a 5-drop.
