The Polish veteran and the streaming icon were the build up match in the Lower Bracket Finals with the chance to challenge StrifeCro in the Grand Finals. Experience won, as Gnimsh board wipes his way to victory in a close series with many great plays.
The reputation of Gnimsh as the "King of Aggro" is something that he is aware of, plays around with, embraces, but also wants to get rid of. In this tournament overall he brought plenty of control decks with Handlock, the mid-range Druid, a Shaman or a heavy control Warrior - his most successful deck still remained his take on the "Zoo" Warlock rush.
Sticking to that recipe of success, Gnimsh started out the series against the Mayor of Value Town with said deck, running into a lot of trouble right away. Trump chose Druid to start with, having enjoyed good success with the deck and the matchup in general. Both played magnificent, both made plenty of smart and interesting decisions, highlighted by Trump's ballsy move to use [card]Tinkmaster Overspark[/card] on his own [card]Sunfury Protector[/card] to gamble for the 5/5 in order to buff it up with [card]Defender of Argus[/card]. The high risk, high reward play turned out to be golden for three turns and brought Trump within inches of completely turning the game around, until Gnimsh top decked [card]Soulfire[/card] and put the hurting Malfurion out of his misery.
After that nailbiter both players had time to relax a bit, since the second game between Warrior and the Zoo deck was completely one-sided with Gnimsh drawing into [card]Doomguard[/card] on Turn 5 and 6, while also having the RNG on his side by turning a smaller minion into a 5/5 Devilsaur with the crazy Overspark.
Brute strength and force failed, so the more deceptive and stealthy approach of Valeera was Trump's attempt to deal with the dark magic of Gul'dan. It actually worked since Trump got really good drops early on and was able to clear the board on consecutive turns with [card]Blade Flurry[/card] and later with [card]SI:7 Agent[/card]. From that moment on Gnimsh just tried to aim every little damage, every charge into the direction of Trump's face - even using [card]Leeroy Jenkins[/card] as the WoW lore dictated: the absolute YOLO way. All that was to no avail, Trump kept the upper hand and continued to have that one even in the next game against Gnimsh's Shaman. Getting off to a quick start, bringing [card]King Mukla[/card] on a pretty much empty board and continuing to have a small board against himself proved to be the keys to victory for the popular Hearthstone streamer. [card]Ragnaros the Firelord[/card] later sealed the deal, being on the battlefield for more than two turns, without the top deck master from Poland finding a suitable answer for him.
It was even again and everyone was once again hoping for the underdog of the entire tournament getting another clutch win. Trump had taken a lot of flak for his incompetence in the constructed area of the field, being called out as an Arena player - now he was within reach of the Grand Finals of one of the biggest Hearthstone tournaments to date. Unfortunately for him, that dream literally went up in smoke later on. First it was Gnimsh's control Warrior getting a perfect start against the tempo Rogue, having all the low drops in the world to handle the early aggression. Constantly armoring up, constantly controlling the board and dealing out damage was definitely big for the Polish player. Once Turn 8 was reached, Trump basically relied on the top decks, while Gnimsh was able to play the legendary streak for consecutive turns. The unique row of [card]Baron Geddon[/card], into [card]Alexstrasza[/card], into [card]Ragnaros the Firelord[/card] into an angry [card]Grommash Hellscream[/card] was way too much to handle for Valeera, as the 12 damage of Grommash finished her off.
Down to one chance, one deck, Trump had the upper hand for most of the match with his Shaman. Keeping a [card]Mana Tide Totem[/card] out for more than three turns, seeing Gnimsh trying to [card]Tinkmaster Overspark[/card], only to the use [card]Slam[/card] and [card]Execute[/card] on the poor Devilsaur from the Un'Goro Crater gave him a perfect read on the absence of [card]Brawl[/card] in Gnimsh's hand. While the read was spot on, what followed was just the unluckiest moment of Trump's entire tournament. Gnimsh, with [card]Whirlwind[/card] in hand top decked the [card]Baron Geddon[/card] and got the first board wipe, turning the momentum of this game completely around. The American now scrambled for answers and had an immediate [card]Hex[/card] for the upcoming [card]Ysera[/card], only to get his hopes completely shattered by Ysera Awakens, enraging [card]Grommash Hellscream[/card]. The proud Chieftain of the Warsong Clan finished the deal and set up the epic rematch between StrifeCro and Gnimsh in the Grand Finals.
Both players have a extended history in Hearthstone already, being chosen as the respective Ace players both times in the ESGN Fight Night seasons 1 and 2. From that a small rivalry developed, which will now write the latest chapter in the Grand Finals of the first ever SeatStory Cup.
