Paul "Zalae" Nemeth and Johan "Darkwonyx"Hansson excelled in the opening day of the first major tournament in western Hearthstone for the new year.
The ESL studio in Burbank, California opened its doors to eight Hearthstone players last night. The pool of high-scorers from the online Legendary Series tournaments included names like Janne "Savjz" Mikkonen, Keaton "Chakki" Gil, Johan "Darkwonyx" Hansson, Austin "SilentStorm" Li as well as a number of newcomers yet to leave their mark on competitive Hearthstone. Everything was aligned for a great tournament - a $20,000 prize pool, an offline atmosphere and high-level Hearthstone, coming after a long period of competitive drought.
The excitement of the first few group stage matches well matched the hyped. A great series between former Magic: The Gathering powerhouse Paul "Zalae" Nemeth and last-minute invite Max "Max" Simpson who flew in to replace Hyerim "MagicAmy" Lee opened the weekend in California. Relying on the kings of the new meta, namely Oil Rogue and Mech Mage, Zalae sprinted to 1-0 in the group. He was later joined in the winners match by Silentstorm who steamrolled through tournament favorite Savjz without dropping a single game. The 17 y/o Canadian soon found himself on the receiving end of the 3-0, however, and thus Zalae was proclaimed victor of Group A and the first person to advance to the playoffs.
In Group B, the west faced the east, as it featured Chakki and Darkwonyx in the same pool as Taiwanese duo Kwo-Ping "Pinpingho" Ho and Wei "Weifu" Fu. Unfortunately for both sides, they had to face each other first and after a couple of 3-1 series, Darkownyx and Pinpingho met in the winners match.
This became the most tense game of the night. Pinpingho's Mage opened the score but Darkwonyx's Druid and signature Warrior turned it around. The series was ultimately pushed to a final and fifth game where Darkownyx's Priest redeemed itself for the loss in game one, prevailing over the Druid of the Taiwanese player and sealing the match.
The remaining six players are still in the run and nobody's out just yet. Max and Savjz will fight for survival in Group A, same for Chakki and Weifu in Group B.
Front page photo: ESL
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