Thursday was elimination day at the opening week of HWC 2015 and China drew the short straws.
NoTomorrow, Nias, LoveCX and Neirea. Those were the four players who said goodbye to their World Championship chances last night as the group stage passed the middle point.
In a game filled with questionable plays from both sides, NoTomorrow and JAB fought to not be the first eliminated from the tournament and after five games the Chinese player ultimately fell after his Paladin failed him three times. Hearthlytics’ newest recruit Nias followed the Chinese out of the BlizzCon race, losing a clutch battle against one of Europe’s finest in Lifecoach. Nias’ journey came to an end after his Freeze Mage ran into Lifecoach’s powerful and sturdy Control Warrior and the armor gain proved too much to overcome.
China gave second victim as their champion LoveCX fell to Southeast Asian hope Neilyo. Despite struggling with tough draws in games two and three, the Vietnamese managed to shut down LoveCX’s Druid in the deciding last two games, closing the series in an exhausting Control Warrior versus Druid face-off.
Europe’s runner-up Neirea was the last to go from yesterday’s batch of games. His fight with NA’s champion Purple became one of the highlights of the day, featuring a Freeze Mage blitzkrieg in game two and a mighty Oil Rogue swing in game five that decided the match into the Canadian’s favor.
A more surprising statistic at the end of the day was the success rate of the APAC representatives. Despite considered the underdogs, the Asians emerged as leaders after day two with a combined score of 4-1, leaving the favorites of Europe behind.
Currently on stream, the winners of the opening matches play to decide the first four players to qualify for the playoffs in November. Watch and follow the tournament with our coverage hub.
