The founding player for Alliance.HS dethroned Sebastian “Xixo” Bentert and ended his rankings hegemony.
Although it could be argued that 2016 lacked the explosiveness of his debut year, Jon "Orange" Westberg has been on fire since October of last year. The Swede went on to win the WESG European qualifiers mere days after signing with Alliance and followed it up with a gold from SeatStory Cup VI and silver from the WESG Grand Finals, earning $80,000 for himself in the span of one month.
It was a record of 81% during that period that got Orange very near the top but it was the top eight finish at ONOG PAX South Major that pushed Orange that extra mile. Before the Texas event, the Swede found himself tied with world champion Pavel “Pavel” Beltukov at #2 and a handful points behind long-time rankings leader Xixo, whose 50% and 54% win-rates in December and January respectively held him from advancing his score.
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Even though he mostly played tournament first-timers, Orange’s record of 5-1 at PAX Major was enough to put him on the top. The two-times SeatStory Cup champion’s lead, however, is just 15 points ahead of the runner-up and less than 30 ahead of the #3, meaning both Xixo and Pavel could potentially topple the Swede in February.
For Xixo, this is the end of the longest GosuRankings hegemony in history. The 2016 Player of the Year established himself as the #1 mid-August and stayed there for 15 weeks. His reign was only briefly interrupted by Pavel’s back-to-back gold medals at Blizzcon and GameGune, but Xixo successfully regained the lead before the start of the new year. The CLG headliner hasn’t been out of the top two in the rankings for 24 weeks straight.
With most major LANs being held in Europe and most invitationals skewed towards that region as well, the world rankings continue to be EU-dominnated, with the region holding 14 of the 15 top spots. Julien "Cydonia" Perrault is the only non-European in the prestigious top 15, but with increased tournament activity in NA and China as well as the seasonal championships going international, the tyranny of Europe over Hearthstone could very well be shaken up.
