This weekend, I attended my first ever constructed deck Hearthstone tournament! It was organized by Hearthstone Alley, in conjunction with Gaming Entertainment E-sports Exhibition @ Downtown East!
I originally thought it was just a small LAN affair (didn't know it was together with this big event), but was taken by surprise when I arrived at the venue:
It was a big, big event, with spectator seats for the main event (DOTA 2), with a large 60 PC (my estimate) LAN set up for games, with other arcade games like Street Fighter, some cube game where you must tap the buttons to the music, and many more on display around the area.
The main event was the Asian Cybergames for DOTA2, and had the different international teams play live on stage! Was pretty cool... if only it was something like LoL or Starcraft which I understood. Was pretty awesome hearing the crowd reactions and commentators' hype when big things happened.
ANYWAY. Back to the main point of this post.
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| My event pass! Allowed me access to the gaming area heh. |
I've never spent a single cent on Hearthstone, and so my decks weren't the best I wanted them to be, but I made do with what I had and submitted three decks for the competition.
-Blue portion I'm explaining my card choices, so if you can skip it if you don't want to read it-
Rogue - I actually used this to ladder until I ran into some trouble with pre-nerf frost mages and stopped playing for a while. It's a deck reliant on some neat combos to avoid damage, and a fairly quick early-mid game deck, not intending to keep the game going for long.
I only used one Defias as while it's a gimmicky opening play, it loses its value as the game drags on. I included Fan of Knives and Abomination to deal with any warlock rush deck (on hindsight, a mistake) or pally heavy minions deck. Assassinate was for big minion removal (BGH may be better, but I don't have it).
Paladin - A mid game control deck - I would have removed Ysera for Ragnaros (if I had it), and Worgen Inf for Sylvannas (if I had it). On hindsight, 2 Sword of Justice may have been better.
Otherwise, it aims to control the board with Equality Consecrate, Hammer of Wrath, and the Divine Shields. Also has a tricky Blood Knight added in to capitalize on a pally mirror match (I did have an 11/11 one game)
Warlock - An aggro rush deck. I use this for ladder too, as I like short games when playing ranked. Double power Overwhelming has won me many games. Shadowflame was included as an insurance against any other minion heavy strategy. This deck basically loses if I"m not in a winning position by Turn 8.
-end of explanation-
I had to choose two decks for the group stage (4 groups, 5 in each group, Top 2 of each group go to Winner's Bracket, bottom 2 go to lower bracket, last guy eliminated), so I decided on the pally and Warlock deck, as they were pretty contrasting playstyles - one was a control, mid game deck, while the other was a rush aggro deck - good balance.
Group Stage
Group stage matches were Best of 3, round robin style. I approached the event with an open mind - I knew my deck was probably one of the most budget decks (only two Legendaries, and one is not even a good one (Ysera)). I was there just to have fun, and see how far I could go.
I received news that my very first game would be streamed live - with a live camera on my face and stuff. Wow. Ok. Can. I kinda like the camera anyway and just pretended I was streaming myself. (I'll post a link of the VOD (video) when it gets uploaded)
Nerves and all faded away as I won my first game, and then my first series (2-0). And after a few hours, I was pleasantly surprised with my luck as I topped my group with 4 match wins, undefeated albeit for one game. I would move on to the winner's bracket!
Brackets here:
http://challonge.com/hatsg2013_groupa
Several of my games were definitely won due to luck. Just got some good topdecks, and I won. Got some nice compliments about my 'deck being strong'... which was quite flattering considering they were all budget decks.
Playoffs Stage
My match was casted again - and in this first series I had tremendous luck. I think describing it won't do it justice, I will wait for the stream to be uploaded and you can watch the amazing state of events for my 2nd and 3rd win and my reactions. I won 3-1.
I lost to Kero (the same guy I lost to at the Bugis+ event!) and his strong shaman spellcaster + warrior OTK decks (managed to beat his shaman deck tho), and dropped to the lower bracket.
After which, I had a comfortable 3-0 win against DJLOLX (I watched his game right before, and knew of his tricks. He had this tricky combo where he plays a Starving Buzzard and a Snake trap in combo. If you hit it, he basically draws 3 cards. I Backstabbed it LOL. no snakes)
And.... came the semifinals. I had to win to guarantee myself a cash prize, and if I lost I wouldn't win any cash. My opponent was the same guy I knocked out 3-1 at the start of the playoffs... and unfortunately luck wasn't on my side this time as I lost 0-3.
Brackets are here:
http://challonge.com/hatsg2013
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Was a fun event overall! There was a lot going on other than Hearthstone, though I was lazy to take part in the festivities. When you enter the place, you get this Quest card which basically requires you to go around the whole D'Marquee area trying out the different games, and report to the 'quest-masters' to get chops.
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| Questmasters in maid costumes. I thought it was really cute how they had an exclamation mark above their heads, like those NPCS in RPGs :D |
Wish I had won some prize money! But oh well, it was a great run considering I didn't buy any packets. Can't wait to watch the recorded videos! Should be good.
The red chips were the 2nd highest denomination. $1 green, $2 blues, $5 reds, $10 black[/caption]