BlizzCon 2016 is over and we now know the name of the new Hearthstone World Champion – Pavel Beltiukov from Russia. He is known as one of the youngest and most talented pro players in the world — who had to compete against players from the USA, China, South Korea, Canada, and Ukraine.
Below is the full recap of the two intense days of the Hearthstone World Championship 2016 that took place on November 4-5 in Anaheim, California.
Quarterfinals (Day 1)
Jasonzhou vs. Hamster
The first day started off with the match-up between two Chinese players – Jasonzhou and Hamster. Both players played very well, but due to the more aggressive decks from Jasonzhou playing against someone really greedy, and thus very slow control decks of Hamster, he took the victory with a 4-2 score.
Amnesiasc vs. Pavel
The next match-up has probably been the most devastating for the majority of the NA supporters, since their favorite Amnesiasc lost to Pavel in a series of games that went from 3-0 to 3-4, letting Pavel take over four games in the row and moving on to the semifinals.
Amnesiasc’s weakest deck happened to be Malygos Druid, which had lost him all the consecutive games. It was designed to ruin Shamans, but since those were predominantly banned from the tournament, it struggled against other decks.
Dr.Hippi vs. HotMEOWTH
Matchup number three between Ukrainian Dr.Hippi and NA’s HotMEOWTH has ended up with a clean sweep by Dr.Hippi with a 4-0 score. HotMEOWTH has put all his strength into trying to win at least one game with his newly drafted Blood Warrior deck, but it turned out to be a total disaster for him.
HotMEOWTH’s deck has been designed to target highly aggressive decks like Zoo Warlock and Shaman, and he had the chance to win against these decks, but the American player really struggled to get his minions on board and could do nothing more than clearing the board, which was not enough to get him any wins.
Cheonsu vs. Cydonia
The last matchup of the day was nothing surprising, as Cheonsu from S. Korea took 4 confident victories over the Canadian, Cydonia.
Semifinals and Grand Finals (Day 2)
The final day of the Hearthstone World Championship has been decided not as much by the skill of the players, but mainly by the RNG. The first Semifinals match-up between Pavel and Jasonzhou showed how important RNG is as the winning factor in Hearthstone.
Jasonzhou vs. Pavel (Semi-final 1)
Pavel has put his faith into cards like Ragnaros, Brawl and C’Thun to decide the outcome of the games, and his bets were correct. The casters even said that Pavel played mostly out of his intuition rather than logical thinking, which was noticeable throughout the matchups. Well, that is the nature of Hearthstone.
Cheonsu vs. Dr.Hippi (Semi-final 2)
Dr.Hippi had a slightly more convincing series of wins against Cheonsu, thus most of the casters and the community predicted him to win the championship. After going through to the Grand Final, this idea was cemented further.
Pavel vs. Dr.Hippi (Grand Finals)
However, Pavel (being proclaimed by the community as the “God of RNG” and the “DruidKiller”) had another streak of unbelievable outcomes in the Grand Finals against Dr. Hippi. His Brawl during the matchup against Dr.Hippi’s Druid did miracles when both of Dr.Hippi’s Arcane Giants had been destroyed.
The final game allowed Pavel to create a huge Edwin van Cleef, which Dr.Hippi simply couldn’t remove for a couple of turns. This allowed Pavel to dominate the series and win the Hearthstone World Championship 2016.
The Aftermath
Congratulations to @Pavel_HS, our 2016 #Hearthstone World Champion and thank you for watching!! #BlizzCon https://t.co/947WUAnNva
— Hearthstone (@PlayHearthstone) 6 ноября 2016 г.
Before the World Championship, Blizzard gave the chance to all Hearthstone players to predict the name of the champion. If you voted for one of the 16 contenders, here is how many free The Grand Tournament packs you will get:
- Pavel – 6
- DrHippi – 5
- Cheonsu – 4
- JasonZhou – 4
- Amnesiac – 3
- Cydonia – 3
- Hamster – 3
- HotMEOWTH – 3
- Bbgungun – 2
- Breath – 2
- Handsomeguy – 2
- OmegaZero – 2
- Ddahyoni – 1
- Naiman – 1
- ThijsNL – 1
- Yulsic – 1
The packs will be delivered by Blizzard soon after BlizzCon, so keep your eyes open.
What do you think about the performance of the players at this year’s Hearthstone World Championship? Leave your feedback in the comments below.
