Gaara (center) with Kripparrian (left) and Tempo Storm captain Reynad (right) at DreamHack Bucharest. 

Hyped as having one of the best matches ever recorded in Hearthstone history, the $2,600 Prismata Cup ended last night with Tempo Storm's Petar "Gaara" Stevanovic 4-2'ing DKMR's Brad "Brad" Christensen in the grand finals. 

For an online tournament, the Prismata Cup enjoyed quite the hype and the positive feedback, especially from the competing players. Featuring a five-round Bo5 swiss round into a top 6 cut-off, tournament's format aimed to mitigate the volatility of a card game like Hearthstone and reward only the most consistent players.

32 names were invited based on their merits. Weekly cup winners, top ladder players, notable champions and GosuRanking kings came together to form a colorful player pool in what was labeled one of the most competitive online Hearthstone tournaments to date. 

After the swiss rounds, only six names remained. With 4-0 scores, Gaara and Freshca were the leaders in the standings and were awarded a direct seed into the semi finals. Ignite, Brad, StrifeCro and TidesofTime completed the top 6 line-up and the playoffs were ready to begin. 

The quarter finals had to go to the full five games before the top four could be determined. In a display of Token Druid power, Ignite and Brad fought for one of the semi final spot, a battle which left the Portuguese out of the tournament. In quarter final #2, Tides met StrifeCro and played some impressive games with Priest before advancing with a 3-2 over the SeatStory Cup champion.

The semi finals were no less thrilling and once again the competitors had to go all the way to the fifth game. Freshca and Brad went set for set, staying away from the popular Naxx Zoo builds and duking it with control Paladins, Warriors and Frost Mages. In the end, the DKMR player had what it took to make it to the grand finals, winning the fifth game in a Druid mirror.

In the other semi-final, Tides met Gaara in a Tempo Storm team kill. Just like the Freshca-Brad series, the TPS team-mates traded game for a game, making for an intense series. The culmination was their Paladin versus Priest in game four where both players went into fatigue. Even though this game was a win for Tides who tied the series, the American's Paladin wasn't able to overcome Gaara's Hunter who topdecked an Unleash the Hounds just in the right moment, to drill through Tides' board. 

This set up a Brad/Gaara grand final, which promised to be another spectacle. Once again, Brad opened with his control Warrior but had to quickly change it after Gaara's Hunter once again carried the day. Brad's Zoo was able to tie the series but Gaara chose to "revive" his Hunter, bringing it out as a secret deck and putting the series back into his advantage for a 2-1. 

Even though Brad was able to equalize the series once again on the back of his Shaman, that was his last victory for the day. Relying on his Shaman, Gaara scored back-to-back wins in games five and six, awarding him the $1,000 first place prize of Prismata Cup and rocketing him back into the high echelons of EU GosuRankings. 


NOTE: The "Mark of the Wild"s in the token deck are actually "Power of the Wild"s