Photo: ESL Twitter

?The ESL Hearthstone Legendary Series (HLS) Season 2 finals came to a close last night with Christopher “Phonetap” Huynh defeating the Tempo Storm founder to inherit the throne from SilentStorm.

Another tournament is in the books where a player from the qualifiers goes on to smash everybody and pocket the champion’s check. For Phonetap, a member of team Hearthlytics, it was a journey that began in the Last Chance Open qualifier, where he became one of eight players to punch their ticket to Burbank, California.

As welcome to one of the biggest tournaments this year, Phonetap was thrown in a group of death with HouseCup #3 champion Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy, the previous HLS winner Austin “SilentStorm” Li and Brian “Th3Rat” Courtade from team Illuminati. Two wins against SilentStorm in the opening and the decider match shot him to the playoffs as the second seed behind Lifecoach and once again he was given a tough opponent, Taiwanese powerhouse and world’s #4 Sheng Yuan “Roger” Luo.

In a blitz game of Hearthstone, Phonetap advanced with a 3-2 record, leaving the HouseCup #2 silver medalist out of the tournament. He continued to claim lives as he overpowered Jaron “Demigod” Nolasco’s heavy control line-up and he moved on to meet his final opponent, Andrey “Reynad” Yanyuk.

Although on different levels popularity-wise, both Phonetap and Reynad were searching for their first major championship and they were determined to get it. Phonetap’s Shaman, which almost cost him his tournament life on a couple of occasions, defeated Reynad’s Flamewaker Mage to open the series but Jaina came out for a second round to tie the score. For his next two games, Reynad chose to lean on the power of Patron Warrior but as strong as the deck is in the current meta, it couldn’t prevail over the Druid and Hunter of the Vietnamese.

As he hoists his first big tournament trophy, Phonetap will also bank $10,000 and 100 HWC points, leaving $5,000 and 50 points to Reynad.


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