One of these four players will take home the Hearthstone European Spring Championship, $25,000 and an invite to Blizzcon 2016.

After a gruelling series of misplays and underdog triumphs, Thijs "ThijsNL" Molendijk, Mateusz "Loyan" Roszkowski, Kevin “Casie” Eberlein and Alexey “Iner” Bakumenko have emerged as the semi-finalists for the HCT European Spring Championship. The major tournament’s best of 7, single-elimination format meant that there was no group stage, and instead each competitor only had one chance to shine. GosuGamers community favourite and 2015 Champion ThijsNL was the first to advance after swiftly taking down Italy’s Marco “Turna” Casti. This puts him one step closer to being the first Hearthstone player to defend an HCT championship title.

The other major hopeful, Esteban “AKAWonder” Serrano, was not so successful. His opponent, the German newcomer Casie, took match-point after his Hunter deck was left needing just 2-damage for lethal. AKAWonder attempted to climb back up with his C’Thun Renolock, but that’s all we got to see from the Spanish prodigy’s triple C’thun line-up, as Casie finished things up with an Old-Godless Renolock.

The tournament already has a first for European Hearthstone, now that Iner has become the only Russian Federation player ever to reach the semi-finals in a major competition. George “GeorgeC” Connolly lost out on being the first British player to hold such an honour, after Loyan halted his advance with a N’zoth Paladin deck - actually winning the match with a 50/50 [card]Ragnaros the Firelord[/card] flip.

The final day of the HCT EU Spring Championship will start today at 18:00 CEST. You can watch the English stream of the competition via the official Hearthstone Twitch channel.