eHL Cycle 2 overview: Winner's Decklist, cycle and season stats
eHL Cycle 2 overview
- VODs
Winners' decklists
- Celedor (1st)
- Al2TTO (2nd)
- Thaibg (3rd)
Class stats
Season stats
The first cycle of the eHL already delivered some top notch Hearthstone action from the widely unnoticed region of Southeast Asia. Cycle 2 was no different, bringing up new names to the forefront, crushing hopes and dreams of established players and going into "overtime" for the Grand Finals. Once more the player from the Lower Bracket forced a second Best of Five to determine the champion, but once again the Upper Bracket player reigned supreme.
In other regards this season was completely different and not comparable to the first one, mostly because of the nationalities stepping up to the plate. First it was only Lemniscate wearing the Filipino flag into the sea of Singaporean foes come playoff times - now the Singaporean flag was the lone wolf in the midst of Thai's and Filipinos fighting for their chance in the spotlight.
That also resulted in a final without Singaporean participation, since the only player Raxael couldn't quite follow into the footsteps of Crea and Wensushi, but had to concede victory to Celedor and Al2TTO - ironically the two guys that fought for the title later on.
Those two are now also heading to the Grand Finals into the Alienware Arena in Singapore, fighting for the first ever eHL Season 1 crown and their share of the $455 USD prize pool. Four will enter the arena, only one will become the ultimate SEA hero.
eHL Cycle 2 results
1. Celedor
2. Al2TTO
3. Thaibg
4. Raxael
5-6. Lordcru
5-6. Machtung
7-8. Howi
7-8. MuIZaa
Due to Al2TTO winning the first Bo5 series in the grand final, he and Celedor played another match, which Celedor won.
Due to both players slugging it out and Al2TTO coming from the Lower Bracket with determination, the game needed to go into a second Best of Five series to settle the score of the second eHL Cycle. The attached VoD is the second series, right after Al2TTO won 3-2 in the first.
Just like Crea in the first cycle, Celedor also relied heavily on the power of control decks. Not a single combination of his cards had "rush" written all over it, and he was mostly putting his faith in heavy control and staple decks from the current ladder meta. The Handlock is considered to be one of the strongest right now, Druid has been discussed earlier and the "odd man out" here is his variation of a Priest - that wasn't too successful.
Celedor's Decks[deck linked]480[/deck][deck linked]481[/deck][deck linked]431[/deck]The same case can be made for runner-up Al2TTO, who also had no real aggressive build in his decks either. Quite the opposite even, he had decks that usually crush aggressive attempts from Hunters and Warlocks with the Druid deck, the Shaman including [card]Wild Pyromancer[/card] to shut down Zoo and his own Handlock version. It seems to be a trend in the eHL, that control rules SEA.
Some odd things have been seen over the course of two cycles in Southeast Asia - Thaibg's deck creation process seems to be no difference. As one of the only players in the high level he is not believing in the "knowledge" to put two of the same creatures in the same deck. As a result he as a variety of answers to a variety of questions, but only one answer for each problem. Only a few cards like the powerful [card]Swipe[/card] or [card]Fireball[/card] make it in as duplicates - even [card]Keeper of the Grove[/card] is a loner here.
Thaibg's Decks[deck linked]482[/deck][deck linked]483[/deck][deck linked]484[/deck]Class stats
Comparing the class stats and class popularity from the first cup and several iterations of the GosuCup, it becomes crystal clear that Druid is the class with the most popularity. Although in the GosuCups the number dwindled down more and more, in Southeast Asia the love for Malfurion is strong as ever. Between Cycle 1 and Cycle 2, Druid has seen only a gradual change of measly 0.6 percent points. The strength and versatility of the class, its ability to hang with control decks, compete with aggro decks and function as a mid-range deck with plenty of pressure you can apply yourself is making it by far the most popular class.
Dropping in popularity though compared to the first season was Warrior. The class of brute force and raw strength had its poster boy lemniscate carrying the axe all the way to the podium, this time a lot of people shied away from this class. The former #2 class in popularity is now down to the fifth place, even behind Paladin. Not a lot has changed in terms of the meta game on the ladder, since Warrior in the heavy and bulky control matchup is still one of the most seen deck - SEA players don't like it in the tournament settings it seems.
In terms of the class win rates, the big news comes from the camp of Anduin. The Priest class was blanked in Cycle 1, now that streak was snapped. It was Group E that finally brought the underpowered class to the winning ways, as Singaporean player adyb made his opponent burn by the light. Filipino AngelEyes was on the receiving end of this "beating", when finally all the classes in the Hearthstone universe got to a victory in eHL - it only took 12 and a half groups and an entire playoff bracket for Priest.
Topping the charts in the win-rate category are once again Druid, bolstering the already impressive percentage of 62.1 from Cycle 1 to 64.9 percent in the second iteration. As mentioned above, the versatility of Malfurion forces are just so strong in every matchup, that Druid is the premier tournament class by far.
More interesting here is the change below the top dog, most notably with the miserable fall of Rogue. In Cycle 1 that class was one of the major impact players even all the way into the Grand Finals, with Wensushi bringing the miracles to the Hearthstone table. This time around Valeraa was only called to battle twice, both losing efforts. Rogue emerged to the new Priest in Cycle 2, taking both the bottom spot in popularity and win-rate - a trend that will most likely be turned around again by Wensushi in the Alienware Arena.
Season statsDruid was the top class in both categories in both cycles, so they are also sitting at the spot in the sun for the overall stats of the entire season. No surprise there, nothing more to add about this, moving on.
Overall it is interesting to see in the win-rate column, that most of the classes record a score north of the 40% mark - giving some interesting looks into the balancing of the classes. Only the most hated class on ladder, Hunter, and the underpowered Priest are below that mark, while only Rogue and Druid are above the 50%. The Rogue stat once again can be mainly attributed to Wensushi's performance in the first cycle, bringing his Miracle Rogue to victory in very many occasions - even forcing the second Best of Five in that Grand Final against Crea by the power of the card draw. The two losses of Cycle 2 are not dragging down the stealthy class that much, so this high win-rate might be more of an indictment for Wensushi's skill, than the actual class being a powerhouse in the class structure of Hearthstone.
All the other classes are sitting just shy of the "break even" point in 50%. Especially for Mage this might be a huge triumph, since the class was rarely used and had one of the worst track records back in Cycle 1. The vindication of Ms. Proudmore and her avid lovers has come full circle now, as she could score a decent amount of victories in the limited playing time she received. It's nothing ground-breaking or hail worthy, but a nice boost in one of the classes that is not seen all too much from people outside of Trump.
