Analysing Hearthstone World Championships EU Qualifier Day 1

GosuGamers breaks down Day 1 of the Hearthstone World Championships EU Qualifier giving you everything you need to know heading into Day 2 on Friday.

Full results and brackets from Day 1 of the Hearthstone World Championships EU qualifier can be found here.

The first day of the Hearthstone World Championships EU qualifer will go down as the day of the underdog. If you were to pick from the sixteen assembled players the four most likely to make it through to the finals in November, you would likely have seen at least three of your picks lose their very first game in big upsets. From Neirea (who got a bye to this stage by virtue of being one of the top two players in the EU Blizzcon rankings) going from 2-0 to lose 3-2 to Numberguy, Greensheep avenging his loss in the last stage of the qualifiers against ThijsNL, or Lifecoach being shocked by Thefishou's aggro mage deck taking a clean sweep, it was not a good day to be a gambler. Only Kolento was able to pull one back for the favourites, but for the rest of those well known players they face a difficult task on Friday.

Overall, while this might not be good for those established players and teams, or for broadcasters eager to draw viewers with name brand players, the Hearthstone eSports scene will benefit in the long run from these results. These upsets reflect a shifting tide in our sport, away from invitationals featuring the same players every time to more and more tournaments featuring open qualifers. VGVN, the Sunshine Open - and now Blizzcon. The fact that any player, regardless of profile, can make it to the biggest tournaments like the World Championships and have a chance of taking home six-figure prize pools is a really positive move forward for the scene. 

Aside from upset, the word of the day yesterday was diversity. As you will see below class diversity is at an all time high, and within those classes there were very few players running the same deck lists. From Neirea's new take on Priest in the competitive scene to Thefishou's devastatingly effective Aggro Mage, we saw new and fresh deck match-ups that will help keep fans interested in watching these events. No one wants to see Miracle vs Handlock in every series and every tournament! Diversity of players, too - not just in experience but also in nationality. Among the sixteen players ten different countries were represented, including the UK, France and Spain. 

This event felt like a big time sporting event. Part of that was down to the drama and the evolving stories, but the presentation was also very much responsible. The sweeping shots of Stockholm made it feel like a global event where the host city was important, not just some dingy studio somewhere in a corner of Europe. As always, Frodan surprised no one with a confident and professional hosting job that held the event together over ten hours, and the casting team of Savjz and Artosis told the stories of what was evolving in front of them expertly. Savjz in particular excelled in his first major casting outing, giving incredibly sound and accessible analysis into the player mindset, the tournament meta and the decision making processes, while both casters also succeeded in putting their analysis into the wider context of the competition at every possible opportunity. 

Now let's look in a bit more detail at what was being played throughout the day.

Graph 1: Class representation in players' line-ups

The BlizzCon European Qualifier is the first major tournament coming after the nerf on [card]Leeroy Jenkins[/card] and [card]Starving Buzzard[/card] and as a result, shifts in the metagame were expected. The patch foreshadowed the death of the Hunter, many pro-players proclaiming the mid-range build as unplayable, as well as the partial disappearance of Miracle Rogue, at least until the new optimal way to play the build was found.

Even with a small sample of players and games, one can see that is indeed the case. Hunter is down to 3%, a huge dive for what was once the dominant class in competitive play, taking almost a 30% share between the NA and EU phase 1 qualifiers. Even usually underrepresented classes like Mage or Warrior have manager to overcome Hunter, laughing at Rexxar’s downfall post the Buzzard nerf.

Miracle has also suffered a fall, although not as huge one. The Gadgetzan builds have been another top tier class for the majority of the pre-nerf meta but the class is now down to 11%. Although not all Rogue builds at DreamHack have been Miracle – Reynad used aggro Rogue against MrYagut, for example – but it remains the predominant build and its nosedive is palpable.    

With Hunter gone, it was expected that Warlocks would crawl out of their holes. Not having to worry about constant Steady Shots, board-clearing [card]Unleash the Hounds[/card]s or Giants that get [card]Hunter’s Mark[/card]ed, Gul’dan is presently enjoying a surge of popularity to such an extent that 13 of all 16 players brought a Warlock to the tournament. Warlock is closely followed by Druid and then Priest and Paladin, perpetuating the overall slowness of the metagame.

Graph 2: Class win-rates after day one

Looking at win-rates tells a different story altogether. Warlock might be the most popular class in the tournament but it’s struggling to win games at the same time, getting tied with Rogue for the second least winning class for the first eight Bo5 series. Hunter’s Mark might be gone but Druids can still rush the class down, Paladins are running the ubiquitous double [card]Equality[/card] and there’s still Thefishou’s hard-counter aggro Mage running wild. Add to that those double [card]Shadow Word: Death[/card] plus [card]Mind Control[/card] Priests and the Warlocks are very likely to not dramatically increase their win-rate by the end of the tournament.

Speaking of win-rate, Shaman is killing it, having won four of the five games played. With the meta slowed down, the class has been given enough time to set up board position and dig for its answers against the big threats. The pro player community already predicted the rise of the class now that Hunter’s gone but seeing him that high is definitely a surprise, definitely more so than seeing Druid second at 77%.

The big question mark here is Mage. After the first day, Jaina is at 71% win-rate but that mostly comes from Thefishou’s 3-0 against Lifecoach, his aggro deck coming out as the surprise of the tournament as most players would’ve expected Hyped’s Secret Mage. Now that this information is available for the opposition to see, Mage might see a drop in the win-rate before the end of the tournament but one must have in mind that the Secrets build is incredibly efficient in drawn-out games and fatigue wars due to [card]Duplicate[/card] and the aggro build hard-counters Handlock, a build that, as pointed out above, is widely represented in the tournament. 

After Naxxramas, Priest has been considered one of the powerhouse decks, having given strong cards to fit its control nature like [card]Dark Cultist[/card] and [card]Sludge Belcher[/card]. Modern versions like Kibler’s [card]Undertaker[/card] build have even managed to explore a more aggressive, mid-rangey playstyle for the class, something previously undoable.

On the right, we have what would likely become the standard for slower Priest decks in the modern meta. Build and used by Neirea during Prismata Cup and now brought to the BlizzCon qualifiers as well, the deck helped Innovation’s Numberguy engineer a 3-2 comeback against his team-mate and creator of the deck.

The build doesn’t necessarily innovate how Priest is played, rather optimizes it for a competitive meta. On top of the standard defensive cards, [card]Auchenai Soulpriest[/card]/[card]Injured Blademaster[/card] plus [card]Circle of Healing[/card] combos and [card]Wild Pyromancer[/card] tricks, it features a single [card]Silence[/card], giving it a clutch free removal of a sort to battle cards like [card]Ysera[/card], [card]Tirion Fordring[/card], [card]Sludge Belcher[/card] or Druid’s taunts. There’s also a single [card]Shadow Madness[/card] to counter any aggressive decks like Zoo or StrifeCro’s new-age Druid or, once again, those pesky [card]Sludge Belcher[/card]s.