Please keep in mind that a power ranking is in no way an official rating. It is merely a breakdown of the participant's strength or "power level", partially based on facts and factoids, partially based on opinion, momentum and general feeling.
Rank 8: Gerardo "Gera89" Di Pietro
Gera89 is by far the biggest wildcard coming into the Road to BlizzCon tournament in Prague. We rated him lowest, just because nobody knows anything about him and he hasn't proven himself too much as of yet, but instead of "Rank 8" we easily could've written "Rank ?", to be honest. The Italian is on team Powned.it, the biggest team of his home country, and spent some time there with last year's BlizzCon Cinderella story Riccardo "Kaor" Giammanco. Maybe the fellow countryman handed is secret for last year's success to Gera89?
The only big tournament he played in thus far was the Road to BlizzCon up to this point, in which he went 7-1 with a line-up of Druid, Midrange Hunter and Handlock. On his way to Prague, he walked over a number of big names, namely the ones of Petar "Gaara" Stevanovic, Gareth "Cipher" Rouse and Michaël "Maverick" Looze.
Rank 7: Pavel Beltukov
If Gera89 ist the wildcard of the European Regionals, Pavel is the dark horse. Not known to many, the Russian had quite respectable results in his career, especially recently finishing top 4 in the ONOG Summer Circuit Finals. He is sometimes dubbed as the "European Firebat", as there are some similarities between him and the current world champion prior to BlizzCon 2014. Both had decent but not amazing results before they went into regionals, both were known by the people more involved in the community and it is said that both have similar, very analytical mindsets.
Right now, Pavel doesn't look likely to come out victorious in Prague - but if he does, there definitely will be people saying "I told you all along!"
Rank 6: Yevgeniy "Neirea" Shumilin
Neirea's Hearthstone year looks like the very definition of "decent". He had some really good results, for example during the first half of the ATLC's regular season or with his top 4 and top 8 finishes in Kinguin for Charity Winter and Vulcun Deckmasters, respectively. However, he also dropped out early in a number of tournaments and is still lacking a championship.
It has to be said, though, that this is the second time in a row that the Ukrainian qualifies for the European Regionals. So maybe he can turn this into some kind of home field advantage by feeling more comfortable and not as much pressured as some of his opponents. He is also one of the few players who's not afraid to bring unpopular decks to tournaments (he played Giants Mage in ATLC, for example), so maybe he can catch people off guard. For qualifiers up to this point, however, he brought the standard trifecta of Druid, Handlock and Patron Warrior.
Rank 5: Frederik "Hoej" Nielsen
The Dane polarizes the Hearthstone community like no other player. Coming into Viagame Housecup 2 as an absolute nobody he ended up winning the whole thing (for the record: Viagame's Housecups are perceived as the tournaments with the highest skill cap by far because of their specific format), yet was described as a one-hit-wonder. He then came back to Housecup 3 and finished top 8, which is far from crashing out early. Later, he got top 4 at Assembly Summer. And finally, just one month ago, he won his second gold medal at Gfinity Summer Masters II. One-hit-wonder doesn't quite seem to be a fitting description at all.
Yet still Hoej is almost never mentioned when it comes to things like "best European players", even though on paper right now he definitely is. As mentioned before, he polarizes. Anyway, with being picked up by Na'Vi only weeks ago, I'm sure the Dane is more determined on becoming as successful as a player as ever.
Rank 4: Michaël "Maverick" Looze
Maverick has been flying under the radar for his entire Hearthstone career, so he's probably used to people not considering him as a favourite at this point. Part of the reason for this is that he is mostly sticking to the French/Belgium scene playing for Millenium, but it looks like he's about to make steps into the international community now. His biggest achievements thus far have been winning the highly contested GamersOrigin Cup 2 (a 500 players Swiss tournament!) and finishing top 4 at SeatStory Cup 3.
On his way to Prague he used the standard-trifecta of Druid, Handlock and Patron Warrior and is currently ranked sixth on our player rankings for the European region.
Rank 3: Adrian "Lifecoach" Koy
Oh man, Lifecoach. What's there to say that's not already been said about him? He won ATLC with Nihilum. He won Viagame Housecup 3. He won Kinguin for Charity Spring. He won his group in the Kinguin Pro League and finished second overall. He won the ROOT Gaming Invitational. He also got second places in the WCA Qualifier 2015, Heroes of Cards 1 and The Pinnacle 2. Quite frankly, he is only ranked as low as rank 3 because a) it's not the first half of 2015 anymore, where he looked unbeatable, and b) the only two players ranked higher than him are absolute monsters.
As mentioned, the German looks more beatable than earlier this year this time around - during the last matches of ATLC he looked shaky, to say the least, and he came pretty close to elimination on his way to Prague, playing Druid, Handlock (the Demon variant) and Patron Warrior like pretty much everyone else. Lifecoach is still Lifecoach though, and it would be a huge upset if he doesn't qualify for BlizzCon this year after his first attempt last year ended at the regionals.
Rank 2: Sebastian "Ostkaka" Engwall
It's quite suprprising that there are still community members out there who don't really know who Ostkaka is. Even after his second place finish at SeatStory Cup 3 he wasn't widely recognized. I mean, we're talking about the player who pretty much always gets snap-called as a big favourite when you ask pro players about their opinion on who will win a certain tournament. Now that he's getting more exposure and has joined Na'Vi, the young Swede's future looks brighter than ever.
As for the Road to BlizzCon, Ostkaka was the only European player to qualify for regionals without bringing Druid. Instead, he played Secret Paladin in addition to Demon Handlock and Patron Warrior. Now that we're talking Patron Warrior: he was also the deck's specialist for Forsenboys during the ATLC and played the deck every single week - without dropping a single game, netting a hefty 100%-winrate. "Best Patron player in the world" is certainly a nice thing to have going for you when you're about to enter the most important tournament of your life to date.
Rank 1: Thijs Molendijk
The No. 1 player on our rankings right now, with one of the highest amounts of points a player ever achieved. Thijs had a great 2014, winning tons of Zotac Cups and King of the Hill tournaments as well as DreamHack Bucharest, getting second in DreamHack Winter and only not making the trip to BlizzCon because Kolento was standing in his way as the final boss. Then, Conquest replaced the Last Hero Standing format and the metagame evolved, slowly but surely making Thijs' special class, Druid, weaker and weaker as time progressed. Thijs was still a very, very good player - he just wasn't absolut top-notch.
Now with TGT, Druid is back and one of the strongest classes in the meta. And with Druid, still riding the momentum of winning ATLC with his teammates, the Dutchman looks all but unstoppable.
So, there you have it - our opinion on which of the eight players participating in the EU Regionals look the strongest going into the tournament. Now, to totally confuse you: we do not expect our four highest ranked players to make it to BlizzCon. They can't, simply because of how the groups are set up. Group A is crazy contested, having Thijs, Ostkaka, Hoej as well as Maverick in it, and only two of the four can make it out. So, here's the final prediction: Thijs, Ostkaka, Lifecoach and Neirea will advance to BlizzCon.
How accurate do you think our evaluations are? Leave as a comment or discuss the matter with me personally, I'm always up for a talk.
