The Winter Playoffs kick off this weekend on January 12 with the European region. The players have had time to perfect their lineups as the last patch was weeks ago now. Here’s what to look out for in our 2019 HCT EU Winter Playoffs Preview.
The Europe Winter Playoffs has 80 players in contention for only four spots at the Winter Championship. The most notable players are the Hearthstone Masters. Expect a couple of these names to be in the top 16.
Hunterace, 2018’s number one competitor
Casper “Hunterace” Notto is the current number one player in the world and will be there with the intent to advance to the Winter Championship. Christos “Fenomeno” Tsakopoulos and Linh “Seiko” Nguyen are trailing not too far behind Hunterace and want the security of qualifying through the Winter Championship since Hunterace will qualify through points regardless of what happens.
Jaromír “Jarla” Vyskočil, Kevin “Casie” Eberlein, George “BoarControl” Webb, Joffrey “Swidz” Cunat, Elias “Bozzzton” Sibelius, and Maxime “Kalaxz” Thierry are the rest of the European Masters. In fact, Europeans make up over 50% of the Hearthstone Masters. Europe is constantly argued as the strongest region and none of the Master tier players from Europe have qualified for the World Championship yet.
There are also a fair amount of non-Masters players we can expect to make a run at the Winter Playoffs. Kacper “A83650” Kwieciński, Raphael “Bunnyhoppor” Peltzer and Torben “Viper” Wahl are three non-Masters players that have already qualified for the World Championship and will definitely utilize this opportunity as practice for then.
There are players that aren’t able to attend a lot of tournaments and don’t show up as top points earners. These players are of course still very good but not as expected to perform well.
Damien “Yogg” L’Hostis had one breakthrough performance at HCT Germany. He beat a huge contender in Jarla and only lost to another Master player in Kalaxz. Another French player Pierre “Trec” Breuil won HCT Germany and is a contender to make a push in playoffs.
Faeli, an upset pick for playoffs.
Thijs “Thijs” Molendijk is a household name thanks to streaming but has also had a great year competitively. A Winter Championship appearance or even another World Championship appearance can solidify him as one of the all time greatest.
Jon “Orange” Westberg is looking for back-to-back World Championship appearances and an improvement on last year’s performance. Frederik “Hoej” Høj Nielsen is the one who lost to Orange at World Champs last year and has to use this last opportunity to return to the Championship.
Oldřich “Faeli” Mahdal has three top four appearances in Tour Stops this year and will play a major threat. Simon “Crane333” Raunholst is an established name but lacks a World Championship appearance. Loic “Dizdemon” Poulain is a top French player but is still looking for that breakthrough World performance.
75 of the 80 players brought a Hunter decklist. This is far and away the most represented class at playoffs. The class has a lot of versatility and is simply the strongest. Powerful plays like Zul’Jin alone can be game winning. Hunter looks to be the face of the meta for now.
Rexxar is back in full effect.
59 of the 80 players brought a Paladin decklist. The class offers viable lists for all types of play styles, which makes it a fitting class regardless of your game plan. Most of the tournament favorites tend to be favoring Even Paladin above all.
49 of the 80 players brought a Priest deck. A lot of players have decided to bring the Dragon Control Priest, which is interesting because Priest has lately not been a very popular competitive pick. Also, of those Priest decks, most were Clone Priest, so something in the pro community must have clicked to think that Control Priest was the pick. It performs really well against everything except classes that have great healing potential like OTK Paladin.
12 of the 80 players brought Druid. The nerfs really left the class in shambles. If you aren’t playing a Druid with some sort of one turn kill combo, its viability is lacking.
10 of the 80 players brought Mage. A class that wasn’t hit hard by nerfs but is the least represented. Those who did bring the class brought mostly Big Spell Mage, who relies on getting to Frost Lich Jaina for many of their victories. The players who brought Mage must have brought it because of their affinity for the class.
Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment via the official Hearthstone website.
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