Felkeine Wins Hearthstone Masters Tour Seoul

The second Masters Tour event of 2019 has concluded. After three hard fought, long days, Theo “Felkeine” Dumont wins Hearthstone Masters Tour Seoul and $88,739. This is a breakout moment for this French Hearthstone player representing Team Solary, claiming his first Major tournament win.

The Top 8

After 12 rounds of battling it out in the Swiss format, some of those at the top of Day 1 held on and maintained their spots going into the Top 8. Here are how Groups A and B looked for the dual elimination style Top 8:

Group A

“RNGLys”
“Sooni”
Euneil “Staz” Javiñas
“Magoho”

Group B

Theo “Felkeine” Dumont
Jack “DeadDraw” Bancroft
Grégoire “Un33D” Bodin

Deciding the Finalists

With the Initial matches already being played out, it was RNGLys versus Magoho in Group A, and Felkeine versus DeadDraw in Group B in the Winners matches to decide who would advance to Top 4 as winner of their groups.

RNGLys’s Reno Hunter would beat Magoho’s Bomb Warrior to be the first member of the Top 4. Sooni’s Combo Priest would eliminate Staz’s Reno Hunter to face Magoho to see who would join Lys in that Top 4. In the Decider match, Magoho’s Warrior simply had too many Control tools for Sooni, eliminating the only Priest in Top 8 and sending Magoho to the semifinals.

Felkeine’s Reno Mage would prevail over DeadDraw’s Control Warrior to make him the first player of Group B to advance to the semifinals. Zhym’s Reno Mage knocked out Un33D, the sole Rogue in Top 8. Zhym would go on to beat DeadDraw in a very favorable matchup for himself, making the second Mage in the semifinals.

Semifinals

Of the final four, there were two French Hearthstone players who prepared deck lists together in Reno Mage with Felkeine and Zhym. Also a Chinese representative RNGLys on Reno Hunter, the best bet at taking out those Mages. Then finally, Magoho on Warrior, who was the least favored of all four due to every match up being a bad one.

Magoho’s match versus Felkeine went somewhat as predicted. Because Magoho was running some Bomb cards in his deck, he was able to be aggressive. In one game he snagged a victory by playing minions on curve. However, he simply could not consistently get this aggression, losing to the value of Felkeine’s Mage three games to one.

For RNGLys versus Zhym, Lys had some hope, but once again struggled with aggression much like Magoho. Due to playing a Reno deck, the consistency of draws is severely lacking. This resulted in Lys only winning a single game in the set. With Zhym winning three games to one, the two French friends would face off in a Grand Final mirror match.

Champion of Seoul

In an almost unsurprising fashion, two Reno Mage players made it to the finals. Many players predicted an outcome like this going into the tournament. Everyone hoped that the winner of Seoul would not be decided by who drew Luna’s Pocket Galaxy.

The winner of Game One would be actually decided by who played Reno the Relicologist last. Felkeine was able to clear Zhym’s Mountain Giant nicely with his Reno, but Zhym top decked his Reno and took the advantage on board right back. Zhym transitioned his lead into a killing blow, taking first blood in the Grand Final.

Though in Game Two, Felkeine was able to play Luna’s Pocket Galaxy on curve. Zhym did not draw the Galaxy, but was playing ahead on board, and attempted to close out the game before Felkeine could flex his one mana minions. Felkeine, however, was able to go Alexstraza on Zhym’s face into Conjurer’s Calling, which immediately set up lethal damage. Zhym went for a Hail Mary Reno the Relicologist which killed not a single minion, resulting in his death.

Tied up at one game a piece, spectators would hope Luna’s Pocket Galaxy would not continue to be a deciding factor. After a quite disastrous production slip up, Felkeine would take game three. Of what we could see, Felkeine played Luna’s Pocket Galaxy on curve and won again, moving up 2-1 in the set.

With Felkeine on match point, early in Game Four both players would drop Zeprhys the Great on turn two for tempo. Things would go back and forth for a while, with Felkeine dropping Alexstrasza on Zhym’s face with an empty board. Zhym would answer with a solid board of his own while killing Alexstrasza. This was only to be faced with Archmage Antonidas into Frost Nova on the following turn. The game would come down to an exciting Puzzle Box of Yogg Saron which ultimately did not kill Antonidas. This in turn let Felkeine get lethal damage and the trophy.

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment via their official website and the PlayHearthstone twitch channel.

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