HCT Germany, Boomsday’s first HCT Tour Stop, has concluded. The Boomsday takeaways for the current meta implications are important. A lot of deck archetypes from the meta leading into Boomsday are still very strong. Some older archetypes have made a comeback with the aid of new cards. Entirely new archetypes have shown up thanks to the new Magnetic mechanic and other crazy cards from Boomsday.
French organization Gamersorigin’s player “Trec” won the event with an interesting new form of Odd Warrior in his lineup, alongside some old reliable decks aided by new cards.
Trec’s First Major Victory
A relatively new player to the Hearthstone competitive world, Trec makes the French Hearthstone scene proud with his performance at HCT Germany. He’s competed in a handful of Tour Stops before, but has failed to make any high placing finishes. In achieving his victory, he took down fellow Frenchman Maxime “Kalà xz” Thierry, who has also been playing pretty well in 2018.
Unfortunately, Trec’s Odd Warrior was banned in the final by Kalaxz, so we weren’t going to see how the new card inclusions would perform in the deck. Trec banned the Malygos Druid of Kalaxz because Druid is just so strong of an archetype.
In the end, Trec was running three decks of the last meta with slight improvements with a handful of Boomsday cards.
Heal Zoolock, Shudderwock Shaman and Token Druid are decks that are just really strong in many matchups. Trec saw no reason to stray from their success and it worked out well for him. Kalaxz got a little experimental with his version of the new Tempo Mage and the deck failed to find a win for him.
Trec took the final set 3-1 and gained 15 HCT points alongside $5,000. With the additional points, Trec will definitely look to qualify for a Seasonal Championship and later a World Championship spot.
New Cards Enjoying Early Success
The first new card in all kinds of decks is Giggling Inventor. The card is very diverse in its uses. It produces three minions that can stick to the board to set up a good Fungalmancer turn. The two Annoy-o-Trons save you a lot of health by absorbing four hits from minions. Some players have made comparisons to Sludge Belcher, another five mana taunt card, but Inventor is a card that can be put in aggressive decks unlike Belcher.
Malygos Druid players have to this point enjoyed using Flobbidinous Floop. The card is another one with versatile capabilities. Most importantly, it acts like as an extra Malygos for burst damage. Players can go Malygos plus two Moonfires, have their Malygos be killed, then play the Floop-Malygos and finish an opponent with Swipe. Floop can also be used as an additional Arcane Tyrant or Lich King.
Warlocks have found their combo deck counter with the card Demonic Project. The ability to transform a Shudderwock or Malygos gives the slower Warlocks a lot better chance to win those matchups. In other matchups, it could ruin a tempo play transforming a Fungalmancer or some other swing turn card.
New Boomsday Decks
Tempo Mage has taken on a new form with Spell Damage Tempo. Celestial Emissary and Cosmic Anomaly give Mage a lot of additional Spell Damage for its missiles and the new card Unexpected Results. It still uses Aluneth to have good hand refill, but combines with the new Stargazer Luna for more draw potential.
Priest has seen two new decks appear at HCT Germany. Both decks are OTKs in different forms, Mecha’thun Priest and Topsy Turvy Priest. The Mecha’thun Priest deck has lots of AOE removal, healing, and card draw in order to achieve the conditions for winning with Mecha’thun. Loic “Dizdemon” Poulain made top eight with this deck in his lineup.
The Topsy Priest has also been named APM priest as a lot of cards have to be played within a one turn timer limit in order to win the game. The combo combines Radiant Elemental, Test Subject, Divine Spirit, Vivid Nightmare, Topsy Turvy, and the unexpected Stonetusk Boar to create multiple giant charging boars for a true OTK.
The last notable archetype is the revival of Control Warrior. There were three different decklists to be brought to HCT Germany. There was an Odd version, and a more mech oriented version with Dr. Boom, Mad Genius. The Dr. Boom version aims to use the Rush capability of mechs after using the hero card in order to take over board in the late game. The odd version combines the four armor gain per hero power with new cards that bolster the consistency of the deck.
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