The second of the Winter Playoffs has now past after the Americas region has decided its four players to represent them at the Winter Championship. The 2019 HCT Americas Winter Finalists are a few of the favorite players to take the qualifying spots.
The four players to represent the Americas are Mark “Ike” Eichner, Matt “noblord” Koutsoutis, “bobbyex”, and Brian “bloodyface” Eason.
As always, a record of at least 5-2 would be required to make the top eight playoffs at this event. Many players would accomplish that, but too many, and tiebreakers decide the top eight.
Bobbyex would finish at the top of the heap after the Swiss rounds 7-0. He beat noblord in the final round, who would finish 6-1. The two would not have to face each other in the playoffs.
The other players to finish the Swiss stage 6-1 were bloodyface, Facundo “Nalguidan” Pruzzo, and “UchihaSaske”.The 5-2 players with good tiebreakers were “Starfruit”, Ike, and David “killinallday” Acosta.
One of those players that just barely missed the tiebreakers was last year’s runner up at the World Championship, Frank “Fr0zen” Zhang, who was not able to advance at 5-2.
The initial pool of players had brought mostly Hunter, Priest, and Paladin. Of those reaching the top eight, only six players actually had Hunter. The class that every player hand in the top eight was Priest. There was a high spike in Priest in this tournament from the EU playoffs, but this really shows how strong the class is in a competitive format.
Over half of the total field brought Paladin, but only four players making it to the top eight had a Paladin list. The surprise class of the Amercan Playoffs was actually Rogue, as seven of the top eight players had a Rogue list in their lineups. There were five Odd Rogues, with bobbyex and bloodyface bringing Quest Rogue, the deck that just refuses to die.
Priests of all kinds made their way into the top eight. Clone Priest and Control Priest were the two most common forms, but noblord and bloodyface brought their Topsy OTK Priest. As for Hunter, there were mostly Hybrid Hunters, but also a couple of Midrange Hunters and a single Deathrattle Hunter from bobbyex.
There wasn’t really anything crazy in the top eight like Torben “Viper” Wahl’s Peanut Shaman in EU Playoffs. One of the weird decks was the Hakkar OTK Druid brought by bloodyface and noblord, but this deck has seen a lot of time on ladder.
Group A would consist of Ike, bobbyex, Nalguidan, and UchihaSaske. Nalguidan is the one player with a prior Seasonal Championship appearance this year in the group, so he knows the formula for success.
The initial matches were between Ike and bobbyex, then Nalguidan versus UchihaSaske. Nalguidan made it look easy against UchihaSaske, sweeping him 3-0. Ike didn’t have too much issue against bobbyex either, defeating him 3-1.
The Winners match wouldn’t between Ike and Nalguidan wouldn’t have much contest either. Ike would sweep Nalguidan 3-0 and make his way to the Winter Championship. Not very careful management of Nalguidan’s health against Ike’s Control Priest led to an easy burst lethal. In the final game, Ike pressured overwhelmingly hard with his Hunter into the Control Priest in the final match, despite Nalguidan healing and clearing the board so often.
In the Losers bracket, Bobbyex would take a set that went to game five against UchihaSaske 3-2. The Decider match would be between bobbyex and Nalguidan. Bobbyex would take care of business against Nalguidan, going 3-1 in the set.
The Quest Rogue of bobbyex queued into the Clone Priest of Nalguidan, which meant bobbyex was able to finish the Quest without much pressure. Bobbyex then was able to always keep a high health total cleaning it up easily. The final game would see bobbyex’s Deathrattle Hunter into the OTK Paladin of Nalguidan. Nalguidan would not overcome the pressure, and bobbyex was headed to the Winter Championship.
Group B was absolutely stacked, with Starfruit, noblord, bloodyface, and killinallday all present in the group. Both killinallday and bloodyface have already qualified for the World Championship, and look to return to a Seasonal Championship.
The initial matches were noblord versus Starfruit, and bloodyface versus killinallday. As expected of this stacked groups, both sets went five games. Noblord squeezed out a 3-2 win, and bloodyface prevailed 3-2.
The Winners match between bloodyface and noblord wouldn’t work out very well for bloodyface. Noblord would take the set confidently 3-1 and head to the Winter Championship. It took until turn eight for bloodyface to complete the Rogue Quest in his match against OTK Paladin. Noblord with his timeouts and Uther of the Ebon Blade online was able to get plenty of time to pull off the Horsemen OTK combo. Bloodyface queued his Quest Rogue again into the Macha’thun Warlock. Noblord was below the required five health to pull off the combo but with Lifesteal on Corpsetaker was able to get to six and win the set.
Killinallday would make easy work of Starfruit in the Losers Bracket 3-0. The final Deciders match would be between bloodyface and killinallday. Killinallday struggled heavily against noblord in the initial match, and bloodyface’s lineup wasn’t much different.
It would show as bloodyface would make it look easy against killinallday. He would win a 3-0 sweep and advance to his second Seasonal Championship of the year. bloodyface was able to pull off his Hakkar combo against the Odd Warrior that couldn’t keep its life total up, as well as pull off the Horsemen OTK with his Paladin against Clone Priest thanks to Time Out.
Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment via the PlayHearthstone Twitch channel.
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