Hearthstone Grandmasters Season 2 Week 2 went into play just three short days after the nerf patch. With the shake up, we saw some match ups of archetypes we would normally never get to see. Let’s dive into who has started to emerge as regional leaders, and with what decks they piloted this week.
Asia-Pacific Region
Chen “tom60229” Wei Lin is the first player to 4-0 in Grandmasters. He is first place in Division B as he defeats Kenta “glory” Sato who gets dropped into second place at 3-1. The set was a 2:0 sweep for tom. He used Zoolock to actually defeat Control Warrior in an unfavorable match up, and then won the Warrior mirror. Glory protected his Warrior in the Shield Phase and decided to ride out the set with it to no avail.
The one other player at 3-1 in Division B is Euneil “Staz” Javiñas, who only lost to tom60229 in Week 1. All alone in last place of the division is Ng “Blitzchung” Wai Chung at 0-4. He needs to turn things around fast or risk being relegated from Grandmasters at the end of the season.
Over in Division A, there are no players with undefeated records after only two weeks. Leading the division are Kim “che0nsu” Cheon Su and Dasol “Ryvius” Sim at 3-1. The two battled it out this week with Ryvius prevailing 2:1. Ryvius chose to protect his Warrior while che0nsu protected his Druid. Then Ryvius had his Druid banned with che0nsu having his Warrior banned.
Ryvius took game one with his protected Control Warrior over Zoo Warlock. Game two went to che0nsu’s protected Quest Druid over Quest Shaman. Che0nsu tried to go back to the Zoolock but Ryvius was able to pull ahead with Mech Hunter for the victory. The alternative for che0nsu was Highlander Hunter, but he knew Ryvius would switch from the Quest Shaman since the match up was unfavorable.
There are no players without a win in Division A either, with Wu “BloodTrail” Zong-Chang and Kim “Surrender” Jung-soo pulling up the rear at 1-3.
Europe Region
There’s only one undefeated player remaining in Europe as well, that being the 4-0 Casper “Hunterace” Notto in Division A. Hunterace has now won 11 consecutive regular season Grandmaster sets. In second place by himself as well is Aleksandr “Kolento” Malsh at 3-1, whose only loss comes against Hunterace in Week 1.
Over in Division B, there are three players at 3-1. There is a two way tie for first place when including tiebreakers. Pavel “Pavel” Beltukov, Raphael “Bunnyhoppor” Peltzer and Jaromír “Jarla” Vyskočil are the three names at 3-1. None of these players have played against each other yet but Bunnyhoppor will play against both Pavel and Jarla next week.
Last season’s winner and Global Finalist Chris “Fenomeno” Tsakopoulos starts this season 0-4. This could be a slightly misleading record as he had to play all of the first place players to this point. However, he was definitely expected to at least split his sets. He was swept 2:0 by both Jarla and Bunnyhoppor this week.
Versus Bunnyhoppor, Feno queued OTK Paladin into an un-favored match up against Control Warrior and lost. Then, Feno went into a Quest Druid mirror where he was out-valued by Bunnyhoppor. In his match against Jarla he was again “unlucky” in his queue order, playing Quest Druid into Combo Priest. Jarla got on board early and smashed Feno’s face. Then Feno lost a close matchup with Quest Druid against Jarla’s Control Warrior. Jarla was able to eliminate most of Feno’s boards thanks to an early Dr. Boom, Mad Genius and not expending AOE removal.
Americas Region
The Americas region actually has zero undefeated players after two weeks of play. There are are three players in Division B at 3-1. Those are Frank “Fr0zen” Zhang, Brian “bloodyface” Eason, David “justsaiyan” Shan. Once again, none of these players have played against one another, but saiyan will take on both Fr0zen and bloodyface next week.
Saiyan’s undefeated start came to an end versus Paul “Zalae” Nemeth who gets on the board with his first win of the season. The set was actually a 2:0 sweep for Zalae. He took game one with his Quest Druid over Saiyan’s Control Wariror, and game two with his Quest Shaman over the Control Warrior once again.
Over in Division B, Facundo “Nalguidan” Pruzzo and Eddie “Eddie” Lui are at 3-1 and in the lead. Nalguidan really rolled this week going 2-0 and sweeping Muzahidul “Muzzy” Islam in a very short set.
Nalguidan opted to protect his Priest but did not choose to play it at all. He took game one over Muzzy with his Quest Druid into Control Warrior. Then he won game two with his Murloc Paladin over Tempo Rogue with an absolute suck out. Nalguidan looked out of the game but then top decked Prismatic Lens into a one mana Tip the Scales on turn five to set up a next turn lethal.
Only two weeks in and those out to 2-0 starts in Week 1 have most of their undefeated runs end. There could be even more flip-flopping of the standings next week. Complete standings with tiebreakers can be found here.
Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment via their official website and the PlayHearthstone Twitch channel.
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