So this weekend just been (December 5th and 6th 2015) saw us holding an open tournament for fans of the station in the virtual card game of Hearthstone, with each match being decided by a best of 3 round. Eight players entered but ultimately one person emerged victorious with the grand prize.
Round 1 - Saturday, December 5th
The tournament kicked off at 4:30pm BST with the opening match between MikeMatrix and Lartin, Mike already known for his skills. The match saw both players using Paladin decks, proven to be a popular Hero choice as the tournament went on and despite Lartin putting up a hell of a fight MikeMatrix eventually emerged as the victor in the first match and moved onto the semi finals.
The next match-up saw CreeperGirl and Agtheo matched up against each other, with Agtheo being a newer addition to the community. Agtheo also brought along a strong Paladin deck and Creeper brought the first Priest of the tournament. Unfortunately despite strong resistance Creeper eventually lost to Agtheo 2-0 and so Agtheo went on to face Mike in the first semi of Sunday.
The third match of the first round was Zeoste vs Threepwood, a match-up that proved to be well matched. Both players were strong contenders for victory, with matches swinging back and forth in each player's favour. Eventually though Zeoste managed to emerge victorious in both matches played and advanced to the semis.
The forth and final match-up of the day saw Izziekakarot (brother of our very own Crimsonshade!) pit against Krauzer168 for the last spot the next day. Once again both players fought their matches fiercely with Secrets, Nerubian Eggs and much more being played as they tried to win out against the other player. In the end though Izzie won and advanced to face Zeoste in the other semi of Round 2.
Round 2 - Sunday, December 6th
Round 2 was the day of deciders, the deciding of who of our remaining four would place forth; third; second and ultimately; first place in the Winter Open Tournament.
Semi-final 1 was between Zeoste and Izziekakarot for a place in the final round. Both again fought fiercely but despite Zeoste taking the first round, a combination of good card draw and a lucky 2-cost minion drop from Izzie's Piloted Shredder (in the form of an Armorsmith) ensured the Izziekakarot advanced to take the first place in the final match that would be played at the end of the day.
The other semi-final saw one of the most anticipated match-ups of the day - MikeMatrix vs Agtheo. Both players had proven their skills the day before and it could have gone either way. Agtheo used his Dragon Priest deck in both matches though and bad luck and bad card draw meant that in the end Mike had no answer and so Agtheo filled the other spot in the final.
Before the final though, the third place decider had to take place (which I persisted in referring to as the "Bronze match"). Zeoste faced MikeMatrix in battle and in the end it was quickly over. The first match played as your expected game, but Mike chose to use his Legends deck in the second round and once again bad card draw made it hard for him to get anything on the field quick enough to defend himself. Zeoste therefore took third place in the tournament.
And so we reached the end of the tournament, the ultimate match-up in the final - Izziekakarot vs Agtheo!
In a game that was closer than any previous match-up seen so far both players presented strong showings, with Agtheo's Dragon Priest almost out of luck when it took a while for the Dragons to emerge for the combinations. In the end though the Dragons came and proved both times the stronger deck, allowing Agtheo to scoop the top prize in the tournament of his choice of either an Expansion or 15 Card Packs. Izzie of course still came second and took the second place prize of either a Hero or 7 Card Packs.
Our victor had this to say about the tournament:
Before I go into my write up for the Sanitarium.FM open winter tournament I want to say a big 'thanks' to two groups of people, firstly to the tournament organisers at Sanitarium.FM without whom there would be no tournament and secondly to my Hearthstone clanmates from team 'Fat Old Men' Duram and TastyTadpole without whose help building and testing decks I certainly would not have done as well as I did.
The tournament itself was a pleasure to play in, a small, intimate affair made up of the close knit Sanitarium.fm community. This was, I believe the first open tournament organised for Hearthstone by the SFM team, and while there were some teething technical issues relating to commentator call quality and stream fps these were dealt with as the tournament proceeded...
Likewise, the tournament itself included players over a wide variety of skill levels and some of the results reflected this, with 2-0 shutouts occurring in all but one case but all players seemed to have a good time and take this with good heart and politeness within matches reigned supreme with very little BM in evidence.
I had selected 5 decks as my 'core' to practice with: Secret Paladin and Demonlock Zoo were both Tier 1 decks that I was already pretty familiar with having used them to ladder over the past few months and have pretty strong match-ups against a lot of things. Control 'Wallet' Warrior was there to use as a counter in case I lost a match against Freeze Mage, Oil Rogue or other control style deck and suspected my opponent would keep the deck rather than switching. Likewise Dragon Priest was taken to deal with Aggro decks (specifically Zoolock) due to it's large number of high value taunt cards and a Mid Range Druid based around board control and the Force of Nature / Savage Roar combo was taken to round things out.
I knew that the previous (presumably non open) tournament winner MikeMatrix would be my semi-final opponent if I made through the opening round so making sure I was in a good position to take the win from him was certainly on my radar, especially as he was the only other player to have scouted me during my ranked play and got a good look at my Zoolock deck in action, and was clearly 'the man to beat'. My first opponent CreeperGirl was a bit of an unknown quantity... I elected to open with Secret Paladin, it's a deck am quite familiar with and has many strong match-ups. I was met with an eclectic hybrid Mage deck which unfortunately lacked the focus to deal with the value a 'Mystery Shopper' deck based around your friend and mine, 'Dr. 6' the Mysterious Challenger. I elected to switch at this point to Zoolock as I knew it was a deck that had already been scouted and wanted to obfuscate somewhat what my game plan was. I was met with another hybrid deck, this time a priest and again tried and tested nature of playing good value minions on curve won out. I found out later that this was CreeperGirl's first tournament and subsequently felt a little bad for bringing the Tier 1's against a less experienced player but ultimately that's the nature of the game when it's a tournament with a prize up for grabs.
On that subject it is worth mentioning that the prize pool (Expansion or equivalent value in packs for 1st, and Hero or equivalent value in packs for 2nd) is extremely generous for a tournament of this size and thanks once again to the SFM team for putting it up. Hopefully subsequent tournaments will have an even bigger turnout due to the success of this one.
The semi finals and final took place on the day after the round one matches concluded which allowed for some additional testing beforehand. I knew I didn't want to open with either of the decks I had played previously against Mike to increase the 'surprise' factor and opted to play Dragon Priest as it had strong match-ups against the kind of mid range or tempo decks Mike might play if we wanted to counter what he had seen from me already, as well as the recent 'Eggnog' style Druid deck I had seen him use against his first round I he chose to stick with it.
The final was up against Izziekakarot, a player who I had seen playing Paladin, Shaman and Warlock earlier in the tournament. I stuck with Dragon Priest again as I was feeling somewhat confident with it and the decks I had seen Izzie play already were pretty good match-ups and their style in general seemed to be leaning slightly towards a more aggro leaning with the exception of the more mid range paladin which... was of course what they opened with. The equality / consecration combo is something to really watch out for with Dragon Priest as it can ruin your carefully set up board for the low low cost of two cards and six mana so this was something I knew I had to play around. An early equality to board clear via minion trade was painful but at least I now knew there was only one left in the deck.
I played quite aggressively with a dropped Brann Bronzebeard (the recent League of Explorers Legendary who doubles battlecries) getting a lot of extra health for my twilight whelps which would prove to almost be my undoing later in the game. Izzie traded well and this match had a lot of back and forth, ultimately leading to me playing Chromaggus onto a relatively clear board with no other dragons in hand to maintain tempo. Unfortunately the only thing I would go on to draw for the next 5 or so draws were combo cards that needed dragons which meant I had to play a lot of sub optimal cards just to make sure I had some kind of board presence. Ultimately I was able to stabilise with some clutch board clears with Light Bomb and get Ysera out (who would subsequently die to a Quartermaster play of pure beauty onto four Silver Hand Recruits) but would end up drawing my whole deck and taking fatigue damage before a board reinvigorated with Dream cards from Ysera was able to push through for a hard fought victory.
One thing that also strikes me from having looked at the replays over the course of the tournament was the amount of times I had opponents sitting with a Big Game Hunter in hand waiting to use it. One of the tweaks made to the deck was the removal of Chillmaw as a late game dragon from the 'standard' list and using Chromaggus as a replacement. This had the added bonus of meaning there were minions with a base attack of 7 or high meaning no natural targets for Big Game Hunter (buffs notwithstanding) making it, if not a 'dead card' at least a very inefficient one which I am also sure helped me along the route to winning as Dragon Priest was the deck I ended up using for 2/3 of my games.
In conclusion I had a great time at the tournament was pretty happy with my play (although there were a litany of missplays followed by my 'oops' emote particularly around incorrectly worked out damage / healing maths), and wish the folks at Sanitarium.FM the very best of luck with any future ones put on (of which I shall naturally attempt to join and defend my 'crown').
Over all we wish to thank all of our players who took part this weekend, you gave us some wonderful Hearthstone to watch and commentate upon, and made our first big open Hearthstone tournament a success in many ways!
Keep your eyes peeled for news of the next tournament on our social media, and remember to join us for our radio shows for news of other events that take place!
