Preview and a look back to Phase One

By David Wise

On the 5th and 6th of October, the sixteen remaining North American Hearthstone pros will compete in New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom for Phase Two of the Hearthstone World Championship: Americas Qualifier Tournament. These players will duke it out for one of four spots in Blizzard’s 2014 Hearthstone World Championship at BlizzCon and a chance at the $250,000 prize pool.

Since the Phase One qualifiers, the metagame has shifted quite dramatically thanks to huge balance changes from Blizzard. The nerfs to and are sure to have a noticeable impact on the choice of decks coming into the Phase Two qualifiers. In the Phase One qualifiers, Midrange Hunter and Miracle Rogue decks comprised almost half of the decks from the top fourteen players. In fact, all the top fourteen finishers (with the exception of ThatsAdmirable) ran a Hunter deck. It is doubtful that the Phase Two qualifiers will see the same Hunter/Rogue density as in Phase One, so this Phase should have an emphasis on the deck-building talents of these Hearthstone pros.

Twisted, Staz, Tarei, Kuhaku, Stunner, Chakki, and TidesofTime all chose to run both Hunter and Rogue decks in their Phase One run. It will be interesting to see how they tweak their deck construction strategies going into the next phase of the qualifiers. Only ThatsAdmirable played Secret Mage, which undoubtedly helped allow him to go on a 5-0 run in Phase One. ThatsAdmirable is another player who may have to adjust his strategy going into Phase Two. While in Phase One the meta was pretty solved -- as the above players all playing Hunter and Miracle show -- the Phase Two meta should be more open. The option to play Mage and always ban Hunter may not be a viable strategy anymore.

Japan’s Dtwo, Australia’s Stunner, and Deathstar will also compete in the top sixteen of the Americas qualifier. These players chose to run decks that some of the other top 16 finishers overlooked. Stunner and Deathstar were the only players who opted to run Zoolock in Phase One and qualify for Phase Two. Dtwo on the other hand, was the sole Ramp Druid player to make the top sixteen. Will these players continue to attack the meta from a different angle or will they swim with the current this weekend?

In Phase One, StrifeCro, TidesofTime, ThatsAdmirable, and Chakki played through the entire qualifier undefeated. This attests to the decision-making ability of these top-tier pros as well as the game knowledge required to make such decisions. If these players can keep their cool and not fall into any meta-traps, they could very well go to BlizzCon.

New strategies as well as fresh twists on old deck favorites will come to light at the Hammerstein Ballroom. The games should prove to be epic and intense as every player will give their all in order to make it to the big money at BlizzCon. The only obstacle is every other pro competing in Manhattan.

Trends from Phase Two EU

The Phase Two qualifier for the EU region was the first major tournament after the and nerfs. Let's take a look at those results to see what they may predict. But first, the meta results from Phase One NA:

Deck Archtype	Top 14 #	Top 14 %
Midrange Hunter	13	92.85
Miracle	7	50
Warrior	4	28.57
Handlock	4	28.57
Shaman	3	21.42
Undertaker Priest	3	21.42
Paladin	2	14.29
Token Druid	2	14.29
Zoolock	2	14.29
Ramp Druid	1	7.14
Secret Mage	1	7.14

Here, are the results from Phase Two EU:

From this we can clearly see that the meta was more balanced after the patch. Hunter's stock absolutely tanked after the patch, and if Phase Two EU is a good indicator, Priest and Paladin were some of the biggest winners with Handlock also getting a boost.

One of the most important notes from Phase Two EU, however, was the overwhelming number of control decks. The meta overall was very slow and this could be one of the most important factors heading in to the NA event.

Will the NA players stick with the trend of playing slow control decks? Or will some of them strike out and try to counter the Paladin/Handlock control meta with more all in aggro decks?