The last seat for the Hearthstone Championship Tour finale at BlizzCon was filled this past weekend at the Last Call tournament for the Americas. Sitting in that chair is Hao "Bbgungun" Li, a player not widely known for his tournament experience, but who is still a fixture in the Hearthstone community.
Some players earn their reputation with a big tournament win or a popular stream; Bbgungun earned his as a coach and unofficial mentor to several pros, including the NA QQ group, a loose collection of Chinese Hearthstone players that practice together, whose members include three of the last four players standing this weekend. Longtime Hearthstone players will also recognize Bbgungun from Tempo Storm's popular meta snapshots, in which he participates as the in-house expert for the current state of Rogue and Druid.
Bbgungun rolled his way through the last Blizzard tournament before BlizzCon in commanding fashion. He never faced a game in which he could be eliminated, beating Robert "Nostam" Matson and Matt "Noblord" Koutsoutis 4-1 and taking the final in six games over Team Celestial's Austin "SilentStorm" Li, 4-2.
The deck list of Bbgungun was fairly conventional, bringing Midrange Shaman, Tempo Mage, Secret Hunter and Yogg Token Druid, not uncommon in a meta that is now very established. The sole exception was eschewing Warrior completely and bringing his Discard Warlock Zoo (or Discolock), a deck archetype that only three of the eight finalists brought with them.
Warlock decks have declined in popularity in tournament play the last couple of months -- a rare development in Hearthstone as Zoolock is one of the most popular archetypes historically -- due to its rough matchup against Shamans and Warriors. Additionally, it's weak against a large percentage of the mage decks that people are bringing if they choose to face off against Shaman rather than banning it.
Bbgungun ended up winning both games with his Discolock, which, as befitting a known deck builder, was teched well in a world in which everyone brings a Shaman. The most iconoclastic tech card in Bbgungun's Warlock build was Young Priestess, a card that hasn't actually been seen in many Zoo decks since the very early days of Hearthstone. It's a 2/1 that gives a +1 health buff to a random friendly minion at the end of the turn, potentially allowing a minion to survive the inevitable Malestrom Portal. Crazed Alchemist is another solid tech inclusion in Shamanstone, a card that allows you to instantly flip-kill a Mana Tide Totem, a Flametongue Totem, or a particularly inconvenient Stoneclaw Totem.
Neobility's missed lethal
There's nothing like a giant misplay on the big stage to make you look back in regret. At last year's BlizzCon, Pavel "Pavel" Beltukov made a giant blunder against Adrian "Lifecoach" Koy, playing his cards in the wrong order by not killing Sylvanas Windrunner before playing Dr. Boom, giving Lifecoach a free 7/7 and losing a crucial game.
Wu "Neobility" Guangnan's mistake at Americas Last Call proved equally damaging. On turn five, with two Lightning Bolts and a Lightning Storm in-hand (the latter doesn't attack face but buffs the Tunnel Trogg), Neobility had exactly 19 damage available and SilentStorm at 19 health. The casters also missed this lethal, but it wasn't their seat at BlizzCon in jeopardy, it was Neobility's. Neobility lost the game, falling to 0-3, and needed a reverse sweep to avoid elimination. And that's not an easy task, given that you have to win four games with the same deck and if you were that favored against your opponent in those four games, they likely would have banned the deck in the first place.
There's a ninth class?
If you only watched tournament games, you'd probably be shocked by the appearance of a ninth class. Priest isn't actually a new class, of course, but it might as well be given its complete disappearance since a brief spurt of relevance back in May before people established that N'Zoth Priest was not a good tournament choice.
Frank "Fr0zen" Zhang made an extremely rare choice, bringing a Control Priest to the tournament and, like other viewers, I enjoy seeing a unique matchup rather than the umpteenth Midrange Shaman mirror. And an unusual priest it was, playing two Mind Controls, the arena-hero Bog Creeper, and even Sideshow Spelleater, a card that I don't think I've ever seen in a tournament deck.
The Priest lost board and the Warrior facing off against it had 46 health and armor when the curtain fell, and Fr0zen was eliminated from the tournament.
The Karazhan meta
We've now had several major tournaments for which to evaluate the impact of the Karazhan cards on the game and its tournament meta. The result? Not much of an effect.
The previous adventure, The League of Explorers, with its small set, introduced cards that both created new decks and revived dormant ones. Sir Finley Mrrgglton gave aggressive decks life by enabling heroes with control-centric hero powers more aggressively designed ones. Reno Jackson triggered a whole slew of Reno decks in which card choices were massively altered solely because of Reno's inclusion. Elise Starseeker created a new win condition for control decks. Murloc Paladin became a thing, Tunnel Trogg resuscitated Aggro Shaman, and Tomb Pillager gave Miracle-type Rogue decks a card it really was missing.
As entertaining as the Adventure itself was, the Karazhan cards, at least so far, have not had the same effect on the game. Despite two very powerful Druid cards intended to push Beast Druid, the Yogg Druids got Arcane Giants and so remained the top Druid deck. The various cards that drew or buffed beasts, dragons, and murlocs didn't spawn decks that took advantage of the effect and Medivh, a slow but powerful card, turned out to be simply too slow in a tempo-driven game.
Even Barnes, one of the most-hyped cards by the community, while seeing play, only has been included as "Dragonling Mechanic with Maybe an Upside" rather than one that spawned a new type of deck. In tournaments, there are no Purify Priests. Swashburglar and Ethereal Peddler didn't allow a Thief Rogue to be better than Miracle Rogue. Warlock's two discard cards introduced, Silverware Golem and Malchezaar's Imp, simply enhanced the existing Zoolock deck into a Discolock variant rather than creating any all-in discard decks. Malestrom Portal and Spirit Claws just made Shamans better at what they were already doing.
Blizzard's nerfs of problematic card helps the game long-term, but to really shake up the tournament scene, we'll need a new expansion -- likely to be announced at BlizzCon on Nov. 4-5 -- and the shakeup when the Blackrock Mountain, Grand Tournament, and League of Explorers cards all rotate out of Standard format.