The new Hearthstone world champion takes home $250,000
After four days of non-stop Hearthstone action, a new world champion has finally been crowned in front of a jam-packed crowd at the Taipei Heping Basketball Stadium, where 16 of the world’s best Hearthstone players gathered for the HCT World Championship 2019.
All five games of the highly-anticipated grand finals were needed in order to determine which player between Casper ”Hunterace” Notto and Torber ”Viper” Wahl is worthy of being crowned as the new Hearthstone World Champion.
The do-or-die battle between Hunterace’s iconic Control Shaman and Viper’s Arch-Villain Rafaam-empowered Zoo Warlock was a fitting ending to the historic series. It was a roller coaster ride of emotions. The crowd goes wild every time Viper draws a card from his Legendary minion-filled deck and went exceptionally wild after two Azalina Soulthief draws.
.@viper_hs finds another out in his SECOND AZALINA!!!
— Hearthstone Esports (@HSesports) April 28, 2019
THIS IS INSANITY!!!!! 🤯 #HCT pic.twitter.com/Vj8DsPu7dW
The copied Witch’s Brew from Hunterace’s hand allowed Viper to hold on to his championship dreams. When he was down to the last card of his deck, everybody in the stadium, and probably the more than 100,000 viewers worldwide too, was clamouring for a Archivist Elysiana draw, but what came out was far from what each person was expecting—an anti-climatic Bloodmage Thalnos.
“To be honest I kind of panicked there. I was like, ‘oh what if there’s an Elyssiana,’ and situations like that. There [were] so many variables with random legendaries and many different outcomes, as well as scenarios that can happen. So it’s difficult to try and figure out what I can play around, how my game plan is like going forward, how am I supposed to win the game. It was super difficult and I was very stressed out right there,” Hunterace, the first three-star Master and now Hearthstone world champion answered when asked about the finale.
Aside from the Tempo Rogue, the entire tournament has been dominated by decks that rather cling on to the game’s random-based aspect such as the Bomb Warrior, Conjurer Mage, and of course, the Arch-Villain Rafaam Zoo Warlock. This was the product of a week-long solving of the meta due to the official release of Rise of Shadows, Hearthstone’s latest expansion, as well as the transition of Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane, the core of the Odd-Even deck meta, to the Hall of Fame.
“I feel like this meta in particular is incredible when it comes to random cards you have to play around, there’s so much random generator and it’s super difficult to play around, keep track of everything,” he said.
Hunterace felt like he still needed to prove himself, despite being recognized as one of the best players to ever play competitive Hearthstone. This was because among the list of participants that gathered in Taipei for the grand culmination of the year-long Hearthstone Championship Tour, he’s the only one without prior championship appearance.
“You know how people have been saying like I’m one of the better players, I feel like I haven’t been able to prove myself in the big stage for this and this was my chance to actually prove myself. I’ve been into pro communities and everyone there knows me but I haven’t really played in the big stage before. I was the only player in the tournament that has never been to a championship before. This was my first really big HCT experience. It means a lot to me to perform here,” Hunterace stated.
With his hard work and sacrifices during the entire year being paid off in terms of being immortalized as a Hearthstone world champion, as well as the $250,000 cash prize, Hunterace stated that he can’t help but feel incredible. Being able to finally prove himself as champion, however, is not the end of the road, especially with the Hearthstone Grandmaster, the new chapter of the game’s esports sector, lying around.
“I’ll definitely try to reach new goals and try to remain conditioned and keep proving myself as one of the best players in the world,” Hunterace ended.
