Hearthstone | Old Guardian's blog

Hearthstone HCT 2017 Summer Championship decks, results, and analysis

Hearthstone Championship Tour 2017 Summer Championship was played on 13^th to 15^th October 2017 at the new Blizzard Arena in Los Angeles. 16 players from around the world had qualified for and participated in the tournament that consisted of a double-elimination group stage followed by single-elimination top-8 playoffs.

In this post, I take a look at the decks and results of the tournament, including class distribution, archetypes, and archetype performance.

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Hearthstone Trinity Series Season 2 Week 2 Recap

Hearthstone Trinity Series season 2 is a team league played in autumn 2017. The first stage of the tournament is a seven-week online round robin, after which the top four teams will compete in live finals. The prize pool of the tournament is $150,000.

In this post, I take a look at the second week of the round robin.

There is not a whole lot of data to work with, so this post is not as in-depth as most of my tournament posts, but I’ve gathered what there is for you to check out.

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Hearthstone Trinity Series Season 2 Week 1 Recap

In this post, I take a look at the first week of the round robin.

There is not a whole lot of data to work with, so this post is not as in-depth as most of my tournament posts, but I’ve gathered what there is for you to check out.

Continue reading “Hearthstone Trinity Series Season 2 Week 1 Recap”

Hearthstone HCT 2017 Americas Summer Playoffs decks, results, and analysis

Hearthstone Championship Tour 2017 Americas Summer Playoffs were played on 16^th and 17^th September 2017 in multiple locations across North America and South America. 70 players had qualified for and participated in the tournament that consisted of seven rounds of Swiss followed by single-elimination top-8 playoffs.

In this post, I take a look at the decks and results of the tournament, including class distribution, archetypes, and archetype performance.

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Dreamhack Montreal 2017 Hearthstone Grand Prix decks, results, and analysis

Dreamhack Montreal 2017 Hearthstone Grand Prix was played from 8^th to 10^th September 2017 in Montreal, Canada. 120 players participated in this open LAN tournament that consisted of nine rounds of Swiss followed by single-elimination top-16 playoffs.

In this post, I take a look at the decks and results of the tournament, including class distribution, archetypes, and archetype performance.

Continue reading “Dreamhack Montreal 2017 Hearthstone Grand Prix decks, results, and analysis”

Hearthstone HCT 2017 APAC Summer Playoffs decks, results, and analysis

Hearthstone Championship Tour 2017 Asia-Pacific Summer Playoffs were played on 9^th and 10^th September 2017 in multiple locations across Asia and Australia. 74 players had qualified for and participated in the tournament that consisted of seven rounds of Swiss followed by single-elimination top-8 playoffs.

In this post, I take a look at the decks and results of the tournament, including class distribution, archetypes, and archetype performance.

Continue reading “Hearthstone HCT 2017 APAC Summer Playoffs decks, results, and analysis”

The Fiery War Axe controversy: why the change is unoptimal and players are upset

Blizzard recently announced a number of upcoming nerfs to Hearthstone cards. Nerfs in general were expected, because after the release of the latest expansion, Knights of the Frozen Throne, the Druid class had risen to unprecedented dominance in terms of play rates on ladder and representation and ban rates in tournaments – reaching as high as 100% representation and 100% ban rate, thus effectively rendering best-of-five with one ban format into a best-of-five, no Druid format.

However, Blizzard did not only touch Druid, they also added a number of changes (nerfs) to other cards as part of a long-term plan for the game: they want to reduce the number of evergreen cards that see play in the rotating Standard format.

One of the changes has raised a significant controversy, that of Fiery War Axe. Let’s take a deeper look!

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Hearthstone HCT 2017 Europe Summer Playoffs decks, results, and analysis

Hearthstone Championship Tour 2017 Europe Summer Playoffs were played on 2^nd and 3^rd September 2017 in multiple locations across Europe. 77 players had qualified for and participated in the tournament that consisted of seven rounds of Swiss followed by single-elimination top-8 playoffs.

In this post, I take a look at the decks and results of the tournament, including class distribution, archetypes, and archetype performance.

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Bearshark, the savior of Hunter in Knights of the Frozen Throne

Bearshark is an inconspicuous card. It’s just a mid-cost common card from Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion, and it does not have a lot of fancy effects. This is why it is easily overlooked. However, when looking at the current meta and the state of Hunter, Bearshark is actually one of the best cards in the entire class.

Let’s take a deeper look!

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Deathstalker Rexxar is an anti-aggro card, not an anti-control one

Deathstalker Rexxar was the first Hero card revealed from Hearthstone’s Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion. Early interpretation of the card placed it as an anti-control tool, giving Hunter infinite minions to run any control deck out of resources. However, in actual gameplay, Deathstalker Rexxar is a better tool against aggro than it is against control.

Let’s explore this in a bit more detail!

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