HCT Winter Championship Winner On Fatigue, Conquest Format And Stale Decks

Congratulations to ShtanUdachi, winner of the HCT Winter Championship at the Meliá resort in the Bahamas. After four grueling days of Hearthstone combat, Shtan managed to beat out 15 other players to claim the World Champion title. The Russian player beat SamuelTsao of Taiwan in a nail-biter of a series and managed to fight through another best-of-seven against America’s Fr0zen.

In a press conference after his win, ShtanUdachi seem relieved. He accomplished his goal of winning the tournament and now has his eyes set on winning the Blizzcon Hearthstone World Championship and keeping himself in shape.

“I was stressed and worried during the games. Every player feels that,” said Shtan. When I’m in the game, I’m just trying to concentrate and if I have any other thoughts, I just chase them off.”

ShtanUdachi didn’t just have to battle his opponent, he was also fighting a serious fever. On the night before the finals, he woke up multiple times in the middle of the night terribly sick, but somehow managed to get through a strenuous seven-game series. Traveling on a 30-hour flight, eating food your body isn’t used to and interacting with germy players and fans has to be hard on a body, but Shtan managed to get through it.

The whole tournament was insane from start to finish, with the 2016 Blizzcon champion Pavel getting knocked by new comer DocPwn and some crazy card play featuring Dirty Rat combos pulling off game-winning plays. Still, nearly every player used the same decks: Jade Druid, Aggro Shaman, Pirate Warrior and Dragon Priest.

“This tournament is happening several months after the patch came out, so the meta is a little stale,” Shtan said. “Everyone knows what the best decks are and they have already been created.”

The Conquest format, a best-of-seven where you cannot use a deck again once you win also factored into every single player using the same cards in nearly every game.

This was the last Hearthstone tournament of The Year Of The Kraken, meaning hundreds of cards are going to rotate out of the Standard format and will completely change the best decks in the game. There is one card that the Winter Champion is going to miss: Emperor Thaurissan . He has the power to enable combo decks who need more space and mana to do their fancy plays.

“I really like that the meta has to change; opportunities for creative decks start to open up,” said Shtan.

Stay tuned to IBT and iDigitalTimes for all your Hearthstone esports needs.