Hearthstone at Assembly Winter

Assembly Winter is an annual gaming convention in Finland dedicated to eSports. It will take place from January 30^th until February 1^st and in conjunction with hearthstone.fi, a Finnish Hearthstone site, dedicated to providing the latest in Hearthstone news and community content, they will bring us with the first major Hearthstone LAN tournament of the year! The tournament will be streamed on twitch.tv/ek0p and will bring you some of the finest players in the game. Featuring players from Liquid, Tempostorm, Method, Dignitas, etc. this tournament offers to bring some exciting matches from many of the most skilled players today.

A star studded lineup of players from around the world competing for not only the money but to be crowned the first Winter Assembly champion! As Hearthstone competition has gotten more and more fierce not only in the LAN but in the online scene as well, we’ve begun seeing new decks, new players and new teams unfold and this will be the first event of the year to kick things off. Be sure to tune in to this tournament because it promises to be one of the most exciting ones to date!

The tournament will be casted by two professional players – Ignite and Ek0p to bring you top quality commentary to have you feeling close to the action. It will take place starting this Friday, the 30^th of January and these 16 players will be competing for a 3500 EUR prize pool in an exciting best of 5 group stages with a single elimination playoffs.

Competitor List:

Janne “Savjz” Mikkonen, one of the strongest players in the game’s history, decorated with some of the best credentials you can find, Savjz has won 8 tournaments with a total prize purse of over $27,000! He hopes to add to this grand total of not only wins but cash earnings with a top finish at this tournament. He is a popular streamer and is known as one of the most handsome Hearthstone players there is. He will be attending the ESL Legendary Series LAN finals soon as one of only 8 participants so he has a lot of momentum going into this tournament.

James “Greensheep” Luo is no slouch either, as one of the first participants in the legacy that is the Hearthstone World Championships, he is a consistent performer in online tournaments as well. He is currently playing for Team Dignitas and will continue to impress us with his strong play and excellent decision making. He is a force to be reckoned with.

Keaton “Chakki” Gill is one of the Hearthstone scene’s favorite personalities. With a history of being entertaining and very funny while also being one of the best aggro players that there is, Chakki’s tight play and excellent decision making continues to impress even the best and brightest Hearthstone stars around. With many years of TCG experience, Chakki can evaluate his odds and find the winning path more often than anyone else I’ve ever seen, be sure to be on the lookout for this young Dignitas star.

Mauro “Pini” Blanco is a Spanish player from Team Method. He recently got 2^nd place in Heroes of Cards 4 and is looking to make a big name for himself. Will this be the tournament that Pini makes his breakout performance?

Petar “Gaara” Stevanovic has been a staple of the Hearthstone scene since the early days. One of the first members of Tempo Storm, he is known for his excellent Shaman play as well as the originator of Ramp Druid. Gaara has proven himself to be one of the strongest competitors in the game but the competition is fierce… will Gaara continue to prove himself yet again by winning this tournament?

Marcin “Gnimsh” Filipowicz is the leader of Cloud 9’s Hearthstone team and is one of the original pros of Hearthstone. He has shown his great skills as well as lucky streaks throughout many tournaments and is known as one of the luckiest (synonym for best) players in Hearthstone. Will lady luck be kind to Gnimsh this weekend or has his luck run out?

Lewis “Blackout” Spencer is a member of Team Dignitas and has had quite a few respectable finishes in online cups but is looking for his breakout LAN performance. He has the skills and the know-how, but does he have what it takes to take down this tournament. My money says yes!

Jökull “Kaldi” Jóhannsson is one of Team Fnatic’s players and has some decent finishes in some tournaments, scoring a win at the Insomnia52 Hearthstone Fireside Cup, but Kaldi has yet to really make a name for himself. He has a YouTube channel and a stream on Azubu where he resides.

Jan “Faramir” Engelmann is a hot topic recently because he, Powder and Dtwo decided to quit IHearthU and form their own team. He has done really well in some online tournaments and even placed top 8 in Dreamhack Winter. He’s a player I would look out for in the future.

Harald “Powder” Gimre is another one of those players with a laundry list of online tournament credentials. He is a strong player from Sweden who is looking for a strong LAN finish to solidify his pro player status. He hasn’t had too many opportunities to shine at LAN events so it really could just take 1 to truly show off his skill. With one of the more stacked groups, he can show off his strength and skill in this tournament this weekend.

Filip “Numberguy” Samuelsen is a member of SK Gaming and made it all the way to the Blizzcon World Championships. He is a solid player and is looking to add to his growing reputation with a LAN win.

Aleksi “Wampie” Majander is a local player who has had a lot of online success with online tournaments and he got 2nd at his iESF Finland qualifier. He is looking to gain momentum and exposure and a solid finish here could provide him with the press he needs to grow his Hearthstone career. He is a strong player who plays tight and makes good decisions. Be sure to watch out for him, even though in this tournament he’s an underdog, he certainly is a force to be reckoned with.

Antti-Veikko “Torso” Reunanen is a relative unknown who is looking to make a big splash in this tournament. If he proves successful, he will add a huge buff to his Hearthstone credentials. From personal experience, I never count out the underdog so let’s see how well he performs in a high-pressure LAN tournament.

Gareth “Cipher” Rouse is an impressive player for sure. Not only with strong online finishes in tournaments like the Dreamhack Winter qualifier, he moved on to top 8 that tournament, absolutely destroying his group. He plays this game very well and understands this game to the core. If I were to pick a ‘relative’ unknown to win the tournament, I would pick him. He is a very strong player.

Michał “Xeno” Kaczorowski is another relative unknown but anyone who can make it through an open qualifier with hundreds of players is bound to be good competition. Be sure to expect some exciting games coming from Xeno.

Teun “Vortex” Eiel, not much is known about Vortex except he was a mainly online tournament player, managing to score 3^rd place in the TakeTV Hearthstone Invitational back in April. He will be competing for a strong finish in this tournament if he wants to up his reputation. With such a mix of unknown and popular players in his group, he will have his work cut out for him but if he can pull an upset and win his group, it will for sure add to his budding reputation.

Analyzing the Groups:

Group A features Pini, Faramir, Savjz and Cipher! Four of the strongest players in the tournament in one group, Group A, at first glance, appears to be the group of death. Savjz and Cipher will pair off in game 1 while Faramir and Pini subsequently face each other as well in the first round. I have a hard time seeing Savjz not advancing from the group as he has been on fire lately.

Group B has Gnimsh, Blackout, Numberguy and Torso – an interesting group, hard to predict the outcome of this one. On one hand, Gnimsh, as the leader of Cloud9 has access to some of the greatest minds in the game while Numberguy managed to participate in the world championships. Blackout is also a very strong competitor who has done very well in online cups and made a name for himself just in his online performances. This one is a complete toss up and it’s one I’d be sure not to miss.

Group C has world championship competitor Greensheep as well as the newly released Powder – both of these players are well known for their sharp play and strong decision making. In addition, we have Wampie and Vortex, two players both looking to make a name for themselves. If they can make it past the two seasoned veterans, they will have a lot to back up their online credentials and add to their aspiring reputations. Will we see any innovative deck choices from this group? Probably not but we will see some solid play and some excellent Hearthstone.

Group D is the other tough group with Gaara and Chakki taking the reigns as the two strongest players in this group. On one end of the spectrum, Gaara plays very solid with midrange and control decks while Chakki’s aggressive deck play is some of the most impressive I’ve ever seen. Xeno is a relative unknown and Kaldi has yet to provide a really substantial tournament victory but I would not be surprised to see some good Hearthstone come out of these players as well.

All in all, it’s really anybody’s tournament. With a lineup this stacked and competition this fierce, I would not be surprised to see literally anybody in this tournament take home the title of the Assembly Winter Hearthstone Champion!

Links:

https://twitch.tv/ek0p - Tournament Stream

https://tournaments.peliliiga.fi/winter15/tournaments/hearthstone-heroes-of-warcraft-professional/groups/index - Tournament bracket

https://tournaments.peliliiga.fi/winter15/tournaments/view/hearthstone-heroes-of-warcraft-professional - Tournament Info

https://www.hearthstone.fi/ - Tournament Sponsor and Finnish Hearthstone news site

https://www.assembly.org/winter15/ - Assembly Main Page