My Road to IEM Katowice

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Hey guys,

It’s been a week after the IEM Katowice and I finally have time to share my experience and reveal some cool information on why I’ve run E.T.C. in my MAGE deck and why Brawl is an awesome card.

1. How the dream has formed.

The story begins a while back, when I’ve started nagging Carmac to bring Hearthstone to IEM Katowice in any form he can. I can’t say that I had any influence on the game being there, but since then it was my dream to play HS on the big IEM stage. Katowice being in Poland is my “neighbourhood”. Even though I live in Warsaw I would feel really bad missing out on the biggest HS event in my country. Fortunately ESL made it a reality and they’ve announced that the tournament will in fact happen there.

I was super excited about the news, but on the other hand the qualifiers coincided with the Seatstory Cup at TakeTV. This got me worried as I knew how hard it will be to qualify and I wasn’t sure that I will be invited. Fortunately both Take and Carmac got into an agreement that Seatstory Cup might influence the invites.

When I heard how important that is it got me super pumped. I always strive to win, but this time everything was at stake. It’s worth to mention that in Krefeld I’ve met Kn0xX who is Planetkey Dynamics manager and was super happy about both Sinex and Lothar qualifying.

As you know Seatstory went well for me and with my heart in my hands I headed back to Poland as the spots were not yet seeded.

After landing in my motherland of Poland, I quickly checked my messages to see if there are any updates and to my relief it was there! A short message stating that I’m in and a question if I accept. In the next 30 minutes I was just wondering aimlessly through the airport and messaging trusted people with the news. Then I realized that I need to claim my luggage and went back to reality.

2. Deck choices and E.T.C. reasoning. ( Elite Tauren Chieftain )

For my decklists as well as Artosis, Sinex and Lother - GO HERE!

I was mostly preparing alone. Team was tired after Krefeld and some of them went to play Heroes of the Storm technical Alpha. I was discussing decks with Artosis at first, but then the IEM Starcraft 2 games started and Dan didn’t have much time to follow up as well. My biggest concern was the absolute lack of information on Sinex. On the other hand there is a ton of information about my decks and playstyle on the interwebs, so I felt like he had an advantage. I assumed that if I wanted to win this tournament I need to bring something that nobody expects and take a gamble to either succeed or fail miserably. I was considering running handlock as a “surprise” deck as everybody would expect an aggro warlock from me.

I went into a weird aggro shaman zoo deck that was the worst deck I’ve ever seen. Nothing can replace Warlock’s hero power as a drawing engine. After all that soul searching, I started testing mage and it pleasantly surprised me. It had an ok matchup vs Druid, Shaman and Warrior, which I considered the top 3 popular picks. It failed vs Warlock aggro, but I had counters to that. I knew Mage would be a huge surprise and would have an edge as an unknown deck. You never know what to expect when a player brings an underdog class to a tournament like this. I felt like I needed to go even deeper with that. And then I found E.T.C.

My first thought was psychology. Playing E.T.C. messes with your opponent’s screen. In a stressed and controlled environment it shatters their calm with heavy metal music and overlay. Then it gives them a card, which I was sure not everybody knows. When Rogues do it… it’s my loss as the card is awesome, but I didn’t care about the Murloc card and certainly would be happiest if they get For the Horde!, which doesn’t explain what it does. Summon a Horde Warrior? What is a Horde Warrior? Normally you just Google check. On an IEM stage you can’t! You suddenly have a card with a random effect.

I really loved that aspect of E.T.C. and the fact that I get a card unknown to them as well. On top of that, Elite Tauren Chieftan is a 5/5 and avoids most of the removal card like Swipe and Soulfire. Also in this Mage deck you can play it on 5 when you have the tempo. He is a strong card and your opponent won’t respond with 3 Murlocs. He needs to do something. Even if they get Rogues do it… they will still need to use 1 more card to deal 1 point of damage.

The last idea was that E.T.C. gives me a valid card to play on turns 8-9 where in most Mage decks you are dry and can’t do anything before the Pyroblast turn. So it wasn’t bad. Just to be 100% sure that I’m not going mad I called Koyuki and discussed my reasoning behind the deck and the card. He approved.

Having all that settled I was super happy to play it on the big screen and from what I’ve read and heard you guys enjoyed it as well!

My other deck picks were easy after that. Warrior being one of the strongest decks would be a great counter to aggro and my Zoo-Lock being good vs almost everything. Ah, Mage was also a semi-counter to Handlock. Getting it low with minions and finishing it up with the spells.

3. IEM Katowice experience

The hall was enormous. There were so many people everywhere having fun, playing games and spectating. From time to time the ground shook, when something amazing happened on the League of Legends screen.

I was hanging out with Lothar, Sinex and Kn0xX enjoying the place and mostly staying near the Blizzard’s Hearthstone booth. It was a great experience. We’ve met some of the popular Polish streamers (mkrr3) and talked a lot with the Blizzard guys. The Polish cosplay group called Real Life Raid was there as well so it was a lot of fun. On day 2 we were joined by Frodan and played some casual games, where he owned me 2-0. T_T

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The event was great and the organizers were also very nice. They were open to suggestions from our side, but had 99% figured out before we even arrived. With this level of organization for a last minute event that wasn’t even supposed to happen I’m thrilled for this year if Hearthstone becomes one of the main IEM games. On Saturday night we also had an opportunity to attend a Twitch party in one of the clubs, where I noticed a familiar face hanging out with people. Chris Sigaty was there, standing and casually chatting with strangers. If you don’t know Chris you should Google him, but for me the most important part was that he actually is one of the Elite Tauren Chieftain members. How awesome would it be to play that card with him watching the games?

Other than that the party was excellent. I met Marc and Bernd from the Blizzard’s eSports department and I was able to chat with many friends from the ESGN studio who were there. I also met Kaelaris and tried to troll him by saying that “how awesome it would be if someone would play a Mage or a Priest deck in this tournament”. I was considering telling him about E.T.C., but didn’t want to show all my cards too soon.

Overall, when I stepped on the stage I really felt ready. I was confident about my decks and happy about everything that was going on. You can watch my games using the vods below and I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did.

The dreams do come true sometimes. Next stop: Dreamhack Romania.

[youtube url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uYHT9gt0Nc]

[youtube url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-k2Hxxdngg]