Gaming

Best of BlizzCon: the top players in each game

We pick our man of the tournament contenders in Hearthstone, StarCraft 2 and Heroes of the Storm.

Written by Alex Dyet

4 min readPublished on 02.08.2016 · 10:09 UTC

After two days of intensely competitive action, BlizzCon 2015 has come to an end. Over 25,000 fans flocked to the Anaheim Convention Center in California to watch pro gamers from around the world compete for a share of the $1.2m prize pool across Blizzard’s most popular titles, bringing with them a stunning array of cosplay attire.

Amid all the excitement of captivating matches, expansion announcements and emerging tournament victors, there have been some outstanding individual performances in Hearthstone, StarCraft 2, and Heroes of the Storm, which will live long in the memory of everyone who witnessed the event. We’re going to take a look at the standout players from the weekend for each game – the players who deserve the most recognition for their contribution to the tournament’s success.

Hearthstone: Thijs

Hearthstone 2015 World Championship
© Blizzard

Although the Hearthstone World Championship was claimed by Swedish player Ostkaka when he defeated Hotform in straight games during the final, it was his semi-final match-up against Thijs ‘ThijsNL’ Molendijk which provided spectators with the true highlight of the tournament. In one of the most dazzling matches in Hearthstone’s history, Thijs and Ostkaka battled it out over five tight games, pushing each other into performing some of the highest-level manoeuvres you’ll ever see. They demonstrated to the community that control decks are just as viable as the more aggressive strategies favoured by the other Hearthstone competitors, and we’ll be sure to see other Hearthstone players adjust their decks accordingly in the wake of this gigantic clash.

Many other players were favouring Druid and Hunter decks, but both Thijs and Ostkaka included Rogues in their line-ups, and Thijs alone produced a Dragon Priest Deck featuring the Wyrmrest Agent, Twilight Guardian and other recent additions to Hearthstone’s dragon cards. While the Dragon Priest failed to defeat Ostkaka’s Freeze Mage in the final game, in a match-up that does generally favour the Mage, Thijs would have won had Ostkaka not drawn his Alexstrasza against the odds when he was one turn away from defeat. It’s fair to say that Thijs has firmly brought Priest back into the competitive meta and his deck is already being widely posted across Hearthstone forums. Thijs was the true runner-up in this tournament and his encounter with Ostkaka is one you’ll be sure to hear fans raving about over the next couple of years.

StarCraft 2: Life

For our MVP for StarCraft 2 we’ve chosen this year’s runner-up by the narrowest of margins, 18-year-old Lee ‘Life’ Seung Hyun for his Zerg performances throughout the tournament, which culminated in his thrilling 3-4 defeat at the hands of sOs. It’s rare for finals to live up to all the hype, but this was one of the most tightly fought series you’ll ever watch. Life looked to have secured himself the championship in game seven after he daringly assaulted sOs’s base early on, leaving his opponent scrambling to stay in the match, and Life’s fans were left truly heartbroken that he had come so close to victory before his rival’s resilient defence managed to turn around the early game disadvantage.

Life displayed staggering amounts of skill throughout the tournament, most noticeably when, against all expectations, he countered sOs’s immortal push in game six and seized victory with a genius Warp Prism snipe. It was a sad day for the swarm, and Life will be disconsolate that he failed to secure the title of first-ever two-time StarCraft World Champion, but at least he can be proud that his brave display has won himself a new generation of fans.

Heroes of the Storm: K1pro

It’s not easy to pick out an individual player from the dominant North American Cloud9 team at the first ever Heroes of the Storm World Championships. Their drafting and execution was top-notch and they demonstrably out-performed their opponents in every single match-up – even scoring a few style points with the fans along the way for their unconventional picks like the ever-entertaining Murky.

Our MVP has to go the player who provided some of the most exciting moments at the Championships: Keiwan ‘k1pro’ Itakura. His unconventional performances on Falstad the ranged assassin provided Cloud9 with huge amounts of pressure during the opening couple of games in the Grand Final. He was a constant aerial threat as he swooped over the battlefields, harassing Dignitas and pushing his hero’s mobility to the limit in order to set up kills and provide control with Mighty Gust. He managed to dramatically escape death several times along the way, creating space around the map for the rest of his team in doing so. Expect to see Falstad Wildhammer’s popularly shoot up over the next few month following k1pro’s flair performances.

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