The Hearthstone World Championship brought some of the best players from around the globe to Blizzcon to find out who is worthy enough to be crowned the strongest in the world. After a grueling set of top-8 matches, Pavel managed to beat out his European buddy, DrHippi, to claim the title of Hearthstone World Champion.
After the game, Pavel sat down with trophy in hand to answer some questions. He was visibly excited and barely able to contain himself, speaking in Russian and English with a smile beaming across his face.
“I don’t think I have enough words to say how I’m feeling now, but I’ll say awesome,” Pavel said.
Europe demolished the competition in this tournament, with two Europeans fighting in the finals for first place. China, Korea and the United States all put up a fight, but none of them could stand up to the powerhouses that are DrHippi and Pavel. This is the second year in a row Europe has won the Hearthstone World Championship title, with StanCifka hoisting the trophy at last year’s Blizzcon.
“Europe has more players than North America and Asia – Europe and China are two of the strongest regions in Hearthstone . In Europe there are more strong players than other regions, though I’m not entirely sure about China.” Pavel said: “all the regions have strong players, but Europe just has more.”
Luck is a major factor in Hearthstone , but Pavel must have kept a Leprechaun under his shirt. Summoning Leeroy Jenkins off a Firelands Portal to give him exactly lethal, pulling Medivh, The Guardian out of a Raven Idol and getting amazing spell after amazing spell from Babbling Book . Still, that doesn't mean the Russian superstar didn’t use skill to secure his championship title.
Pavel constantly played around every possible outcome, doing everything to keep more board control than his opponents. Still, there was one moment when Pavel was worried that he might have just screwed up and would have to face palm. “I’m usually trying to keep my calm and be very confident in my matches, but there was one point in the match when I was playing my Warrior against his Druid and I went to attack him in the face and I wasn’t sure if it was a Freezing Trap or a Misdirect and I might have ended up hitting my own C’thun in the face.”
Unlike a lot of the players in the top 8, Pavel took Rogue, which hasn’t seen as much play in the Hearthstone World Championship as other classes, like Druid, Shaman and Warrior. “My Rogue is strong in general, but it’s especially strong against Control Warrior, with around a 50/50 win rate against most matchups,” Pavel said.
His opponent in the finals, DrHippi, brought a few meta-breaking picks of his own. In Druid, DrHippi played Yogg-Saron, a Legendary from The Whispers Of The Old Gods that got nerfed to the ground in a recent Hearthstone patch. Many pros have been removing the card from their decks, but Pavel believes that in certain decks it’s still very powerful.
“Yogg is still a very strong card in Druid because there’s no better card to fill its slot, with a thirty card deck, Yogg is only one card and it can win you the game, if it clears the board and dies, it’s still good for you,” Pavel said.
Congratulations to Pavel on the 2016 Hearthstone World Championship title and I expect we are going to see way more of him in the 2017 season.
