Hearthpwn

Denial's Wampie, the winner of the EU MLG/ManaGrind Open #17, is interviewed by Thechiv. They discuss how to be a good Hearthstone player, team Denial, and the Twitch alternative Hitbox.

The Player

Name: Aleksi Majander
Age: 25
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Team: Denial
Stream: Wampie

The Deck

The Interview

Today I am sitting here having a drink with Wampie the winner of the MLG/MG EU Open #17. Congratulations on your win today, you faced off against some well-known competitors and you were probably seeded in the most difficult bracket.

Thank you very much! I had an awesome time playing today and I really liked the fact that I got to face off against so many great players from Europe. I'm just really happy to have made it this far.

You are also an active participant in our ManaGrind Friday Night Swiss tournament quite frequently, correct?

I’ve been playing in the beta for some time now and have been in the ManaGrind tournaments before we even had the beta. I took a short break from playing in tournaments, but now I have returned to the tournament scene and started playing in ranked mode as well. I do try to play in every ManaGrind tournament there is in both Europe and North America.

Let’s talk a little bit about your gaming history, what other games have you played?

I have a pretty long gaming history. I usually try to get to a very high level in every game I play. Warcraft 3 was probably the first competitive game played, playing until I won a year subscription to World of Warcraft from a tournament. After that my Warcraft 3 career was over and World of Warcraft took over my life.

World of Warcraft has been known to do that too many players.

Later on I tried to get back into RTS with StarCraft 2. Everything I thought I knew about real time strategy games was gone. For card games I played some Magic the Gathering and the World of Warcraft trading card game. I never played any of them competitively. For the World of Warcraft trading card game I played in a few local tournaments, but nothing serious. When I realized Hearthstone was coming out I was really excited about it. In general, playing card games has always been really fun for me.

Now let's talk about some of your other tournament rankings. Like I said previously you probably had the toughest bracket of the tournament. You faced off against so many great players. What else have you been up to on the tournament circuit?

Today was the first Hearthstone tournament where I came 1st place. If you go back and look at all the results from the Friday Night Swiss I have been making top sixteen quite often. I also made third place on the Stonethrow European tournament last night.

What made you decide to come to the tournament today?

Well, basically the MLG/MG Open has always been one of the highlights of my week. I like it because it's really a high quality tournament. You cannot change your class mid round to hard counter your opponent. I feel it requires much more skill than other formats.

Do you feel since there is no class changing in the tournament that it gives an advantage to certain classes?

Yes, it does give an advantage to some classes, but makes you think about classes a lot more than other multiclass format tournaments. For example, you can't play a rush Hunter deck in this format because it’s unable to switch to different archetypes and still remain competitive. It is however possible to play it in the three deck format. I really feel classes like Rogue and Warrior have pretty nice chances in tournament play. They are usually not considered the strongest classes, but they have real advantages in archetype switches.

This is true, there are several classes that can switch archetypes and do very well in the tournament. Then you have one class that doesn't have to really do much of anything other than adding a few cards here and there to dominate.

The Druid class is in a very weird spot right now. After lots of testing with other classes. I still feel if I have to pick a certain class to play in a tournament I’d pick Druid. I'd feel that even the best answers still do not diminish the Druids chance to win.

Let's talk a little more about the tournament. What would you say was your favorite part?

From top eight to the finals I got to play some really great players. Wuaschtsemme, Kalle, and in the finals it was Druid vs. Druid. When it came to the finals it was pretty much just luck of the draw. It basically came down to who got Innervate first and who got The Black Knight first.

Who would you say was your toughest opponent in the tournament?

The finals were really close, but I still feel they were all about the luck of the draw. I would have to say the games with Wuaschtsemme were the toughest. Wuaschtsemme was playing a tempo Rogue deck, which is difficult to keep up with it.

You will be coming back for another tournament, correct?

Of course!

Now you're in the final match the score was all tied up, what went through your mind when you won?

The last game was really close. We both were building up our boards and for like three turns trading back and forth, hoping that the other would not draw Savage Roar and Force of Nature combo. I knew I had lethal and the only thing that could have stopped me was the combo. In chat my teammates were praying that he did not have the combo. 

Looking at your deck, what do you think would have been the biggest archetypes threat to it?

Probably the Warlock Handlock deck. Even with all of the Druid’s control cards, it's really hard to answer all of the Handlock's mechanics. Against them you have to sideboard in two Big Game Hunters. Even with that, the Warlock can switch to a more aggressive archetype such as murlocs and completely negate those changes. Warlocks are probably one of the strongest classes for tournaments. Warlock control decks are like the third most powerful in the game and their ability to switch to a different archetypes in these tournaments give them a significant advantage

The MLG/MG Open format allows for an unlimited selection of sideboard choices. So tell us a little bit about your decisions and why you made them.

Actually, I don't like to sideboard that much. I feel that the deck I had run was really strong. The deck I used has been ran for about 500 games, so if I sideboard it's really small changes. Like do I feel like playing Cenarius or do I feel like playing Ragnaros the Firelord. The other possible switch was between Faceless Manipulator and Azure Drake.

What card was the most valuable to your victory?

I would basically have to say The Black Knight. In the finals it was Druid vs. Druid. People tend to say that The Black Knight comes and goes with the meta; As long as there are Druids and Defender of Argus it will have value in control decks.

Every time I ask the winners of the tournament, which neutral minions do you think are the best in this game?

Of course, there is Tinkmaster Overspark, the best neutral card in the game. The next one would have to be The Black Knight. Lastly, it's a toss-up between Nat Pagle and Harvest Golem.

What do you think makes somebody consistently good at Hearthstone?

The thing that most people seem to forget is that the best players in Hearthstone have thousands of games under their belts. Also keep statistics of every match in ranked mode and in tournaments. Many times players will come back and ask me if their deck is good enough. The thing is, when you play decks enough times you start to understand the game a lot more and then you're able to play the deck a lot better. You begin to learn when to play that extra minion, when to go for board control, or just go to the face. After a while of playing these decisions become like second nature or instinct. People who complain about the pay to win aspect of the game, seem to overlook that there are several examples of budget decks making it into Legendary ranks.

Now with Hearthstone going into open beta, what advice do you have for all the new players?

Ok, this may sound corny since I just won your tournament. I would tell them to watch the ManaCast. Currently I feel you guys are running the best podcast in the game. For a long time I thought that Turn2 was better, but these days I feel they are focusing on mid-level decks and not on how certain cards are affecting the meta. Other than that, just be active in both the game and the community. Read forums, Reddit, and any other resources you can find out there about the competitive circuits.

There have been a lot of statements made by the development team Hearthstone that have not been received by the community positively. What do you feel are some things need or things you would like to see in Hearthstone?

I think the number one feature I would like to see added is observer mode. I would like to see the two major bugs we’ve had to deal with for some time finally fixed.

As a tournament organizer myself, I am constantly asked links to streams for the finals of our tournaments. Now, since many do not stream, the ability to have an observer stream these matches would be a huge thing in the growth of this game as an eSport.

The thing about streaming is how hard it is to have a quality stream without much issue. When I signed with our team, Denial, one of the requirements was to use Hitbox instead of Twitch. When I was streaming on Twitch I had a lot of lag delay problems, but when I would use Hitbox it does seem to go away. For those who want to get their games out I highly recommend it.

Now before we wrap this up, why don't you tell something about your team?

A few weeks ago I was approached by Blackout about creating a Hearthstone team. At that point we were just starting season three, and I was on the top 100 list for seasons one and two. At that point I was looking for a team  to get more competitive in the game. We formed the team, we don't have any big name streamers on the team, but we have a lot of great players from the European ladder who want to get more out of the game and get better at it. The team is made up of Ignite, Logan, Spo, Portex, Reaper, Blackout, and me.

Well, that’s a lot of names I'm quite familiar with. Well, I think we can wrap this one up. Thank you for taking the time for this interview, congratulations on your victory today I hope to see more from you and team Denial in the future and on behalf of ManaGrind, well played sir.

Thank you! 

Interview by Thechiv, Edited by Homebrewed, Formatting by Whale_Cancer