Hearthpwn

 (Interview performed by TheChiv; Edited by Homebrewed)

Name: Kaldi
Age: 21
Location: Reykjavik, Iceland

Team: Reason Gaming
Twitter: KaldiSC2
Twitch: KaldiTV

Kaldi11EUMLGMG#11 Unknown Deck by TheChiv - Jan 7, 2014 View Deck String Export to BBCode Export to Cockatrice Export to MarkDown Export to Html Clone this deck
Minion (20) 1x Bloodmage Thalnos 1x Cairne Bloodhoof 1x Sylvanas Windrunner 1x The Black Knight 2x Ancient of Lore 2x Defender of Argus 2x Keeper of the Grove 2x Wild Pyromancer 2x Harvest Golem 2x Druid of the Claw 2x Earthen Ring Farseer 2x Novice Engineer	Ability (10) 2x Innervate 1x Starfall 2x Wrath 1x Claw 2x Healing Touch 2x Swipe
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Kaldi2EUMLGMG#11 Unknown Deck by TheChiv - Jan 6, 2014 View Deck String Export to BBCode Export to Cockatrice Export to MarkDown Export to Html Clone this deck
Minion (24) 1x Nat Pagle 1x Ragnaros the Firelord 1x Sylvanas Windrunner 1x The Black Knight 1x Tinkmaster Overspark 1x Ysera 2x Ancient of Lore 2x Ancient of War 1x Big Game Hunter 1x Faceless Manipulator 2x Ancient Watcher 2x Defender of Argus 2x Keeper of the Grove 2x Sunfury Protector 2x Harvest Golem 2x Druid of the Claw	Ability (6) 2x Innervate 2x Wrath 2x Swipe
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Kaldi3EUMLGMG#11 Unknown Deck by TheChiv - Jan 6, 2014 View Deck String Export to BBCode Export to Cockatrice Export to MarkDown Export to Html Clone this deck
Minion (17) 1x King Mukla 1x Leeroy Jenkins 1x Arcane Golem 2x Argent Commander 2x Keeper of the Grove 2x Knife Juggler 2x Druid of the Claw 2x Earthen Ring Farseer 2x Faerie Dragon 2x Novice Engineer	Ability (13) 2x Force of Nature 2x Innervate 2x Power of the Wild 2x Claw 2x Healing Touch 1x Savage Roar 2x Swipe
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Welcome and congratulations on your victory today. Winning one of these tournaments is not an easy task.

Thank you.

Jumping right in what other games do you play?

I play StarCraft 2 professionally and before that, Chess. The thing is chess is monotone; it’s a lot of the same thing over and over again.

Chess is a simple game with some great complex strategies that I think all modern gamers should play to get better at games like Hearthstone.

Yes absolutely. There are many strategies that can be learned in Chess and applied in Hearthstone or StarCraft 2. 

What made you decide to play in the MLG/MG tournament today?

I have been playing a lot of Hearthstone on the side of StarCraft 2. It’s a lot of fun and it was a great to promote my stream, my team, and my sponsors. It was basically seeing how far I could go. I was not expecting to win, maybe only place top eight. I was expecting to have some fun.

What was the best part of the tournament?

It was winning, of course.

That is the most common answer ever given.

Yeah, but the counter gameplay with a best of five finals was really interesting.

In Magic the Gathering tournaments they have a limited sideboard. Now since there is no way to implement that in any Hearthstone tournament, we use an unlimited sideboard. This creates a huge amount of possible counter plays and or a complete archetype switch which Warlocks have been able to do with great success.

Hopefully now so will Druids.

Looking at your decks I think they might. You played a lot of great players but who was the toughest?

In round four I played a guy named Airbrushed and he was playing a Druid which is very tough. I started out with an aggro deck, a Druid deck with no big guys but Ragnaros the Firelord. He was playing a straight up value Druid deck. It was pretty rough and game three went down to the wire.

Now we get a lot of known player in our tournaments. Was there any one you were glad to face off against?

There are some players like Savjz that are really scary, and a few others.

Well great players are one thing, but on any given day you can be beaten by some unknown player.

Yes, that is definitely true.

You will be coming back for another tournament?

Definitely!

Let’s talk about the finals. You have the final victory. What went through your mind?

Kind of relief, the thing is Hearthstone kind of snowballs a lot. So I spent a good amount of time going, "I’m not going to screw this up. I’m not going to screw this up!" and I didn’t.

Yeah one bad play can really lose the tournament for you.

Yes it can.

Now I’m looking at your decks and you seem to seem to have covered all your bases really nice. So my question is; what archetype would have been the biggest threat to you and why?

It’s kind of interesting. The thing is a lot of classes are really good at different things. Then you have like Warrior OTK, which is the only way to play it, and Druids can build to counter that easily. I think all the different decks have one or two ways to play and Druid can counter everything. The biggest threat would be Paladin, with cards like Equality and Tirion Fordring and also a lot of early game stuff, they are a real threat.

Yes and let us not forget about the fact Paladins have an insane amount of healing.

Yeah a good Paladin can give me a challenge.

Let’s get into the sideboard choices.

My first deck, my thought was I could build a midrange Druid deck that can handle pretty much anything: some AoE, some draw, and some mid-ranged minions. The second deck was more late game oriented with Ragnaros the Firelord and I had one aggro deck that was good against Mage, Warlock, and Warrior that I played once in the finals.

Which neutral cards do you think are the best?

There are the obvious legendary cards and I’m not going to go into that. Ancient Watcher has so much value for two mana. If you get a silence or a card that gives taunt on it it’s so good. For my second I would probably go with Bloodsail Raider, its effect works great with any weapon heavy class. If I’m running a weapon deck I get him every time. Harrison Jones is a very underappreciated; it’s an Acidic Swamp Ooze on steroids. I also like Cairne Bloodhoof, Faceless Manipulator, and Frostwolf Warlord.

Which card(s) brought you the most value?

There are two, Swipe and Ancient of Lore both being so flexible. The thing that saved me against a Rogue was Wild Pyromancer and a Swipe.

What makes a good Hearthstone player?

You need a lot of patience and a lot of this game is about know when to play a card at which times. Like playing Sylvanas Windrunner correctly or when and what to silence.

Yes sadly I had to find out the hard way what happens in a Sylvanas Windrunner mirror match.

Yes the attacker’s effect goes off first but then the defender’s effect kicks off afterwards.

What advice do you have for new players, since we are getting close to open beta?

I think being honest with yourself is important. You need to decide are you going to play casual, competitive or half way. If you want to play seriously, do your research so you don’t waste your dust. I suggest spending eighty to a hundred dollars on packs, so you can make some decent decks.

Now we all know which classes are super strong. What I want to ask is what the worst class in this game is.

Hunter, it’s not even close! Hunter is so far away from other classes.

Yes sadly the champion of the Horde was left with the worst class design.

Yes they need to buff some of the beast.

Ok let’s talk about some of the recent changes we have gotten from Blizzard. What are your thoughts on the new rank system?

From rank twenty-five to rank one I think they nailed it perfectly. With legendary ranks I think they need to do some tweaking. My main gripe with it is the ranks are all over the place. It feels like everyone in legendary is sucked into the middle. I think for the top 10 guys should only be able to play with top 20 at most, even if there is a longer load time.

What are your thoughts on the recent Mage changes?

I think it was a good change. I think personally there are a lot of cards that need to be adjusted. If you can fix all the other broken things in this game then I think you can make Pyroblast to 9 mana and maybe even change Frostbolt to minion only. Take a look at a card like Frostbolt, for only two mana you deal three damage and freeze a minion. If not killing it severely damaging it and freezing it for a whole turn. It’s an extremely strong card.

And your thoughts about the new arena rewards system.

When you look at the curve of gold you get more from arena then you do from constructed. It is a little unforgiving in those first three losses.

Now what about the gold cap, thoughts? A lot of people are not happy about this as it takes away the ability to grind away more than one pack a day.

I barely play enough to hit the cap so it’s not an issue for me. In StarCraft 2 you don’t have gold just progress, but I can see where this can be an issue.

Well I think we can call this a wrap. I would like to thank you for the interview and again congratulations on a victory today and I hope to see you back here again next week.

Thank you and I hope to be back next week as well. Before I go I would like to give a shout out to my sponsor SteelSeries. I will be streaming this Thursday at 8pm GET/7pm CET. I would also like to plug our teams twitter: https://twitter.com/ReasonGaming.

Re: Sylvanas Windrunner mirror.  Had this the other day where I had just an Defender of Argus and Sylvanas (who just became a 6/6 with Taunt).  Opponent had no minions, but then played a faceless Manipulator on Syl.  Thankfully, I had a backstab and Eviscerate to kill my own Sylvanas, which then stole theirs back to my side.  

Otherwise, I'd have either had to not attack at all giving them a chance to regain tempo, or attack with the lower minion first to kill it off, then have the two legendaries kill each other for essentially a board clear.  

When someone claims to be a "professional SC2 player" do they just mean they play in tournaments that offer decent cash prizes, or are there people literally making a living (not parents' basement) year after year. I realize the top players who are on teams, sponsored, living in gaming houses, most popular super streamers, Korean, etc, do, but how many 20 somethings who call themselves professionals are pulling this off? Just curious.

Quote from Setcamper »

When someone claims to be a "professional SC2 player" do they just mean they play in tournaments that offer decent cash prizes, or are there people literally making a living (not parents' basement) year after year. I realize the top players who are on teams, sponsored, living in gaming houses, most popular super streamers, Korean, etc, do, but how many 20 somethings who call themselves professionals are pulling this off? Just curious.

 

A lot of "sponsored" players get their living expenses paid for. This may not sound like much to someone with an engineering degree or a white collar job, but considering most people in the world work all day just to afford housing + food, it ain't a bad deal. Can't speak to the guy's personal situation, though, have no clue who he is.