5 Miracle Moments from the HCT Summer Championship
There were some great moments from this past weekend's Hearthstone Summer Championship, and Blizzard's Kevin Hovdestad has clipped some of the best. What were your favourite moments from this weekend's event?
Quote from Kevin HovdestadThe Hearthstone Championship Tour (HCT) Summer Championship played out this past weekend at Blizzard Arena Los Angeles, and fans in-studio and at home were treated to an incredible experience thanks to the talent and tenacity of some of the world’s best players.
In case you missed it—or want to relive a few of the highlight-reel moments—here are five of the plays that caught our eyes and dropped our jaws:
#5 – All Must Serve the One... True... King
Seven turns out from fatigue, and unable to establish a board presence, things were looking grim for Purple in game four of his match against tom60229. He needed a miracle—and he got it, rolling The Lich King off of a 6-cost Jade Golem with Thrall, Deathseer's Battlecry effect. On Purple's next turn, The Lich King generated an Anti-Magic Shell, which gave Purple an opening to play around tom60229's only remaining outs, and go on from there to win what had looked to be an unwinnable game.
#4 – P-P-P-Poker Face
Game three between Purple and tom60229 also had a memorable (and only-in-real-life) moment, as Purple went for an over-the-monitor read on tom60229’s poker face to try and surmise which Mage secret he had in play. Whether Purple saw it on tom's face or not, he correctly tested for the in-play Counterspell with his Swipe, protecting his Ultimate Infestation for later use.
#3 – Youuuu Dirty Rat
OldBoy snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in game five against Nalguidan. The two were locked in a tense Handlock mirror, with Nalguidan poised to finish off OldBoy and advance to playoff Sunday. Nalguidan had twice previously been punished—once in an earlier match, and once already against OldBoy—by Dirty Rat pulling out his Doomsayer. And here it happened again, as OldBoy played to his only out, successfully sniping Doomsayer, taking back the board, and eventually winning the match.
#2 – You Must Read the Name of This Card Out Loud Each Time You Play It
Surrender won all three of his games in the Group C winner’s match against OmegaZero’s Hunter deck, but it wasn’t easy. With deck lists being public knowledge, Surrender knew OmegaZero’s list by heart—and that plus the game state let him make a next-level read. One card had sat unplayed all game in OmegaZero’s hand: If it was a relevant minion or a direct-damage card, he’d had opportunities to play it already. The card had to be Unleash the Hounds. Surrender played around it by trading two minions into one of OmegaZero’s, which removed the possibility of lethal damage from Unleash the Hounds.
#1 – It's the Circle of Healing
Who would win the HCT Summer Championship trophy came down to an intense game-five mirror match between Surrender and Orange’s Highlander Priest decks. At one point, Orange spotted an opportunity to force Surrender to overdraw his hand by six cards, trading an otherwise weak combo card in Circle of Healing for a chance he could burn one of Surrender’s mandatory combo cards (ideally Raza). It was a real nail-biter for both players, and the casting desk, as each card was drawn, and lost:
Unfortunately for Orange, the six burned cards did not affect Surrender’s win condition. When it was all over, despite hitting fatigue, Surrender had become our HCT Summer champion!
Were there any other amazing plays or amusing interactions that you loved during the HCT Summer Championship? Which players were your favorites to watch? Let us know in the comments!
Your arguments are just, but:
1. Learn to hear/read opinions that are different than yours and don't say to someone to shut up because you don't like what he says because this is called f-acism!!!
2. Other players will take their places and become Pros and this will go on and on because blizzard games target the majority of the gamers who seek to play casual and not the minority who seek perfection.
3. And since you and the others in this thread, who don't like the rng factor, why do you still play a card game, since card games are based on the rng factor of card draw mechanism.
4 finally, I'd like to read your opinion about what I've mentioned about the poor archetype breakdown. Because this will happen if we eliminate the rng factor.
When a match at this level is won by pure RNG (like from Evolve) it just show how bad those kind of mechanics are for the game. No tournament should ever be determinated by random effects, aside from card draws.
Although the highlighted moments are connected to luck, a lot of them wouldn't have helped without skill. An incorrect use of Anti-Magic Shell could have allowed Tom60229 to make remove or make some elementals. Also, in that match Tom60229 played his cards pretty poorly in the second half, in a sub-optimal way, which lead to him being out of resources at the end.
Conversely, Surrender beating Omegazero by avoiding the Unleash the Hounds was a moment of pure skill.
Sometimes the RNG sucks, but certainly not always and it certainly doesn't mean that a high level of skill isn't required to make use of it.
No rush, Fluxflashor. "Take your time; hurry up; the choice is yours; don't be leet"
I just heard this song for the first time. It's cool, calm and collected. Appreciate all you do!
You call it "Miracle Moments", I sadly call it "Luck trumps Skill". Don't get me wrong, it was a great championship to watch, but too many games and matches were decided on completely random events. Name another e-sport where randomness plays such a major role in determining the winner...? (BaiZe and Pavel especially got short changed in the luck department if you ask me.)
Its hearthstone it always has its RNG even in tournaments. You cant do anything against it. As for me at least 50% of top plays in any HS tournament are based on RNG effects. And its OK. Put yourself up with it.
Just another day of RNG 4Head
you mean Hearthstone LuL
Couldn't agree more with this comment. Like sure, crazy rng moments are fun to watch, but more in the context of Trolden or other funny clip compilations. In tournaments, seeing plays like the 2 you mentioned is what truly shows the skill level and impactful decision making that actually exists in Hearthstone and ultimately what we want from the game.
It'd be nicer imo, because this way memes would end up being things like "playing around unleash in 2017" vs "should have played around Pavel book LUL" , so it was on people's subconscious that in Hearthstone you actually lose by playing badly and not only because of bad rng, probably leading to less salt in general in the community.
Nothing amazing there running out of cards swipe loses a bit of tempo but little else counterspell UI loses all your options usually like 2 secrets maybe 3 clear choice
Exactly, it was a risk, it was a win or lose moment that he had the choice to make happen or not. He would of known the exact odds to burn raza.
UI is just unnecessarily risky gives you half a turn of tempo over swipe but I don't see it increasing win rate too much you would have to be like > 80% sure the secret was not counterspell to consider it.
yes UI has tempo however have you considered the actual win rates even if the secret is iceblock? I would estimate maybe 10-20% you are out of cards so UI into counterspell is almost gg thats why I said you need a read of >80% block to play UI you DON't need a read to play swipe it's simply the best play given 50/50 counterspell or block
The commentators are just trying to hype for nothing it would be more accurate to say purple isn't 100% sure the secret is not counterspell so he played around it.
On the other hand if the secret was block and he played UI that would require one hell of a read.
I'm going to rant here a read is indicated by a play that is suboptimal over the normal probability distribution but good on the current instance in particular not playing: Tirion into entity steed into spell bender e.t.c when you have other almost as good plays and there is a 50% chance just because they run only 2 secrets is not a read it is simply optimizing over probabilities ****ing understand that
Hey guys, looking into the clips problem. They've been working correctly when I've embedded them into the weekly recap and they showed up correct before it went live.
Updated. Clip embeds may start working on other places on the site, won't know for an hour or so though.
Please fix the clips...
I haven't had any success with embedding Twitch clips on Hearthpwn either...
Sorry about that >.>
Rushed posting this, it appeared to be working fine initially but it looks like it was not the case (clearly amirite). Been busy doing final preparation for tomorrow's patch =/
Orange should have won. O range, the six burned cards did not affect Surrender’s win condition. Really sucks 20+ combo damage.