Blizzard crowned its first winner of the 2016 Hearthstone Championship Tour with William 'Amnesiac' Barton of Team Archon taking the Americas Winter Championship, defeating Bob 'Nostam' Matson of the Grand National Champions 3-1 in Sunday's finale. At 15 years old, Amnesiac becomes the youngest player to capture a top-tier Hearthstone tourney, pocketing $25,000 of the tournament's $80,000 prize pool. By taking the seasonal championship for the Americas (consisting of the United States, Canada, and Latin America), Amnesiac also earns an automatic seat at the Global Finals at BlizzCon this November.
With last weekend's performance, Amnesiac gets a significant bump in the GosuGamers Elo rankings, moving up to #7 in North America and #38 in the world. The win also gives Team Archon their biggest success in 2016 so far.
STACKING THE DECK
Amnesiac brought Warrior, Rogue, Druid, and Paladin decks to this weekend's tournament. His most unusual deck choice was bringing the Murloc Paladin as opposed to the Secrets Paladin more seen in tournaments in recent months. Where the Secrets Paladin seeks to play on-tempo minions and create awkward scenarios for the opponent through a large Mysterious Challenger term, the Murloc Paladin focuses more on stalling the game until the player can kill off enough of their own Murlocs and pull a giant 10-mana Anyfin Can Happen turn and burst down the opponent. While Amnesiac's Paladin only went 1-2, the unpredictable nature of the Murlocs led it to being banned in all later series of the tournament.
AGGRESSIVE ROGUE PLAY
Generally considered a second-tier class, only two players, Amnesiac and Christopher 'Chessdude123' Gu brought Rogue decks, but both were arguably their MVPs, going 7-2 overall for the two players. Facing very few Aggro decks this tournament, both Amnesiac and Chessdude123 piloted their Rogues in aggressive fashion, putting pressure on their opponents rather than being content to simply stall, remove threats, and accumulate burst.
To see Amnesiac's skill with Rogue, look no farther than his match against Fred 'Talion' Yu's Tempo Mage, in which he had a card advantage and aggressively played Preparation into Tinker's Sharpsword Oil instead of Sprint, choosing to get in the damage while the Piloted Shredder had the board to itself. By the time Talion got board control back, it was too late.
Chessdude, already noted for his Rogue play in the Hearthstone community, also showed a knack for one of the higher skill cap decks found in the game. A nationally ranked chess player and currently ranked 13th in the United States among under-18s by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs, chess's international governing body and the winner of the 2014 Denker Tournament of High School Champions, Chessdude didn't choose his handle for frivolous reasons. All weekend, Chessdude showed the blend of aggression and patience that you'd expect from a top chess player.
WELL MET? NOT SO MUCH
Paladin was a less popular deck choice among the eight finalists than in recent tournaments, only four of the players bringing Paladin decks. Amnesiac's Murloc Paladin went 1-2 before its bans but the rest of the Paladins (all Secrets builds) struggled, only going 2-7 over last weekend's games.
To nobody's surprise, all players brought a Druid deck. It remains to be seen if the deck will need to reinvent itself with the Force of Nature/Savage Roar combo believed to be one of the most likely targets in Blizzard's upcoming balance changes.
MAKING A NAME
Nostam didn't get to the Winter Championship by the traditional path, being the replacement for Shokhrukh 'Fibonacci' Rakhimov, who had passport issues that prevented him from traveling to the United States for the live tournament. But he acquitted himself well, going 10-6 for the tournament, the best winning percentage of the tournament. While Nostam's been known for a long time for creative and unusual decks, such as a Control Hunter with Mekgineer Thermaplugg and Miracle Druid (among others), this is his biggest success to-date in the tournament scene. With 20 HCT (Hearthstone Championship Tour) points to go along with his $15,000 runners-up check for his second-place finish, Nostam's an early contender to make the Last Call Invitational this fall.
TOUGH NIGHT FOR CHAKKI
Keaton 'Chakki' Gill of Team Dignitas was arguably the best-known player in the tournament and a fixture in the competitive scene over the last two seasons. While Chakki has a long list of high tournament placings such as second in the ESL Legendary Series Season 1 and semifinal appearances in Dreamhack Summer 2015 and the eSports Arena Invitational, he's been searching for a big tournament win. Instead, Chakki lost both his series, going 1-3 against Nostam and 2-3 against Talion, resulting in a quick elimination.
Chakki remains ranked 8th in North America in the GosuGamers rankings, so don't expect to wait too long to see him in another tournament. With a new expansion on the horizon, one of Hearthstone's premier attacking players ought to have new opportunities to assemble one of the refined aggressive decks he's known for running, hopefully with his signature Worgen Infiltrator inclusion.
ELISE'S TIME TO SHINE
While there haven't been a ton of deck surprises as we reach the end of a very stable meta period, one of the latest trends is Control Warrior decks that comes as a bit of surprise. Instead of including the large, slow cards seen in the so-called "Wallet Warrior" builds, we're now seeing Control Warrior decks that focus on the removal, card draw, and armor, and using Elise Starseeker to turn cards into dangerous Legendaries late game when the Warrior can cash in on any unused removal or tech cards. Since Eversiction had a lot of success with this deck in February, Elise Warrior variants have become very popular. Of the six Warrior decks brought to the tournament, four included Elise Starseeker (the other two Warrior decks were Patron Warrior builds).