Hearthstone

Tournament Tech: HCT Summer Championship

Tournament Tech: HCT Summer Championship

With the helpful guidance of Cora “Songbird” Georgiou, we’re digging a little deeper into the tournament-specific tech choices that players made for their Hearthstone Championship Tour (HCT) Summer Championship deck lists. Cora has reviewed all 16 players’ lineups and walks us through the biggest surprises and key takeaways from them all.

On the overall field, Cora isn’t surprised by the broad range of classes in play. “This seems consistent with the trends we’ve seen since the recent balance changes,” she says. That so few players brought identical lineups—only two pairs across all 16 lineups—is more exciting, however. “There’s clearly no one best lineup,” she says, noting that even with the differences between the Last Hero Standing (LHS) format she’s been casting at DreamHack events and the Conquest format of most of HCT, there has typically been a more common theme to overall deck rosters in tournaments than what we’re seeing for the Summer Championship.

If there’s a single thing Cora’s fascinated by, it’s that everyone appears to have tried to get a competitive edge. “The four most popular decks—Even Warlock, Taunt Druid, Miracle Rogue, and Shudderwock Shaman—weren’t all brought together by any one player,” she says. She thinks the prevalence of Shudderwock as an anti-control choice is indicative of the larger tournament meta, and some of the individual tech cards echo that targeting rationale.

“I love The Black Knight and Skulking Geist in Even Warlock,” Cora says. “Geist is more mandatory, but The Black Knight works widely in this meta.” She adds, however, that not all explicit targeting may pay off—for example, while the lone Abomination in Rase’s Control Mage can create a full clear against a Soul of the Forest Token Druid board, Abomination may be a dead card in his hand in several other matchups. Other similarly laser-focused tech, like the Earth Shocks in some Shudderwock decks, are included specifically for single matchups (in this case, to delete a Twilight Drake in the Even Warlock matchup).

So, whose lineup does Cora favor? “I think the most different lineup—the killinallday/Turna lineup—is interesting. Featuring the Token Druid, Odd Paladin, and Even Shaman, it’s more aggressive than the rest of the field. With so many players clearly anticipating a slower meta, it may just pay off.” She adds that she thinks some of the players may be sleeping on the potential of Cube Warlock in this meta, especially since there are so many variables to consider.

“No one can practice or anticipate every matchup—there are just too many,” Cora says. In closing, though, she says, “I really do think it’s the year of killinallday. Expecting control and anti-control, then going aggro to counter it, could work really well.” She says that the level of play at the HCT Summer Championship will have to be better than ever: “The tournament meta is going to demand the cleanest gameplay. Decks like Control Mage, Miracle Rogue, and Shudderwock Shaman are insanely difficult to pilot.”

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Big ups to Cora for her time and insight into the deck list field! Look for her as the host of the HCT Summer Championship next week, running June 28 through July 1 on the official Hearthstone Twitch channel. You can find all of the deck lists in our preview.

Do you agree with Cora’s thoughts on the wisest deck tech? Will her wisdom inform your Choose Your Champion selection? Who do you think is going to advance to the HCT World Championship? Let us know in the comments!

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