



GosuCup #0 is over and we’ve crowned its first ever Hearthstone champion - Jiří “Via” Sandner. After seven rounds of matches, Via will get the high seed coming into GosuCup #1 next weekend, an advantage that will help him get closer to the $100 prize.



GosuCup #0 overview

241 players of 44 different countries signed up for the first ever GosuCup Hearthstone between tournament’s announcement on Wednesday and its start on Sunday afternoon. Of those, 149 checked in and a huge, 8-round bracket was created. Players were in for a long day of competition.

Almost ten hours later, a champion emerged. Jiří “Via” Sandner of causeWEcan Tt eSports went 16-1 against the opposition – which included his team-mate P4wnyhof as well as Denial eSports’ Ignite – before sweeping ZOTAC silver medalist Ivan ”Drako” Trubin 3-1. The top four was completed by the aforementioned Ignite and Netherlands’ Enzodinho. The rest of the top 8 will also get high seedings into GosuCup #1 and quarter-final ranking is as follows:

1. Via

2. Drako

3. Enzodinho

4. Ignite

5-8. P4wnyhof

5-8. L0gan

5-8. Streufutter

5-8. WarknightSoul

Winners' decklists

How does one win a GosuCup? For champion Via, it was about playing Paladin as his main class while throwing in unorthodox strategy that people won’t expect in order to avoid the mainstream match-ups.

Of the five decks Via prepared for GosuCup, it was his variation of Koyuki’s Giants and an aggro Paladin that served him the best. The remaining three decks include a secrets control Mage, an old-school Druid ramp with cards like Nourish and Wild Growth and a rush Druid featuring double Force of Nature.





Via's main decks: Aggro Paladin and Giants control

Via's reserves: Secrets Mage control, Ramp Druid and Rush Druid



If Via liked to go “off-menu “, tournament runner-up Drako used the cookie cutter decks of today’s meta. The Russian pulled out a miracle Rogue, a handlock and a Giants Paladin, going 13-3 before the grand final.





Drako's decks: Miracle Rogue, Handlock and Giants Paladin

Class stats

You know what else is fun besides decklists? Stats! We parsed the information from the GosuCup #0 in order to learn which classes were the most popular (besides Druid, of course, we already anticipated that) and which were the highest winners. Naturally, those stats are not to be taken as representatives for the entire meta as they’re taken from just about 300 matches but it’s cool to look at graphs nonetheless. Expect those to be updated after every GosuCup!

What we hoped to be a close race in popularity went dramatically into Druid’s favor instead. Used in 44,3% of all matches, Malfurion is the uncontested prom king, followed by Thrall the Shaman at 27,0%.

Right below Shaman are Hunter and Warrior, mainly due to their cheap aggro variations, making them an easy choice for newer players. The top 5 is completed by Warlock who enjoyed representation by both his control version (Giants Handlock) and his more aggressive builds like Murlocs.

Win-rate-wise, Warlock is at the very top, pushing 60%, followed by Hunter at 57% and Druid at 53,6%.

The percentages do not comes as too big a surprise. The Warlock class is extremely strong in both its specs and with them being completely different mulliganing against Gul’Dan is a shot in the dark at best. The Hunter class, on the other hand, has proven that its more than just a ladder phenomenon and has been used to a great success in recent televised games, unanimously proving its potency. Finally, Druids have long been regarded as the most consistent class in Hearthstone and seeing them in top three was expected.



Champion interview: Via

OK, so first things first: Congratulations on your victory last night! How does it feel to be the first ever GosuCup champion for Hearthstone?

It feels pretty good, it's been a while since my last cup victory. Also this was quite a large event with eight rounds and Bo5 semis, so I am happy I made it all the way.

When did you last triumph in Hearthstone? Can you introduce yourself and your gaming careers to those of our readers who aren't familiar with the name Via?

I think the last was the victory in ESL Shaman cup, before that I ended up winning ESL Christmas Cup 2013, ESL league series on points (34W-12L) and the Playzone.cz Hearthstone beta #13 tournament, so it's not like I am new to the game.

Did you play anything before Hearthstone in terms of card game? Most pros tend to come from MTG or WoW TCG backgrounds...

Yes, I believe such background is a huge advantage. The experience is largely transferable. and I was an avid MTG player indeed. I have also experience with the not well-known but still very good Kingdoms CCG (online game).

On to the tournament: A total of 150 players checked in this Sunday and among them there were quite a few good players, like the Denial Esports crew, Managrind's zRusheR, former WoW TCG pro Lothar to name a few. You had to go through 7 rounds of competition, the last two of which, as you mentioned, were Bo5s (that must've been exhausting, I guess). Did you come in bearing any expectations of a grand final appearance? With what mindset do you usually enter tournaments?

I am always going for the 1st place in any Hearthstone cup. My mindset is to stay cool and focused on my performance. When I do my best and still lose, I am ok with that, it's a card game and you cannot win each game.

Speaking of team-mates (Lothar and Via are part of causeWEcan Tt eSPORTS), you had to play Pawnyhof in the quarter finals. That must've sucked, having to team-kill to go to the semis?

Yup, but I really enjoyed this game though. Pawny is such a cool person and the game was on air watched by his large audience so it was definitely one of the highlights of the tournament. Also it's not really a rare situation to face my teammates in late cup rounds.

What was the class/archetype that you absolutely didn't want to face coming into the tournament?

I didn't think that way. In the old meta I never liked facing Warlock rush with pre-nerf Blood Imps, but I believe I was prepared for anything this time.

Well, those were broken as hell, so I understand. Do you think the meta has grown more friendly and balanced after 4458? After all, we don't seem have a one-deck-to-rule-them-all situation anymore.

Yes, I appreciated last patch changes for the most part. I believe there is still a room for new decks/archetypes and I expect some significant meta changes even before new cards or nerfs/buffs hit Hearthsone again.

Druid is pretty dominant at the moment, but if you go with the mainstream, then your opponents are prepared for the matchup, can anticipate every move you make and you will face a lot of mirror matches, too. I feel most comfortable playing unknown decks of my own, even if they are not perfectly polished at the time.

This leads to my next question: you played Paladin in most of the series (which was actually the third least popular class in GosuCup) and while your giants control was fairly standard, you also used a fairly unpopular aggro Pala which is usually regarded as inferior to the Warrior and Hunter counterparts. Was Paladin's "low profile" the reason you went for it as main class or you just like it best?

Yes, it was one of the reasons. I didn't see much Paladin in the Ranked play recently, so I figured players won't know the matchup well. On the other hand, I played a lot of Pally this month, and I know my matchups against other classes pretty well with both of my Pally decks. My aggro Paladin is even featured on the FrHearthstone YT channel. Also I have to give credit to Koyuki for the giant control Paladin, there is a lot of thought behind the deck and it's very solid. Winner keep his class tournament format favours deck switching, that was another reason for choosing Paladin for this event.

You're saying the class is most flexible and more resistant to hard-countering than others?

I wouldn’t say that. It is always based on the player not the deck and I just picked the decks I have most recent experience to play with. If you play with the "feel" and insight for any given matchup, it's a tremendous difference.

Your "go for the unpopular" type of strategy was shown in the other decks you used as well. There's your secrets mage control with Deathwing, a full Druid ramp which hasn't been popular since the early days and a Druid rush deck with double Force of Nature. Because you're tournament champion, those will be net-decked of course so I have to ask in advance: how do these decks play on the ladder, based on your experience? Can they be used outside tournament fields?

I used Dudu Rush to get Legend in test season 3. The deck can rush slow decks and it's very solid against other rush decks as well. The weaknesses are midrange decks, especially the meta defining midrange Druid. The mana ramp list is altered version of my "famous" Fountainhead deck from my "Way to Legend - Cenarius Compilation" video. It's a rather old deck from test season 1 but I feel really at ease playing it after so many games with that list. The Mage deck is probably too prone to rush (especially to Hunter) to play it in Ranked, but it's a solid tournament choice.

It's important to say that these lists are for tournament with banned Nat Pagle which I would otherwise use in all of these.

Glad you're bringing up the banned Pagle as this leads directly to my next question: Do you agree with this decision of ours to omit it from the tournament? To my knowledge, we're the first to take this step so I'm not sure you've played in Pagle-less meta before...

Well, it worked out for me. *smiles* I honestly think that these cards do not fit a card game very well, because they’re random to begin with, and adding cards like these on top of that is unnecessary. Nat is especially ugly because it can go against you multiple times, unlike Tinkmaster Overspark.

Would you add Tinkmaster to the banlist as well?

I don’t know about that, it has no "draw 4 cards in a row" potential like Nat Pagle has. It's as close to auto-include as you can get, but that's not good enough reason for a ban. Also, Tinkmaster is somewhat more skill intensive than Nat Pagle.

OK, we're almost done! A few quickfire questions to close this! Aggro or control?

I like both roles.

Best common/basic card?

Unleash the Hounds.

Most underrated legendary?

It has to be Gelbin Mekkatorque. I think that guy is playable in some decks.

Wow, I have to ask a follow-up! Where and how?

Well, he gives you two creatures, that’s something. It also fits 10 mana turn with Defender of Argus. You can negate some shortcomings of random constructs in the right deck. For example, if you don’t push early, then the heal bot heals only your stuff. Of course, it's a random card, but so is Tinkmaster.

New features you want to see in next patches?

I would like to see an in-game chat and a spectate feature.

TCG mechanics you miss the most in Hearthstone?

I take the game as it is, I certainly don't miss the hand discard

OK, that'll be all! Thanks a lot for taking the time to go through all the questions. Congratulations on your victory once again and I hope to see you in GosuCup #1.

It's been a pleasure. I will be there. If anyone is interested in my decklists, VODs, tournament announcements and more, you can visit my FB profile at www.facebook.com/viebator. There are links for YouTube and Twitch as well.