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Another week is past and another GosuCup champion is crowned. This Sunday, RobinWho from Germany fought through seven rounds of competition before beating the #1 player on the EU ladder Blazed (a.k.a. BlazingGlory) 3-0. The 16-year-old youngster now goes home $100 richer, enjoying his first ever Hearthstone victory.

As mentioned, second in the tournament came Bulgarian high-ranked player and member of team Phoenix Blazed, who brought a large collection of decks - nine of them plus sideboarding - to reach the grand final. Third came GosuCup regular ThijsNL and fourth finished Dodgyq from the Czech Republic.

GosuCup #5 standings

1. RobinWho

2. Blazed

3. ThijsNL

4. dodgyq

5-8. Excepo

5-8. Keseren

5-8. Silhan

5-8. Shooshte

After GosuCup #5, Germany finally overtook Russia and Italy in the nation standings. Having multiple top four and top eight finishers in the past, seeing a German player take the gold was what the country needed to catapult itself to the top.

There are little to no changes from there till the end of the top 10 with the small exception of Bulgaria. Through Blazed's silver medal, combined with several top 8 finishes in previous cups, the Balkaners climbed four spots and are now tied with Czech Republic, Portugal and Denmark.

Nation standings (Top 10)

1. Germany - 14 points (+2)

2. Italy - 11 points (-1)

2. Russia - 11 points (-1)

4. Greece - 9 points (-1)

5. Netherlands - 8 points (+2)

5. Norway- 8 points (-)

7. Czech Republic - 7 points (-)

7. Portugal- 7 points (-2)

7. Denmark - 6 points (-)

7. Bulgaria - 6 points (+4)

Winners' decklists

Contrary to most GosuCup champions, RobinWho brought along only a couple of decks. His main choice was Shaman - a deck he built just a few days before the tournament - and supported it with a Handlock. Very strong choices for control-inclined players everywhere.





RobinWho's decks



When we talked to Blazed about submitting his decks, he actually said he brought almost nine different build and iterations, not including the sideboarding he did during the tournament. Yeah, nine...

Below are his four main decks, though, which brought him as far as the silver medal.





Blazed's decks

ThijsNL's decks

Class stats

We're continuing to add more data to our excel tables in order to generate more accurate representation of the constructed, non-Limited meta. Here are the stats after four normal GosuCups:

Welcome back, Malfurion! Druid players rejoice. The power of the wild finally overcame not only the Warlocks in the popularity contest but also the Warriors, who seem to be all the rage on the ladder these days. After a couple of weeks standing in the runner-up position, the Druid class is back to being the most sought out class, with close to 21% pick rate in all match-ups.

Moving downwards, we see a familiar graph paradigm: there's a leader and there're 3-4 runner-ups, the difference between which are miniscule. Warrior, Warlock, Shaman and Hunter take places two to five, with the gap between #2 and #5 being less than 2%.

Then, we have the outcasts, another four classes that just can't seem to win the love of the Hearthstone players. The order of them barely signifies anything and after GosuCup #5 Mage is "leading", followed by Paladin, Rogue and the always last Priest.

Druids might've returned to the top popularity wise, but the win graphs are still Warlocks' kingdom. Gul'dan is pushing 68% win rates in GosuCups, a record for the tournament. Almost 15% below are Hunter, Rogue, Warrior, Druid and Shaman who gravitate just above the 50%, no one even getting close to 55%.

One thing worth mentioning is the high win rate of Rogues compared to their low popularity rate. This is something that we actually observed in Limited tournaments as well, proving that the dedicated Rogue players - the few that they are - really know how to handle Valeera's many options.

Champion interview: Fibeli3

First of all, let's start where we always do in those interviews: Congratulations on your victory! How does it feel being among the exclusive club of GosuCup champions?

Thank you, I feel pretty nice because I never actually expected to really win this tournament. It’s just awesome!

You beat several notable players, like regular GosuCup high finisher Daxt and even the #1 EU ranked player, BlazingGlory. I have say that's pretty impressive!

Thank you, I was actually really scared when I had to play against BlazingGlory because he is the Top #1 Legend player EU so it seemed pretty hard to play against him, but due to his deck choices the Shaman I played the whole tournament worked pretty well and got me the 3-0.

You're actually the second really young guy in a row to win GosuCup. I didn't ask Fibeli last week but I have to ask you - what is a 16 y/o doing with $100? What are you buying with Hearthstone money?

I’m actually still thinking about getting some packs in Hearthstone because I’m missing so many legendaries which I actually would need to play other decks. And I don’t have the time to play arena the whole day. I’ll also try to keep my social life alive. *laughs*

Don't do social life, man, it's dangerous and horrible!

Actually it’s pretty fun even if your social life is just playing some games in skype or teamspeak together or even having some small LAN parties, which are pretty funny.

This was your third GosuCup if I'm not mistaken. In GC #3, you got stopped by the renowned Sjow, then you had a quick exit in GC #4 Limited. This weekend when you became champion, you pinned a 16-2 score. Did you prepare any differently this time?

I actually just build that new Shaman deck and crafted the Legends to build it a few days before and tested and worked it out in the ranked ladder.

You only used that and a handlock, right? Did you actually know that Blazed had over 9 decks prepared for the tournament?

No I didn’t know that, I would like to do that too for the next tournament when I maybe got some more legends to build something like Control Warrior. And there was something else I played in the semifinals: after I switched to my handlock in game 4 because I lost game 2 and 3 with my shaman, I fully sideboarded my handlock and played an aggro deck while my opponent boarded his whole deck to face a handlock.

Yeah, we've found out that this is something that often happens in GosuCups, players trying to out-mindgame each other. Do you like that aspect of the tournament, personally, as opposed to the deck elimination format?

I really like it because I love these mindgames and they won me the semifinals so I was pretty happy.

Walk us quickly through the final series. I saw Blazed pulled out a priest in game one, which is quite an unusual pick...

Yeah, I was a bit confused about this too but i got a pretty nice draw so I was able to kill him in a few turns and playing my Shaman - which normally works as control- as an aggro one.

What about games two and three?

In game two he played a watched Druid which normally is one of my hardest matchups and which already had beaten me in the semifinals. But somehow I was able to get a card advantage with my Mana Tide Totems and handle his whole board.

In game three, he actually played his Control Hunter against which I played the aggro role again and destroyed his whole early game board with Lightning Bolts and other spells, which buffed my Unbound Elemental pretty well

How phased are you usually when you see unorthodox picks like Priest or Control Hunter? How do you approach an unknown match up?

If you play such matchup, it’s likely that you don’t have that much experience but you still know the basic decklists because you know these decks out of the current meta. You can then plan how you could maybe outplay the deck; against Priest, for example, you have to expect certain cards and acknowledge the fact that they’re pretty strong in the late game so you have to kill them early before they can use the advantage from Northshire Cleric and Thoughtsteal

You mentioned the current meta and that's pretty much settled right now. Do you see more room for new decks, though, before the expansion hits?

There are still some ideas in my mind even if they would only be good against some decks, like an early interesting aggro shaman which works like a token Druid. This will work in tournaments where you have to keep the class but are free to sideboard so you can counter the counters.

Оh, you have to give me that decklist! I'll so much feature it in the homebrew corners!

Well, I’m trying it at the moment on ladder and will work it out soon then I’ll give you a copy of the decklist for sure!

Talking about new stuff, there should be an expansion some time this year. What do you want to see in terms of mechanics, cards, new legendaries maybe? Radoslav "Nydra" Kolev: How can the game be made better with the new content?

I think it could change the whole meta with some more interesting mechanics and legendaries, maybe some more cards that give you permanent mana crystals to use in Shaman or Priest so you can get to your lategame faster. In terms of mechanics, they could grab up so many ideas from games like Magic: The gathering to make it better.

OK, let's turn this into a quickfire game! I ask you five design questions, you answer, then we wrap up and go have social life!

1) Design a new mechanic.

If you attack a minion and it dies, the owner is getting the damage which isn’t needed to kill the minion. With that, it’d be possible to deal damage past multiple taunts if you have enough power.

I.e. like trample in Magic, alright!

2) Brainstorm a new neutral legendary.

5 Mana, 2/5, Taunt, Charge

When it enters, your whole board get a +1/+1 buff. Just something that can be included in aggro decks because right now Leeroy is the only viable option.

3) Design a weapon for the Mage class.

2 mana, 2/3 firestaff which makes you immune while attacking, because you’re shooting fireballs. Makes sense!

Every arena player in the world now hates you now, by the way...

On to 4) Design a new spell for the Shaman.

2 mana, Deals 4 damage to a player and destroy his weapon. Overload (1). Seems pretty fair because there aren’t that many weapons and it’s just nice against Warriors and Rogues at the moment.

Alright, last question:

5) New creature subtype that will work well in tribal decks.

Maybe a late game subtype with large creatures would be nice, like Tauren for Warrior with some early game boardhandlers.

Alright, man, thanks for the time! Any last words before we close this?

Thank you to all the guys who helped me in testing my decks and helped me improve in Hearthstone.





