And then there were eight. The long road to the Hearthstone World Championship has ended, with eight competitors surviving the grueling thinning-out process, facing tougher odds to survive than a character in a teen slasher movie. Editor's Picks BlizzCon 2016: Circle of Champions

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Jason "Jasonzhou" Zhou

Jasonzhou's path to the final eight consisted of two close wins in Group A, considered the toughest bracket based on the names involved. Not only did he topple the favorite, Thijs "Thijs" Molendijk, in his first game, he also defeated the Americas Spring champion, Julien "Cydonia" Perrault to be the 2-0 advancee in the bracket.

As a noted Control Warrior player, Jasonzhou certainly hasn't passed up bringing a Warrior deck, this time going with a heavy Dragon Warrior that includes Deathwing and The Curator. Also coming for the tourney is a fairly traditional Shaman build with Harrison Jones as a card-drawing tech choice, a possible indication that he's going to avoid banning Shaman in his games, using Harrison to deal with the troublesome Spirit Claw.

Rounding out Jasonzhou's lineup is a fairly traditional Miracle Rogue, Discolock with the Young Priestess choice, and a Malygos Druid that still retains the nerfed Yogg-Saron.

Zhuo "Hamster" Wang

Facing off against Jasonzhou in the first round of the quarterfinals is China's Hamster, who survived the bottom of the bracket, knocking Hao "Bbgungun" Li out of the tournament in the final set of games last Sunday.

Hamster made some unusual -- and for this analyst, exciting -- choices in the round of 16, playing the only Priest and Paladin decks of this stage of the tournament. Hamster is again bringing those decks, a Priest with two Doomsayers, hopefully drawn early to keep from falling too far behind in the initial turns, and the bursty Anyfin Paladin.