The first major event of the 2018 Hearthstone Championship Tour (HCT), the Europe Summer Playoffs, kicked off the competitive season with a bang. On the other side of the fireworks, we now know which four players will represent Europe in the Summer Championship in late June—and what got them there.

Congratulations to Marco “ Turna ” Castiglioni, Torben “ Viper ” Wahl, Kacper “ A83650 ” Kwieciński, and Raphael “ BunnyHoppor ” Peltzer, all of whom successfully advanced to the HCT Summer Championship!

Different strategies paid off for different players, but BunnyHoppor says that ignoring Paladin led him to victory: “The general thought behind my lineup was to bring powerful decks that all have the same weakness—Paladin—without having to ban Quest Rogue.” He worked with two practice groups with other heavyweight Europeans to settle on his eventual choices of Even Paladin, Cube Warlock, Tempo Mage, and Spiteful Druid.

Here are the lists I played in the playoffs. I added the scores (win-loss-bans). Was really happy with Paladin Warlock and Mage. As @coL_Sottle said I need to step up my spiteful game, I think I got 1 12/12 the entire tournament. Got lucky in other places though. :) pic.twitter.com/U6YqdyITyD — Raphael Peltzer (@Bunnyhoppor) May 7, 2018

Within that lineup, he says, “My tech choices were designed to improve my matchups against popular decks such as Control Priest, Taunt Druid, and Cube Warlock.” In listening to BunnyHoppor, it’s no surprise he’s one of the few players to have qualified for every HCT Playoffs to date!

His fellow travelers are no slouches either. Turna won HCT Oslo back in March, A83650 has qualified to multiple HCT Playoffs, and Viper’s top eight finish at HCT Oslo positioned him to be the lead point earner from Germany in Season 1. These players will be joined at the Summer Championship by the winners of the upcoming Americas and Asia-Pacific Playoffs , taking place later this month.

Looking Good in the Tavern-hood