Vexed: Dreamhack Summer 2017 Roundup

Posted by Admin June 19, 2017 in Team Vexed Vexed Hearthstone

Hey guys! RDee here, Professional hearthstone player for Vexed Gaming!

So as you know by now DH is the event to win all year, the top 200 in the world fly to Sweden just to compete in this Grand prix. I was lucky enough to share a house with 9 other pro players from 3 different countries in Scandinavia. This is something highly recommended to any player seeking to visit a big event, half the event is about getting to know the community!

As a player in a Swiss tournament you will have to adapt to playing a endurance race against yourself, the first day is usually 12 hours straight of playing. Day two is 4-8 hours of gaming depending on if you can go to top 16 or not. This is very different from playing online, it’s a very draining experience and it’s here the community and atmosphere come together. In the small free time between rounds you got time to get to know the other players, this is a good way to relax so you don’t lose focus in the next round.
The Swiss system in itself is great, you play a total of 9 rounds and the top 16 with the best score go through. If you get 3 loses you are out, tho you are free to stay and play as practice.
There is always 2 people with a 7-2 score that will lose on tie breakers, I was one of these players who ended at rank 17.

When it came to playing at Dreamhack I am very happy with my results, tho I am sad that I could not hit the dream of getting top 16. The most frustrating part is I had enough win/lose ratio to go through, but it came down to 8 other players games to see if I could make it or not.
The last round there was 8 players playing 4 more games when I was done. 4/8 could make it top 16, leaving me at rank 17. If only 1/4 of these games went “my” way and the other guy won, I would be through. Sadly I got the worst “RNG” and lost the top 16 placement..
So my results speak for themselves, I can show up to the biggest tournament all year and win, tho I fell at the finish line. The first day I got home from Dreamhack I won a open cup tournament, I went 8-0 in rounds and secured 5 more points for Summer Prelims. Yet again this proves my point of being able to show up and get the results in.

After reading all of this you might be curious about my lineup. Dreamhack is one of those tournaments that use the Last Hero Standing format instead of Conquest. This means what it sounds like, you win with a Hero then you keep playing it. You lose with a Hero then you can’t play it again, this continues until we reach 3 points a Best of 5.

My choice for DH was to bring a lineup that mixed Tempo,Midrange and Aggro. We used Burn Mage (Tempo+Control), Midrange Murloc Paladin (Tempo+Midrange), Token-Elemental Shaman (Tempo-Midrange-OTK) and finished it with a Pirate Warrior (Full Aggro).

So here is where the tactics come in play, do they have Druid in there Lineup? Then we Ban it, what we are looking for is Paladin and Rogue, then we know we might have hit Jackpot.
All of our classes are strong on their own but also have counter potential, example: Never queue your Pirate Warrior game 1. We ONLY use it to counter Paladin+Rogue, this is super important in LHS as a hero can continue its dominance and go 3-0.

This means we can not afford to lose the Warrior before we can counter queue! Our other 3 classes Mage, Paladin and Shaman are all good decks. But depending on your opponent’s lineup you will have to mindgame what you will start with, usually coming down to Mage or Paladin. As we banned their Druid we don’t have to be afraid of Jade Druid countering our Mage, giving it a good start potential.
Tho here comes another tricky part which makes tactics so fun in tournaments! Does your opponent play Mage? Then and only then you can try to save your Mage for match point if you play Eater of secrets which is a mage counter tech.

This means our win % should be better than the opponents in a situation of 2-2 score/match point game. All of this are tactical plays you need to keep in mind at a tournament when you look at your own lineup against your opponents, if you get good at this you will start to go far and win consistently.

Dreamhack Summer 2017 was amazing and as I said before half the experience is meeting the community. I am very happy that I get the chance to represent Vexed at a high level in the biggest tournaments.
I hope you liked my write up of Dreamhack, if you are interested in more tips and tricks when it comes to Hearthstone, feel free to follow my Twitter and Twitch below!