We take a look back at the action from last week’s Hearthstone Premiership group stage matches with ESL UK, after the final eight qualified players were confirmed.
The night began with a team derby, with two exceL players – Hello Leeroy and Osha – facing off.
The general consensus was that Leeroy was the favourite, but in the end, after a fair amount of emote spam between the two, Hello Leeroy bested his teammate and took his first win of the season.
Mysterious vs Jambre was very much a control versus agro matchup but ESL UK says the most interesting thing to mention is that Jambre brought his Egg Paladin deck that’s he’s built up a reputation for.
Unfortunately though, it didn’t seem to work out too well for him, only managing to glean a win from it on the third game.
From that point on, it was more difficult for Mysterious to finish things off, but in the end his Reno Lock reigned supreme and he took the match.
In a real battle of big names for the third game of the day, the current champ BoarControl (pictured) was up against Greensheep, who was the top UK player for a very long time (Greensheep has since been left without an org after Team Dignitas quit Hearthstone last weekend).
This time though, the Torpedo player was in control of both his boar and the series, defeating his wooly opponent 3-1.
The final game of the night was the runner-up from last season, Cipher, up against caster extraordinaire Raven.
Despite being against one of the longest standing and most respected UK players, Raven held fast with his murloc paladin and after a very extended control matchup, he was able to best Cipher’s warrior and take the series 3-2.
Caster analysis
Well that was a fantastic way to begin the group stages, not a single clean sweep, everybody looking to get themselves on the scoreboard.
I think there will be some players who will be very happy with how they played and others that will be disappointed in themselves, but a very entertaining night of games and I think a sneak preview almost of what is to come over the next few weeks.
The story so far is one of big names clashing and players looking to prove themselves. Raven takes his series to back up his caster AND player status, but Jambre wasn’t so lucky in his debut week.
Then with BoarControl taking his series vs Greensheep, I consider this to have been a rare treat with some excellent matchups.
Check out this week’s games on the ESL Hearthstone Twitch stream on Thursday.
More Hearthstone articles
- Torpedo video interview
- Osha, Greensheep, Jambre and Raven secure promotion to ESL UK Hearthstone Premiership
- Interview: UK Hearthstone player Ness – “Yogg is ridiculous”
- Team Dignitas leave Hearthstone and Trackmania behind
- Interview: UK Hearthstone champion George “BoarControl” Webb
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
