Oscar Pelling looks ahead to this Sunday’s ESL UK Hearthstone Premiership finals…
After a seven-week group stage, four players have earned themselves a place at the ESL Hearthstone UK Premiership Finals in Leicester.
Entering into the group stages as the widely regarded favourite following his first place finish at Comic Con in May, Torpedo’s BoarControl has shown himself to be the top seed.
Going into the finals, he has the highest group stage scoreline with a 6-1 record. However, almost all of his wins have been 3-2. With the loss to Cipher in the final week of the group stages, BoarControl has shown he can be defeated.
His decks so far have been fairly standard versions of Zoolock, Secret Hunter and Malygos Druid. This is his second time making the Premiership finals – and that will undoubtedly give him extra drive to take first place.
An expressive player, who is always fun to watch, it’s definitely worth tuning in to see BoarControl play.
HelloLeeroy sits just below BoarControl at 5-2. He had another solid season which sees him in the finals again. Despite having a worse match record than BoarControl, HelloLeeroy has far less matches that went to the fifth game, so his overall record exceeds BoarControl’s.
When the two met in the groups, it was a close series, going 3-2 to BoarControl, so HelloLeeroy will be out for revenge at the finals.
Having played a wider range of decks, he may be harder to predict and prepare for, but as an experienced last deck standing player, he’ll be sure to show up with a strong hand.
“Going into the finals, BoarControl has the highest group stage scoreline with a 6-1 record. However, almost all of his wins have been 3-2.”
The next contender is Mysterious. After an impressive start in the first three weeks, he looked like a strong contender for the top spot. He then lost to both Greensheep and BoarControl, which broke his spree. A veteran to competitive play, he was still able to secure another win against Cipher to take him to 4-3, which secured his top four position.
Having lost to both HelloLeeroy and BoarControl, he’ll have to pull out all the stops to win the finals. A close series against Jambre in the first week makes their match much harder to call.
The fourth finalist is Jambre. A somewhat dark horse, Jambre started the season with only one win in his first four matches. He then managed to win his next three to take the last slot in the finals.
With a convincing loss to HelloLeeroy at 3-0, it will be a tall task for Jambre to beat him. Both BoarControl and Mysterious took their series’ against him, however both had a 3-2 scoreline, so a victory against these two seems far more likely. With his strong end to the season, it looks like Jambre may just have what it takes to emerge victorious.
The matches kick off on Sunday November 13th at 12pm GMT midday, with BoarControl vs Mysterious followed by HelloLeeroy vs Jambre at 1:15pm.
The games will be streamed over at ESL Hearthstone so be sure to check them out. Live event tickets can be bought here.
Image source: ESL UK Flickr/Paul Bonning-Tyers
