Earlier this month, Torpedo’s James “Jambre” Brennan beat fellow teammate George “BoarControl” Webb 3-0 in the ESL UK Hearthstone summer 2016 final.
We caught up with Jambre to discuss the final, the state of the current competitive Hearthstone meta and his toughest moment this season…
Congrats on winning the ESL UK Summer Premiership! Now that it’s sunk in, how does it feel to have won?
Feels great. It was a long journey from open qualifiers to the premiership and then to the final. Happy to have won and have a huge trophy to show for it.
What was it like playing against a teammate as such in the final, and also keeping the UK Prem trophy with Torpedo?
I was conflicted as I wanted BoarControl to do well but also felt like he was my strongest opponent and therefore the biggest obstacle between me and the trophy. I’m happy with how it turned out and a 1, 2 finish for our team is a great achievement.
You only lost two games in the day of the final. Why do you think that was, what did this come down to?
The first two games against HelloLeeroy were very luck dependent; in the second game Ragnaros hit my face three times when a minion hit could have won him the game.
I knew I had some good luck but it was important to take each turn freshly, and not to think ‘Rag has missed – he HAS to hit this time’ etc.
I actually came close to 3-0ing Mysterious too, but he was saved by a Yogg and took it to a close 3-2 series in the end. Against Boar, there was two very close first games where decision making was super important.
In the final match, Boar was kind enough to queue his worst match-up first as he had to win with it anyway, had he queued another it could have easily been a closer score.
“I was conflicted as I wanted BoarControl to do well, but also felt like he was my strongest opponent and therefore the biggest obstacle between me and the trophy.”
Caster Excoundrel made a good point after you won, he commented saying the hard work had been done by yourself before the finals had begun, specifically around the decks you built to face the other players in the finals and the confidence to choose them. What made you pick the aggressive decks/style you went for, and what did you take into consideration when weighing up your opponents?
During the Premiership season, shaman was pretty much universally banned and I had the intention of doing so as well. I expected druid and hunter to be popular as they are generally strong on ladder, however they both have similar weaknesses to fast board-floody decks.
I expected everyone to bring zoo warlock but it is much harder to counter without a heavily teched warrior or freeze mage, both of which are generally weak to hunter and druid.
All three of my decks were favoured vs both druid and hunter, with reasonable chances vs zoo. For my shaman deck, I thought that the only reason it would not be banned is if my opponent was playing freeze mage/heavily teched control warrior, so I added lava bursts and bloodlust to counter those decks.
What was the toughest moment for you during the Summer season, and how did you overcome this?
I started off the season poorly, going down to a 1-3 scoreline. I knew that I needed some of the other results to go my way and it was super important to beat Greensheep in our head to head match for tiebreaker reasons.
I knew there was a chance I could make it, but it felt like I was almost already out, fortunately results went my way and I managed to make it.
What are your thoughts on the current competitive Hearthstone meta?
It really needs a shake-up, and feels like the worst meta in the game’s history. Karazhan and the various nerfs only seemed to improve the strongest decks (shaman and druid) and we’ve had a very similar metagame for many months, with an obviously overpowered shaman deck at the top.
“The meta really needs a shake-up – it feels like the worst meta in the game’s history.”
Torpedo’s Gears of War team have their own gaming house. Could we see the Hearthstone Torpedo lads get their own gaming house in the future?!
Hah, that hasn’t even crossed our minds yet!
What’s next on your horizon?
Hopefully I’m going to continue the tournament momentum with a good result at DreamHack Winter. After that I am going to concentrate on earning world championship points and boosting my popularity so I can compete in the upcoming Blizzard events.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Shout out to my Torpedo lads: BoarControl, Ness and Raven. And a shout out to the ESL Prem production team and casters for putting on a great tournament!
Image source: ESL UK Flickr/Sammy Lam
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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.
