UK Hearthstone player Tom ‘PocketTrain‘ Swinton has won the 2023 Hearthstone World Championship after a convincing 3-0 grand final display.
Blizzard’s trading card game Hearthstone might not have the same buzz around it these days than it did after it launched almost ten years ago, but we’re getting on board the hype train anyway – we have a UK champion, after all!
PocketTrain defeated Taiwanese player Cjkaka in the final on the weekend to take the first place $100,000 prize in the 2023 Hearthstone World Championship, which had a $350,000 prize pool overall.
Pocket played as a rogue, priest and druid against Cjkaka’s mage deck across the three games.
PocketTrain said after the win: “The list of people I want to thank is honestly endless, so I’m sorry for not mentioning everyone, I appreciate all the support from you all.
“Special thanks to the best prep group in the world for producing two World Champions in a row though. Couldn’t do any of it without them.”
PocketTrain showed his emotions after the win, both on broadcast and on social media:
The UK player also told fellow Brit casters Raven and Sottle after the final: “I’m scared to go to sleep, because I’ll wake up and it won’t be real.
“I’ve played so much Hearthstone this year and thought so much about Worlds, I’ve had every dream about Worlds. Vivid, vivid dreams, play-by-play losing 0-2, play-by-play winning, then I wake up the next day and none of it was real. So this one is crazy right now!
“I’m a bit of a mess right now, but a brilliant mess!
“I want to thank my parents. It’s ridiculous how much they’ve supported me for playing a card game. My mum watches all of my matches and has no idea what’s going on”.
PocketTrain
“I’d do it all again. But I’m not sure I could do this more than once, and I don’t have to! When I started, I was kind of no one and jambre reached out to me, and asked if I wanted to join a practice group for Masters Tour. There was a bunch of big names, I didn’t join the voice calls because I was scared! It was people I knew of who didn’t know me. But a few years later, that blossomed into me knowing people and it went from there.
“So I have so much thanks for jambre, and I want to thank my parents. It’s ridiculous how much they’ve supported me for playing a card game. My mum watches all of my matches and has no idea what’s going on. She’s been incredibly supportive throughout.”
Runner-up Cjkaka said: “Sorry, played badly – I still need a lot of learning. I feel like I am more tired these two days than I was in the first 11 months of leaderboard. Day one seems to be like a movie. I’m not perfect, but I will continue to learn. Thanks for watching.”
Caster Raven told Esports News UK: “It is amazing to see a UK world champion, PocketTrain has been the best all year and I couldn’t think of a better champion!
“The event was great – it is always an honour to cast the finals, and Pocket’s interview was amazing.”
Raven added: “What a way to end the match and end the year. He simply dominated.”
The 2023 Hearthstone World Championship had around half a million views across day one and day two on both Twitch and YouTube.
In terms of what’s next for Hearthstone esports in 2024, there’s an official announcement due soon.
Related article: Raven interview – Hearthstone caster and ‘UK’s Best Gamer’ on esports streakers, getting reported for how he says ‘Shaman’ and that ragequit in the recent Grandmasters final
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.
