The forty-player qualifiers for the Hearthstone World Championship got underway this weekend, and in Europe some top players have already fallen by the wayside.
The first two rounds of the upper and lower bracket were played in Europe over the weekend with the forty players placed into a double-elimination bracket.
Chief among the early crash-outs was James “Greensheep” Luo, who qualified for the World Championship last year finishing 12-16th overall. After winning his first match, Luo ran into Thijs “ThijsNL” Molendijk, who he defeated to qualify for last year’s event. In the lower bracket, Luo was eliminated by French online cup veteran “tomof”.
Luo wasn’t the only scalp that “tomof” claimed, with experienced fellow Frenchman Grégoire “Un33d” Bodin also joining the list of victims in the lower bracket.
M-House Cup winner Thomas “TheFishou” Guedj and Raffael “Gameking” Iciren of Fade2Karma were also eliminated. The event will resume next Friday, with the eight players advancing to the offline finals in Prague decided on Sunday.
The North American bracket will play out more slowly, with only one upper bracket round played so far. Andrey “Reynad” Yanyuk, Matt “Dart” Orgel, and David “Protohype” Kunze will have to battle through the lower bracket in the coming week.
In the SEA region, the bracket has already concluded and the eight participants in the offline Regional Championship have been decided. They include Dustin “WaningMoon” Mangulabnan, Jan Marvin “Chalk” Zaldivar, and Weelong “pewpewyourface” Tay.
Photo via DreamHack/Flickr
Published: Sep 14, 2015 02:41 am