With Americas Last Call finally sealing all of the 16 slots for the World Championships at Blizzcon, we had some spectacular games this weekend and congratulations to winner Bbgungun for winning the tournament. A lot of players from the China region who qualified for Majors and Championships have thanked him in the past on camera about how the ‘QQ’ Hearthstone practice group and Bbgungun helped them find success in tournaments. Finally, the man himself managed to clinch it all and is headed to Blizzcon and we are getting ready for what seems to be a spectacular event in less than a month.
There have been some amazing twists to decks that we often play on the ladder and they proved to be highly effective. Let’s take a look at some of the best decks that caught our eye in the Americas Last Call 2016.
Bbgungun’s Burn Tempo Mage
First off, we have Bbgungun’s Tempo Mage. The deck was originally created by OmegaZero from China, who is a practice partner of Bbgungun from China’s QQ group. OmegaZero happens to be one of the top 16 players headed to Blizzcon as well and going by how much he vouches for this decklist, it is likely he will bring it! The deck is a very burn heavy version of Tempo Mage and one of the most surprising exclusions in the deck is Cult Sorcerer, which happens to feature in every Tempo Mage list these days. He chose to go with Loot Hoarders to add more draw to the deck. He also included a cabalists-tome to refuel his hand with possibly more burn and the only tech card in the deck is a Flamestrike to deal with Shamans and other board heavy decks. The deck sacrifices the potential to get the full value out of Arcane Blast by cutting 2 spell damage minions but the higher draw power means the player has a massive advantage in mirror matchup and also allowing the player to win games from behind by taking the aggressive route. All you need to do is assemble and plan some burn damage and kill your opponent over a few turns.
The deck showcased its full power in the mirror matchups, where Bbgungun was extremely favored due to how fast he could end the games without opponents being able to react. With very few decks that run heal in the tournament, the Tempo Mage was a sound pick and it took him to the finals and eventually won him the last game of the tournament.
Noblord’s Ramp Druid
Ramp Druid is a deck that we have not seen in ages in the competitive meta but Noblord decided to put his faith in his deck-building skills and it surely rewarded him. The deck runs mostly removal and ramp before dropping late game threats repeatedly until opponents cannot deal with them. With so many spells at the disposal of Noblord, he chose to tone down the number of high-cost minions that other Ramp decks run and included arcane-giant instead. Deathwing was one of the most interesting picks in the deck and it won a game on the spot against a Malygos Druid allowing Noblord to go through to the next round. With double Moonglade Portal, Noblord had all the time in the world to stabilize and generate some massive board presence towards the late game.
Nostam’s Aggro Shaman
After the recent 6.1.3 Balance Patch, Aggro Shaman has completely died down and its status from being a Tier 1 deck dropped to being a deck that sees almost not play at all, while Mid Range Shaman continues to be the king of the meta. Nostam chose to go for a very aggressive lineup and his Aggro Shaman was a unique list that’s not seen very often on the ladder. He included plenty of overload cards and overload unlock mechanisms like Eternal Sentinel and Lava Shock to curve out better. Despite Rockbiter Weapon not seeing play since the nerf, Nostam talked about how he believes it’s still a fine card in his deck because of the massive burst potential with Doomhammer still being possible for a maximum of 16 damage when using both the spells as weapon buffs. It is very similar to the original Aggro Shaman lists that were made in the early Whispers of The Old Gods meta and it performed quite for him versus Mid Range Shamans, which is why he stuck with the deck with almost all of the players in the tournament bringing it.
Fr0zen’s N’zoth Camel Hunter
It isn’t the first time this decklist popped up in recent big money tournaments, the N’zoth Camel Hunter has featured quite a few times in the past Last Call tournaments and it has proven to be quite successful. While nzoth-the-corruptor has hardly gotten chances to close out games in any of the Last Call tournaments, good old Call of the Wild has been good enough to end games. Desert Camel is one of the best tools in the deck to out-tempo your opponents, especially if they do not have any 1 drops in their deck allowing you to potentially drop two 2/4 bodies on the board and pressuring your opponent in terms of board presence. Unlike most other Mid Range Hunter builds, the deck runs two copies of tracking to aggressively curve out on board without losing tempo on any given turn. Spellbreaker has been another notable inclusion in the deck allowing players to shut down deathrattle minions or taunts in slower matchups.
Fr0zen was one of the standout players in the tournament and he was trying too hard counter Control Warrior but sadly his lineup didn’t manage to pull through in Quarter Finals. Although, it was nice to see someone try to break the notion of Conquest being a format where only the best decks make sense by bringing some outrageous decks which didn’t work out. We hope to see more amazing matches during the first weekend of November at the Hearthstone World Championships at Blizzcon. Who are you rooting for this year?
