Hearthstone Dreamhack Tours HCT Tour Stop was played from 19th May to 21st May 2018 in Tours, France. It was an open Hearthstone Championship Tour Stop, where 232 players competed for a $15,000 USD prize pool and HCT points.
In this post, I take a look at the decks and results of the tournament, including class distribution, archetypes, and lineups.
Dreamhack Tours was the last tournament of the pre-nerf Witchwood meta – the meta changed literally the following day – so in-depth analysis will not benefit future tournament preparation all that much. On the other hand, it was the only major Last Hero Standing tournament in the meta, which makes it a bit more interesting.
Results
The event was played in a best-of-five Last Hero Standing format with one ban. It started with 9 rounds of Swiss followed by a top-16 cut into single-elimination playoffs.
The tournament was broadcasted on Twitch:
- Day 1 (Swiss rounds 1-3): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/263038871
- Day 1 (Swiss rounds 4-5): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/263180715
- Day 2 (Swiss rounds 6-9, round of 16): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/263424224
- Day 3 (top-8): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/263803619
Tournament brackets: https://smash.gg/tournament/dreamhack-hct-grand-prix-tours-2018/events/dreamhack-hct-hearthstone-grand-prix-tours-2018/brackets/239288
Top-16 bracket:
Final results:
| 1st | Maverick | $5,000 + 15 HCT points |
| 2nd | Scruffy | $3,000 + 12 HCT points |
| 3rd – 4th | Savvat
xBlyzes |
$1,500 + 10 HCT points |
| 5th – 8th | Nights
Jarla Pilou Chinoize |
$1,000 + 8 HCT points |
| 9th – 16th | Tomas
Dib Dogmeat Fenomeno Casie Vinz AlivZ Zhym |
6 HCT points |
| 17th – 32nd | MiBuDArK
Tyler Orange Vardu Janetzky YoGG Creapz Lucken Zyrios Kolmari Scarface Gaby59 Esteban Felkeine ChaboDennis |
4 HCT points |
Class distribution
The decklists are available on Google Drive – https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17w8nrkA2tbzStLyzQNBYw4g0aZ-OOIIQ
Visualizations of deck lists are available here – http://www.multiball.net/hct-decklists/
Classes from the most popular to the least popular:
- Paladin: 221
- Warlock: 207
- Rogue: 142
- Druid: 132
- Mage: 85
- Priest: 75
- Shaman: 24
- Warrior: 20
- Hunter: 8
The popularity of Rogue kept going up throughout the Witchwood meta. At Tours, it surpassed Druid and became the third-most popular class.
Archetypes
Tours was mostly business as usual. However, we did see some variety in the ranks of Paladin and Druid, with other archetypes than Even Paladin and Spiteful Druid finding representation, and Warrior was once again home to multiple different approaches to control – including Fatigue Warrior, which had not seen tournament-level play in a while.
Paladin solidified its lead. 211 Even Paladins and 10 Murloc Paladins entered the tournament, and everyone in the top-16 brought Paladin: 15 Even Paladins and one Murloc Paladin.
Warlock remained split between Cubelock (144) and Control Warlock (63). Control Warlock lineups did well at Tours with 54% win rates in Swiss compared to the 50% of Cubelock lineups – but the prevalence of Cubelock meant that it was part of very diverse strategies. There were 9 Cubelocks and 6 Control Warlocks in the top-16.
Rogue became more popular than ever with 115 Quest Rogue in the tournament – half of the players brought the archetype – alongside 34 Odd Rogues and 3 Miracle Rogues. 9 Quest Rogues reached the top-16 alongside 2 Odd Rogues.
Druid was once again dominated by Spiteful Druid (116) followed by small contingents of Taunt Druid (12) and Token Druid (4). 6 Spiteful Druids and 1 Token Druid reached the top-16 with Token Druid lineups being the overall best-performing lineups in the tournament: the 4 players who brought it had a combined 22-12 match win-loss record in Swiss.
Mage was mostly Tempo Mage (75) with a few Big Spell Mages (10) sprinkled in for good measure. Neither archetype saw a lot of general success, but 8 Tempo Mages reached the top-16, so some Tempo Mage lineups worked very well. Four players reached the top-16 with Even Paladin-Cubelock-Tempo Mage-Quest Rogue, but overall the lineup, brought by 20 players, did not perform very well.
Priest was all Mind Blast Priest (75). While the archetype enjoyed decent performance overall, it lacked peaks, with only 4 players reaching the top-16 with it, each one with the trio of Even Paladin-Control Warlock-Mind Blast Priest in their lineups, with the final deck either Quest Rogue, Spiteful Druid, or Baku Control Warrior.
Year of Even Shaman did not arrive in Last Hero Standing, where 1 of the 21 Even Shamans reached the top-16. None of the 3 Shudderwock Shamans made it, although their combined 14-11 match win-loss record in Swiss was not bad.
Warrior was the biggest surprise of the tournament. It was split between various control approaches again: 9 Baku Control Warriors, 5 Fatigue Warriors, 3 Taunt Warriors, and 3 Baku Taunt Warriors. Everyone else generally did poorly except for Fatigue Warrior, which boasted a solid combined match win-loss record of 26-17 in Swiss – mostly carried by Maverick though, who had a 16-2 game record with his deck. Top-16 was reached by 1 Fatigue Warrior and 1 Baku Control Warrior.
Hunter was unable to find any success. 8 Spell Hunters, none of them made it to the top-16.
Performance of lineups that included a specific archetype in Swiss (including mirrors, I had no good way to filter them out from the data I had):
Archetypes in the top-16:
All archetypes by class:
Warlock
- 144 Cubelocks
- 63 Control Warlocks
Rogue
- 115 Quest Rogues
- 34 Odd Rogues
- 3 Miracle Rogues
Paladin
- 211 Even Paladins
- 10 Murloc Paladins
Druid
- 116 Spiteful Druids
- 12 Taunt Druids
- 4 Token Druids
Mage
- 75 Tempo Mages
- 10 Big Spell Mage
Priest
- 75 Mind Blast Priests
Hunter
- 8 Spell Hunters
Warrior
- 9 Baku Control Warriors
- 5 Fatigue Warriors
- 3 Taunt Warriors
- 3 Baku Taunt Warriors
Shaman
- 21 Even Shamans
- 3 Shudderwock Shamans
Lineups
Lineups in the top-16:
| Vinz | Even Paladin | Cubelock | Spiteful Druid | Quest Rogue |
| Maverick | Even Paladin | Control Warlock | Fatigue Warrior | Quest Rogue |
| Casie | Even Paladin | Cubelock | Spiteful Druid | Tempo Mage |
| Savvat | Even Paladin | Control Warlock | Token Druid | Even Shaman |
| Dib | Even Paladin | Cubelock | Tempo Mage | Quest Rogue |
| Dogmeat | Even Paladin | Cubelock | Tempo Mage | Quest Rogue |
| Fenomeno | Even Paladin | Cubelock | Spiteful Druid | Tempo Mage |
| Chinoize | Even Paladin | Control Warlock | Mind Blast Priest | Baku Control Warrior |
| Jarla | Even Paladin | Control Warlock | Mind Blast Priest | Quest Rogue |
| Pilou | Even Paladin | Cubelock | Spiteful Druid | Odd Rogue |
| xBlyzes | Even Paladin | Cubelock | Tempo Mage | Quest Rogue |
| Nights | Even Paladin | Control Warlock | Spiteful Druid | Mind Blast Priest |
| Alivz | Even Paladin | Cubelock | Tempo Mage | Quest Rogue |
| Scruffy | Even Paladin | Control Warlock | Mind Blast Priest | Quest Rogue |
| Tomas | Murloc Paladin | Tempo Mage | Spiteful Druid | Quest Rogue |
| Zhym | Even Paladin | Cubelock | Tempo Mage | Odd Rogue |
Performance of lineups at the Swiss tournament (brought by more than one player):