Several nations will be playing with unexpected line-ups.
The polls for the Hearthstone Global Games are closed. In two weeks’ time, the four-player line-ups of each of the 48 nations will go head to head in Hearthstone’s first truly national competition. The tournament itself is designed to be a unique bridge between Hearthstone’s hardcore competitive and casual audiences, bringing together established champions, popular streamers and content creators.
Many of the tournament’s on-paper favorites have voted line-ups worthy of the competition. Sweden has drafted the entire Alliance roster of Powder (anchor), Orange and Ostkaka with the expected appearance of Forsen. Russia also boasts a dream line-up of tournament veterans, headlined by world champion Pavel and 2017 Winter champion ShtanUdachi and two major runner-ups: SilverName from IEM Katowice 2016 and INER from 2016 Europe Spring. Together with Ukraine’s quartet of DrHippi, Neirea, Kolento and NickChipper and Netherlands’ line-up of Tyler, ThijsNL, Mitsuhide and Theo, these four countries make strong cases for being the strongest on the continent.
Other European nations, however, did not have the same faith. Considered the country with possibly the deepest competitive pool, Germany is notably lacking SeatStory champion SuperJJ and 2016 player of the year Xixo as it has instead gone for the streaming/commentating duo of P4wnyhof and C4mlann, though the latter of whom still has a top four from Truesilver Championship and a top eight from SeatStory to show. In Spain, Katowice and SXSW champion AKAWonder was also left behind, despite being his country’s most accomplished competitive player.
Although results-wise Europe is still the arguable top region after two world championship titles and the recent success of ShtanUdachi at the Bahamas, the inconsistency in some of their main representatives is a potential weakness of the region, considering the line-ups voted for by other major nations. The United States will be represented by the expected roster of HotMEOWTH, Amnesiac, Firebat and Dog and Canada is on point with—if not ahead—of its southern neighbor with APXVoid as anchor supported by Purple, Cydonia and Hotform, seasoned competitive players all.
In the east, Korea will be represented by three-times HCT finalist Handsomeguy alongside two-times Blizzcon finalist Kranich and local hopefuls Flurry and DDaHyoNi, while China already locked a killer roster a month ago with the very best the country can offer, too.
The official HGG site counts down to April 10 when the games are supposed to start.
