Photo: TakeTV
Jon "Orange" Westberg of Team Archon is quickly becoming one of the players to watch in 2015 as he took his second offline major victory last night, beating Sebastian "Ostkaka" Engwall in the SeatStory Cup III finals.
For the players in Krefeld, it was a four-day Hearthstone marathon, one that started on Thursday with promises of $20,000 in prizes. Thirty two names, three of which coming from the open qualifiers, were thrown in a sequence of group stage games so the best can be found.
Each playday brought more and more upsets. The televised veterans of 2014 were ousted one by one, starting with SSC I champion StrifeCro and continuing with other decorated names like Rdu, Savjz, ThijsNL, Firebat and Amaz. In the end, the playoff pairings suggested that like the other offline events this year, SeatStory Cup III would have an unlikely champion, at least popularity-wise.
Eyes were set on several players, including March best performer Adrian "Lifecoach" Koy. The Nihilum start, however, was upset by Millenium's Michaël "Maverick" Looze, the Belgian player who made a name for himself after winning the GamersOrigin 2 tournament in France and doing great in various open qualifier tournaments.
The Swedish duo of Orange and Ostkaka was also generating a lot of hype. Orange came into the tournament as the ESL Katowice champion and one of the hottest young prospects in Hearthstone, while Ostkaka - a veteran of the open cups since the start of Hearthstone - was praised by his peers and considered one of the favorites to take the tournament.
In the end, it was those two who met in the finals and made for one show to remember. All nine games had to be played, the series swinging left and right. In the middle of the match, Ostkaka came very close to a match point, coming ahead 4-3 after a Warrior win versus Orange's Druid but his own Malfurion deck ultimately spelled his doom. Orange's Rogue and Druid returned to finish the job and a final 5-4 was put on the scoreboard in favor of the Katowice king.
For Orange, this is his second major championship in just one month, his winnings clocking at $23,000. The back to back triumphs also put him on top of the world rankings as the young Swede shakes up the established order of power.
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