The HCT Winter Championship will be broadcast live from Blizzard Arena Los Angeles. The competitors will be competing for their share of $250,000 and 251 Hearthstone Competitive Points for the next period. The event will be broadcast Feb. 28 through Mar. 3 from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. PT daily (17:30 p.m. CET – 5:30 p.m. CET / 11:30 a.m. ET – 11:30 p.m. ET). Today we take a look at who made it through the playoffs to represent the European region.
Torben “Viper” Wahl
Viper is one of the most known German players in the Hearthstone scene. Over the past year, Viper has competed and achieved incredible results at tour stops and LAN events around the world. One of Viper’s biggest achievements was his top four placement in the HCT Summer Championship. This time around to qualify for the winter championship, Viper created a deck never seen before in Hearthstone called Peanut Shaman, a control-oriented Shaman deck. To learn more about Viper’s Peanut Shaman, find the list here.
Raphael “Bunnyhoppor” Peltzer
Another representative from Germany is Bunnyhoppor. Bunnyhoppor currently plays alongside Francesco “Meliador” Leoni and Simone “Leta” Liguori under the Samsung Morning Stars banner. Bunnyhoppor is one of the most successful players Hearthstone has. In 2018 Bunnyhoppor won the Summer Championship, and he has earned over $120,000 in tournament prizes alone throughout the years. Besides his successful Hearthstone career, Bunnyhoppor also has a doctorate in compositional chemistry from the University of Oslo.
Fatih “ThunderUP” Akduman
There is little known about ThunderUP, besides him being from Turkey. To qualify for the Winter Championship, ThunderUP used a combination of Odd Rogue, Control Priest, Midrange Hunter, and Even Warlock. Most notable of the deck lists he used were two inclusions of Skulking Geist, a card not many other players brought to the event. Skulking Geist would be mainly used to counter certain builds of Druid, targeting the Naturalizes used as a win condition in decks such as Mecha’thun Druid and Hakkar or Togwaggle Druid.
Oldřich “Faeli” Mahdal
Faeli is a name familiar to everyone who has followed competitive Hearthstone over the past year. Coming out of nowhere, Faeli achieved two 2nd places, two top four placements, and two top sixteen placements at major tour stops throughout 2018. Meanwhile, Faeli also took the time to learn about the Wild format and achieved top 8 in the 2018 Wild Open. Faeli came close to qualifying for a championship event last year when he barely lost out against Viper in the summer championships, ending in 5th place.
Be sure to check back tomorrow for the third part of our Player Profiles Series, where we take a look at which players qualified from the Asia-Pacific Region. And if you missed yesterday’s player profile of the American region, have a look at it now!
