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With the Hearthstone Global Games a little more than three weeks away, the four players hoping to represent Australian on the stage at BlizzCon have been unveiled.
Dylan “FroStee” O’Mallon, Paul “CitizenNappa” Yang, Damien “GingaNinja” Basso and Jowen “Akumaker” Chee will be donning the proverbial green and gold as Australia take on 47 other nations for the right to be crowned Hearthstone Global Champions.
FroStee was announced as Australia’s anchor player, by virtue of him being the country’s top HCT point-earner, while the rest of the team won their spots through a popular vote.
Akumaker returns as the only remaining member of Australia’s 2017 squad. We spoke to him earlier this year about how esports athletes prepare for events.
CitizenNappa has been a regular on the APAC scene for the last few years, with his career highlights including a semi-final appearance at the 2017 HCT Asia-Pacific Spring Championship.
GingaNinja is perhaps the least known member of the group, although his Hearthstone pedigree is nothing to be snuffed at. He’s been one of the top point-earners in Australia over the last year and will round out what looks to be a very solid group.
The Global Games is a 48-team tournament (you can see the full list below) that sees pre-selected nations going head to head in a World Cup-style competition.
There’ll be six rounds of Swiss tournament, starting on Wednesday, July 18 (AEST) at 6pm, where the pool of 48 teams whittled down to just 16.
The Swiss rounds will actually be on at favourable times for Australian audiences too, with matches every Wednesday (6pm), Thursday (midnight) and Friday (11am) available to view on Twitch from the 18th onwards.
The final 16 countries will be seeded into groups of four, with the top eight subsequently earning the right to play on the big stage at BlizzCon 2018.
Neither Australia’s schedule nor their opponents have been revealed just yet, but The Roar will have the updates as soon as they’re announced.
Australia will be hoping for a better run than last year’s tournament, where they not only failed to get out of the group stage, but suffered the ignominy of having New Zealand top that very same group.
The Kiwis actually made it all the way through to the quarterfinals last year, eventually going down to the USA 3-2.
The Czech Republic ended up winning the inaugural tournament after a 4-2 win the best-of-seven final against Ukraine.
2018 Hearthstone Global Games Nations |
|---|
Asia-Pacific |
| Australia |
| China |
| Hong Kong |
| Indonesia |
| Japan |
| Malaysia |
| New Zealand |
| Philippines |
| Singapore |
| South Korea |
| Taiwan |
| Thailand |
| Vietnam |
Europe |
| Austria |
| Belarus |
| Belgium |
| Bulgaria |
| Croatia |
| Czech Republic |
| Denmark |
| Finland |
| France |
| Germany |
| Greece |
| Hungary |
| Israel |
| Italy |
| Kazakhstan |
| Netherlands |
| Norway |
| Poland |
| Portugal |
| Romania |
| Russia |
| Slovakia |
| Spain |
| Sweden |
| Switzerland |
| Turkey |
| Ukraine |
| United Kingdom |
Americas |
| Argentina |
| Brazil |
| Canada |
| Chile |
| Mexico |
| Peru |
| United States |