by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

Week 3 of PVPLive’s HPL had some great action, but a particular play really stood out to me, and it was good enough to be my first ever Hearthstone eSports Play of the Week. In game 2 of his series against Fnatic’s Powder, Archon’s Zalae showed incredible poise and patience with his Rogue play. In the end his patience paid off, as he was able to set-up a huge 20 damage burst combo that put Powder down for the count.

The Setup

Evaluating a single play in Hearthstone can be somewhat difficult, considering that a lot of what makes cool plays is the RNG of the draw, most of the great plays are going to be the competitors making reads on what’s in their opponents hand and how to play around it. In other cases the beauty lies on the decisions that they made on previous turns, which set the board and hand states that allowed the highlighted play to happen. In this case, this play is all about the setup, as Zalae’s turn 5,6, and 7, had huge ramifications that allowed his turn 8 kill.

Turn 5:

On turn 5, Zalae had the opportunity to clear most of Powder’s board with Backstab, Blade Flurry and his 3/2 minion. That would’ve been mana inefficient, and would’ve both given the initiative to Powder, and possibly popped a Doomguard that Zalae didn’t have an answer for. Instead, he decides to play the Azure Drake on curve and more importantly go face with his minion.  Zalae realizes that he doesn’t have a good trade, and with the bursty nature of his deck, making a dent on Powder’s life total might just be relevant on later turns.

Turn 6:

Most of turn 6 is spent by the casters discussing how Zalae can clear the board using his Backstab, Weapon Attack, Sap, and Blade Flurry. After taking a long time to think about it, Zalae decides to play the Antique Healbot instead, relieving some of Powder’s pressure with the Backstab. Preventing those 3 damage from the Flame Imp, ended up being huge for Zalae, as Powder was at one point exactly 3 damage off lethal. After Zalae’s play, the casters were quick to agree that this was the best possible line of play.

Turn 7:

On Turn 7 Zalae sprints, getting A LOT of damage. Zalae now has a 20 damage combo on hand, which will allow him to finish the game next turn as he has the exact mana for it. However, Powder has two outs here, and the first one is outright killing Zalae next turn. The Archon player has the option to Preparation Sap, to prevent 5 points of damage from the Doomguard, but he decides not to. Next turn Powder will have 7 mana, and with 9 damage on board, can his Zoo produce 14 points of damage with only 7 mana? Zalae knows that Doomguard + Double Power Overwhelming is only 13 damage, so saving the Preparation + Sap can actually deny Powder his other out, Taunts.

Voidwalker and Defender of Argus can put a stop to Zalae’s 20 damage combo, but Zalae keeps both Saps and his Preparation to check those possibilities. While returning 2 minions to hand in case of Argus does leave Zalae 2 mana short of for his killing combo, he would still be able to clear the board and put Powder at 6, or 4 should a life tap happen on turn 7. With the board now clear, Zalae would be very likely to have an extra turn to finish Powder off, and he would have the cards on hand for it.

While neither Argus or Voidwalker are present of Powder’s hand, the Fnatic player will actually draw the Voidwalker next turn. Thanks to Zalae’s foresight of going face on turn 5, using the Backstab on turn 6, and saving the Preparation + Sap combo on turn 7, he was able to keep Powder exactly 3 damage off lethal, and next turn had just enough on his hand to take the game with my HPL play of the week, which you can watch below, courtesy of PVPLive’s YouTube channel.

Play of the Week

Don’t agree on my play selection? Have another play that you think is worth breaking down? Let me know all about it using the comment section below.