Red Bull Team Brawl concludes with fan favorites on top

Apr 16, 2017

It was a Twitch fans' optimal outcome as DisguisedToast, Brian Kibler and Cydonia won the Red Bull Team Brawl this weekend through a series of meme-worthy moments, RNG fiascos, and next level Hearthstone. The team immediately became fan favorites throughout the event, with their tendency to “draw last” and their colorful team comms, including a very important debate regarding the cuteness of a certain cat.

The tournament format was a follows:

“The $10,500 Team Brawl is played in a 3v3 Team Sealed Best of 5 Conquest format. Prior to the tournament, each team opens 60 Hearthstone packs from the current Standard rotation (Classic, Whispers of the Old Gods, One Night in Karazhan, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, and Journey to Un'Goro).

From there, teams must create 3 decks within the 300 cards with each card exclusively used. For example, if you open 3 copies of Chillwind Yeti, you can put 2 in one deck and 1 in another, or spread evenly 1 in each deck.”

The result was an entertaining look into the minds of some of Hearthstones greatest deck builders and limited format experts, including Andrey "reynad" Yanyuk, Jeffrey "TrumpSC" Shih, Rumay "Hafu" Wang and Paul "Zalae" Nemeth. In this sealed format, unlikely cards become format staples and traditional class archetypes were reshaped to fit the deck building restraint. For example, Giant Wasp (in addition to nearly every other card with Poisonous) was a huge playmaker throughout the tournament. This “not-quite-arena” meta led to a few surprises, including Hunter as one of the most consistent classes throughout the tournament.

All in all, the community reacted positively to the format and the broadcast’s emphasis each team’s vocal strategizing. The final moment of the tournament embedded below is just a sneak peek of the type of interesting decisions and predictions that pro-players use to find narrow ways to capitalize on what, on the surface, just looks like luck.