[crAzerk]

From the 6th-8th December, there was a Hearthstone promotional event at Bugis+ in Singapore.

There were booths which promoted MOLpoints (a form of online gaming currency), Microsoft's Surface Pro (one of the event sponsors), as well as gave out free Hearthstone beta keys.

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There were also regular Capitaland vouchers giveaways by the emcee, who asked random quiz questions such as "What is the Hunter's Hero Power?" and "Name another Blizzard game". He also played some games on the big screen, providing some basic commentary for new players.

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The highlight of the event though, was a 3 day long competition called 'Longest Streak Mechanics' (see Facebook post by Hearthstone SEA)

In the Longest Streak Mechanics, players are required to play against AI opponents, in sequence (from Normal Mage to Warlock, then Expert Mage to Warlock, etc), and establish the longest winning streak within an hour. The caveat is that they must use only the basic decks available, and not their own constructed decks.

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There were 8 separate time slots over the three days, and the player with the longest streak in each time slot got to qualify for the playoffs, where they would fight each other, with the eventual winner walking home with a Microsoft Surface Pro!

I personally went down on the first day to compete, but got knocked out on my 6th AI opponent (Rogue) with a horrible early draw of all spells (Mage). However, I went back on the last day, and managed to qualify with a 12 win streak, narrowly beating out a second placed 11 win streak. I think the overall highest streak was 15.

A side note: An analysis of the basic decks (List of basic decks) led me to conclude that the two most powerful races were Mage and Priest - Mage had solid removals (Polymorph & Fireball), good value minions (Taz'Dingo & Boulderfist Ogre), and are fairly consistent. Priest had great minions with abusable mechanics (Northshire Cleric & Gurubashi Berserker) and had a slightly better early draw than Mage. However, they lacked big minion removal. Thus I personally believe Mage is the strongest basic deck. This point was validated with at least half the qualified participants using Mage for their streaks, and Mage being used about 80% of the time in the playoffs.

The playoffs were Bo3 until the finals, which were Bo5. Same rules applied - only basic decks, and both players can change their decks after each game if they wanted.

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I won my first round against my friend with a easy 2-0 due to good draws (Mage > Priest, Mage > Mage), but lost in the semifinals to the eventual winner (?) (Mage > Priest, Mage < Mage, Mage < Mage)

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In the finals, ....

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Congratulations to ABC for winning a Microsoft Surface Pro and $100!


All in all, it was a fun relaxed event, and I thought the emcee did well to keep up the atmosphere and engage new players. Everything was quite well organized, with sufficient manpower staffing each station, especially the competition area. Kudos to Blizzard for a great event!