tom60229 becomes the new Hearthstone World Champion

The Hearthstone Championship Tour is over and we have a new champion - Chen Wei Lin from Taiwan (also known as "tom60229") managed to come back from a 0-2 deficit and defeat his rival, Frank Zhang from the US ("Fr0zen") after the breath-taking and nail-biting series of matches filled with awe, excitement and spectacular moves played on both sides.

Although some people claim that Hearthstone has become a "stale game", the number of viewers and the general interest that was sparked by the latest event in Amsterdam have both clearly shown the opposite - Blizzard's card game is on the rise and it is just as fun to watch top players battling against each other as it is fun to play yourself.

The first duel between these two rivals already showcased that we are in for a real spectacle. Fr0zen scored the first victory even though the odds were looking very rough at one point as his mage was left with just a single health point and any Ultimate Infestation played by his rival was enough to end him. However, that is when (some may say lucky) Arcane Articifer jumped to the rescue, allowing Fr0zen to cast Flamestrike and gain 7 armor. That is when he moved out of the "danger zone" and that boost was enough to secure his victory in the following minutes.

Fr0zen won yet another match and with a very promising 2-0 lead, it seemed like he is holding the trophy already. But, that is when tom60229 rose up like a phoenix, he won 2 matches in a row and equaled the overall score to 2-2. Everything was reset and tom60229 was back with style which promised a thrilling ending to the final series. The very last match was a pure druid battle. Malfurion the Pestilent was the deck used by Fr0zen while tom60229 pulled out Fandral Staghelm along with Jade idols. It was exactly this smart micro-management of Jade Golems that brought him the final victory and the World Champion title as well.

tom60229 won the prize of $225 000 while the second-placed Fr0zen got $150 000. A grand total of $ 1 000 000 was given to all 16 competitors of this year's Hearthstone World Championship.

Although this year's Championship is over, we already look forward to the next one. The next World Championship will see some changes when it comes to the card rotation. The competitors will be fighting under a modified Standard rotation and the cards will come from Whispers of the Old Gods, One Night in Karazhan as well as Mean Streets of Gadgetzan. In addition to that, the matches will be played in "Wild" mode. The Championship Tour will also be changed, as it was announced earlier.

Congratulations to the winner(s) and see you next year, folks!