Liquid`Neirea Through to Prague Regionals

September 22 2015

The Road to Blizzcon may be long but Neirea is well on his way.


With a 4-0 run through the Winner's Bracket, Neirea becomes the first player to qualify for the Offline EU finals. Neirea looks to be in good shape for Blizzcon now since of the Top 8 players in Prague four will advance to the grand finals in California. This result for Neirea is extra sweet since he just missed getting two byes in this leg of the tournament.

In the final week to earn Hearthstone World Championship Points, Rdu jumped Neirea and bumped the Liquid player into ninth place on the standings. Having to play the first two rounds, however, did not prove to be too much of a hurdle as Neirea went 6-1 through those rounds. Those wins set up a rematch with an Rdu fresh off his byes. Neirea got the last laugh between the two of them with a 3-0 win from a strong game one and favorable matchups against Paladin.

With revenge against Rdu secured, Neirea was set for his win-and-in against Gera89. Neirea dropped game one but was able to fight back with Patron Warrior against Hybrid Hunter. Going into game three Neirea looked favored with Handlock-Druid against Hunter-Druid. Neirea took the crucial game three with Druid and was left with Handlock to seal the deal. Playing ultra-conservative with everything at stake was the line for Neirea. This plan literally burned him against Hunter as a top decked Kill Command finished off our hero with a Quick Shot. Against Druid, however, it was a different story.

Not shown is the 3-0 win against piterek2003 in Winner's round one.


Congrats for qualifying for the EU Regionals! You're one of very few people in the world to do so twice. What's your secret?

I was preparing a lot to have good matchups against the most popular lineups and didn't bring funky decks. I also wasted bad RNG in other tournaments so I had good one now.


Can you tell me a bit about your lineup? First let's talk about your archetypes -- Druid, Handlock, and Patron -- three archetypes that were very common in the qualifiers. Why those three and not say, Secret Paladin, Hunter, and Tempo Mage, which were also popular?



All of these decks can't be countered by an entire lineup and they all have solid winrates across the meta.

I chose Druid because it's currently the best deck in Conquest. Darnassus Aspirants gave Druid more consistency but, in my opinion, a second Aspirant gives too much ramp so often you get one as a topdeck that you didn't want to see.

My second choice was Patron. I feel very comfortable playing Patron overall and hit top 20 legend with it many times.

The third choice was the hardest one: I though about Handlock, Malylock, and Freeze Mage. After testing Freeze Mage against the most popular decks I gave up on this idea. Then considering everyone is playing Patron I cut Malylock, because Handlock does the same job better. I made my Handlock good in the mirror by playing an extra Shadowflame and Jaraxxus. Some would ask why not just add a second BGH? I think the Shadowflame instills more fear in my opponents who might play around it even when i don't have it.


What do you think about Tempo Mage, Hunter and Secret Paladin right now? Why didn't you consider those classes?

I don't think Secret Paladin is a good deck in form it is right now as I've said before. Secret Paladin feels like the old Mech Shaman. We saw a lot of Tempo Mages on NA to counter Druid but it's not even a perfect counter right now since Darnassus Aspirant can break Mirror Entities. Hunter can be strong, but since Druid got stronger and Patron is in every lineup, Hunter looses some points. Overall in the lineups of people who qualified for EU Championship there were seven Handlocks, seven Druids, and six Patrons.

That should tell you something.


Most NA players right now are playing Demon Handlock instead of straight Handlock. Why did you choose to run a more standard Handlock version?

Most EU players played Demonhandlock as well but I didn't have the practice with any Handlock recently so I chose to play the list I knew better.


Throughout your run who was your hardest opponent? Did you ever feel like you were in danger of losing a series?

I had a bad feeling going into the series against GosuForever. He had a lineup that my Patron could go 0-3 against: Druid, Control Warrior, Handlock. When I won with Patron against Druid I calmed down and won.

I was very nervous in the series against Gera89. I made a couple of mistakes by playing too safe in situations where I shouldn't have and it cost me game four with Handlock against Hunter.


In your series against Gera89, the casters mentioned that you played extremely safe in both games four and five. In game five you were extremely ahead and seemed to be playing around double combo in the later stages of the game. Do you think you would have played differently in the final game if it were a less important game? Or do think the way you played gave you a higher chance to win?

In last game I was so ahead -- and I knew he had combo in hand or very dead cards like Wild Growth -- that I didn't want to take a risk. I think in a less important game, I would play almost the same.


Gera89's awkward plays throughout the game implied a spell heavy hand. With Top 8 on the line, Neirea played ultra safe around double combo before finally winning from this board position.


In the final ladder rankings, Rdu barely passed you for eighth place and put you in ninth. This forced you to play two additional matches in order to get to the Round of 16. Did it feel especially good to defeat him?

I felt good in exactly the same way after every win. I'm not looking at names when I'm playing.


"He's just another target" - Alleria 2015

Looking at the final eight players who qualified for the EU regional, who would you say you're most looking forward to facing? And who would you most like to avoid?

I like playing against top players because people can see the actual skill in the game. Since everyone is playing same decks and almost equally skilled I'm not sure. This time EU Championship lineup is very stacked. I would dare to say that someone from the EU regional will win BlizzCon.


Alright, that's all I have for you today. Any final words or thoughts?

Hope you will enjoy my play in Prague!


Introduction: Hayl
Interview: monk
Graphics: Blizzard