LOYOLA GAMING’S (LG) Rafael “useSplash” Evangelista fell short against University of Santo Tomas Teletigers’ Enrico Lim, 1-3, in the ESports AcadArena’s (EAA) Alliance League: Hearthstone Open finals on September 19.
The EAA-hosted Hearthstone Open began on July 25 and followed a single elimination format. In the earlier rounds, Evangelista and 15 other competitors went toe-to-toe with each other in a best-of-three format, while the championship round featured a best-of-five match.
Analytical mastermind
Having spent years away from Hearthstone, Evangelista’s biggest apprehension coming into the tournament was having to stave off the rust. “[With] a game like Hearthstone, they release a lot of stuff, and if you don’t have the new stuff, you’re going to be at a disadvantage,” he shared. Thus, in preparation for the tournament, he had to hit the books and catch up on the meta.
The tournament required each contestant to register three decks, one of which would be banned by their opponent before the match. With this in mind, Evangelista made use of the tournament’s mechanics to further tip the scales in his favor. He set up a trap by baiting his opponents to take out the widely popular deck that he was not well-versed with to ensure that he was always left with decks that he was more comfortable with.
Evangelista’s strategy proved effective as the master tactician handily conquered his opponents in the first three rounds, with scores of 2-0, 2-1, and 2-0, respectively.
Impeding forces
Despite a strong first game that saw him take an early 1-0 lead, Evangelista’s momentum was halted in the championship round. The next three games were brutal for the LG representative, as Lim was consistently one step ahead of him. “[Lim] understood that I wouldn’t be able to recover that much health, so he hit my [hero] as much as he could to dwindle me down,” he shared. Unable to keep up with his adversary, Evangelista yielded to Lim in four matches.
Though unable to clinch the victory, Evangelista was still pleased with the outcome, as his run throughout the EAA Hearthstone Open was better than expected. “I was just happy that I got past the first round, [and] to my surprise, I made it all the way to the finals,” he said.
Looking forward, Evangelista hopes to branch out to other games as well, as this loss provided him with many learning points that made him a stronger and smarter esports player.
