**FINALS TONIGHT (8/2)** HS Scrub League Tournament

*** 7/26 - FINAL SCHEDULE SET ***

Right now @starvinggamer and @sir_gunblade are doing the losers final off stream. Following their matchup, it will be me vs the winner in a best of 5. Feel free to come hang out on my twitch channel and watch me get my ass kicked. www.twitch.tv/c0v3rt

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It's been two months in the making, but The Inaugural GiantBomb Hearthstone Scrub League Tournament is coming to a close. After all the BM and emoting - we are down to 4. Today is the penultimate step towards the finals as I will face-off against the man, the myth, the legend... sir_gunblade in the would-have-been-grand-finals-if-we-didnt-change-it-to-double-elimination round. Meanwhile GiantBomb community staple StarvingGamer squares off against the the hooker with a heart of gold, Chim21 in a fight to stay alive.

Here's the schedule for the rest of the tournament. Times are tenative. I'll be broadcasting my game on a 10 minute delay in addition to posting the VOD. If anyone else is broadcasting, I'll make sure to share their twitch info as well.

7/26 - 7:00 PM Central

1) C0V3RT vs sir_gunblade (immediately followed by...)

2) StarvingGamer vs Chim21

8/2 - Time TBD

3) L1 vs W2

4) W3 vs W1

5) W4 vs L4 (if needed)

C0V3RT Stream - twitch.tv/c0v3rt

Chim21 Stream - www.twitch.tv/thechim21

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Ladies and gentlemen, prepare your bodies for the first ever VinnCo Industries Presents: The Inaugural Official Giant Bomb Hearthstone Scrub League Tournament! Over the upcoming weeks, 43 competitors from all around the world compete to determine who is the least awful at Hearthstone.

Bracket on Challonge: http://challonge.com/xn985xno

Schedule

Round 1: June 1 - June 4

Round 2: June 5 - June 9

Round 3: June 9 - June 13

Quarterfinals: June 14 - June 18

Semifinals: June 19 - June 23

Finals: June 24 - June 28

Rules

- King of Hill format

- Best of 3 for rounds 1, 2, 3, and quarterfinals

- Best of 5 for the semifinals and finals

- Winner reports results to me via PM (please provide the match score)

- Full list of rules can be found in the sign-up thread.

Example of How Matches Work

Player A: Priest, Warrior, Druid // Player B: Rogue, Shaman, Warlock

- Each match is best of 3 games (except the semifinals and finals)

- For the first game, each player will select a deck from the pool of three they submitted upon registration. They do not have to play the decks in the order they are listed.

- Player A chooses to play Druid, Player B chooses to play Warlock

- Player A wins, and must play their same Druid deck again in game 2. Player B chooses between the Rogue or Shaman deck. If player B loses again, they are eliminated.

- Player B chooses Rogue and wins game 2. This sets up a winner take all game 3. Player B must play their same Rogue deck, Player A chooses from their unused Priest or Warrior deck.

- Player A foolishly chooses the underpowered Priest and loses to Player B's Rogue again. Player A is eliminated and Player B advances.

- At no point between games or matches to the tournament can you modify your deck. This is to avoid hard countering. I can't enforce it since there is no spectator mode, so just don't do it.

Misc

- BNet ID's and classes can be found here.

- This is just for fun, so don't be a jerk.

- Starting a match with the "Threaten" emote is the equivalent of saying "Good Luck, Have Batman."

- Don't switch up your decks between matches.

- Please use this thread for scheduling. In the event your game doesn't get played, I will award the match to whomever put in the most effort to getting their games played.

- Screenshots or video are completely optional, but may be used if someone both parties report a different result. In the event no one can provide proof, the match will have to be replayed.

- I have no problem facilitating the tournament, but want to moderate as little as possible, so be cool.

- If you have any questions or aren't clear on anything, please don't assume and just ask.

Number 1 in forum posts vs number 2 in forum posts in the second round! The horror...

Do we have an uneven number of players? Just confused at the bracket that some people play in round 1, while others it seems like got a bye into round 2?

@devise22: We do indeed have an uneven number of players. 43 to be exact. For everyone to play an even number of games, we'd need to have made the cutoff 32 or get 64 participants.

For a while I kicked around having the loser seed elsewhere into round 2, but there was no great way to do that either.

I honestly just printed off the table from the other thread, and drew names out of a mug. There were a few people I needed to make scheduling accommodations for, but it held no weight in terms of if they had a first round "bye" or not. My big thing was making sure everyone could at least get one game in.

@fredchuckdave: I will accept my loss gracefully

@c0v3rt: If we both have a bye for round 1, do you want us to wait until the 5th to start playing?

@starvinggamer: Nah, if you both want to get it knocked out, go for it.

Question is, how will our European players (myself included) coordinate this? @donmfjohnson I'll just add you on Battlenet and keep it running. Whenever you're online, we can get started as far as I'm concerned. We have 4 days, so should be more than possible.

@zevvion: He said he's in the +3GMT timezone, so you two were actually one of the arranged pools along with gkhan. Seeding was random. In the sign up thread, he indicated he wasn't playing on NA servers. This either meant he was really in NA and just playing on other servers, was in EU, or was in the Asia/Pacific/Australia region of the world. Either way, next round carries into next weekend so hopefully you can schedule time.

Also - for these first two rounds, once you know your opponent, feel free to contact them and try and schedule/play your game ahead of time. Scheduling may get a little dicey from round 3 on, but will have less people participating and can maybe play it by ear and be a little flexible with the dates. We'll just cross that bridge when we get there.

@c0v3rt:

This is my first tournament, so I want to make sure I understand the rules.

Say I am playing 3 decks: Priest, Warrior, Rogue. I choose Priest, and my opponent selects Paladin. His Paladin beats my Priest deck, then my Warrior deck, and then my Rogue deck.

We have now completed one round, and we do the whole thing again until someone has won best of 3 rounds?

And in subsequent rounds, we can play our decks in a different order if we choose?

Nope. The most games you'll play in any given match is 3 games (except when it goes best of 5). So in your scenario... you lead with Priest and your opponent leads with Paladin. Your opponent beats you so your opponent must play that same Paladin deck again, and you choose between Warrior or Rogue. If you loose again, you're eliminated. If you win, you play your same deck again and your opponent chooses one of their remaining decks in a winner take all, loser go home game 3.

If you advance into the next round, your pool of decks opens back up so you're free to play your Priest, Warrior, or Rogue again.

You don't have to play your decks in any particular order, the list everyone provided is a scouting report of sorts to help you base your decision on what you want to lead with. The only time you'll actually ever know for sure the deck someone is going to use is if they're the winner of one of the first two games.

Can we all agree that starting a match with the "Threaten" emote is the equivalent of saying "Good Luck, Have Batman"?

@BisonHero: Prepare your body...

I can play tomorrow around 2pm pst (-8)

It's been added to the rules.

@c0v3rt:

Oh wow, I wouldn't have guessed that from the initial rules description. Since this is a scrub league, you may want to post that up top to avoid chaos in some of the first-round matchups.

@electric_zen: Will do. I've added a section. Let me know if that clears things up.

@hurricaneivan29 said:

I definitely can't play any time tomorrow (the 31st). The evenings of Sunday (the 1st) or Tuesday (the 3rd) are probably best for me. Probably anytime between 5PM EST and 11PM EST.

If I find a spare moment on one of the other days to play Hearthstone, I'd probably only play for like 30 minutes to try to finish a daily quest, so I'm not even going to commit to a time on those days. But if you do see me on Bnet at any point, feel free to message me.

I'm excited! Spent an hour and a half last night putting the finishing touches on my decks. Good luck and Have Batman to you all!

@bisonhero: Tuesday evening works for me, the others I may be on but I'll be on shift at work and could be called away at any moment. Tuesday evening it is.

Actually I'm on shift tuesday evening as well but I'll have less chance of bein DC then.

PS... Where did the "have batman" thing come about, never heard it

@kidzombie We could get a jump on Round 2 - let me know what days and times work best.

I feel like I'm either gonna make a deep run in this thing or I'm gonna get swept round 1.

@ghostdini85: when would you like to knock out our match sir? I'm free all weekend except Sunday during the day.

@hurricaneivan29:

@ilikepopcans you sire or madam are going down also when would you like to play? I'm free basically all day Saturday after 9 am Pacific.

@mrmazz: Well, since we both are on a first round bye, we have until June 9. So it does not matter to me if we do it this or next weekend.

@ilikepopcans: o it would appear we do have that. Sure next weekend works figure out when round Friday?

@mrmazz: Fine by me.

@TheFeenMachine: I'm free just about anytime. We can have our match whenever it works for you.

@darkshaper: Hey dude. I won't really have free time until Monday, as I have some family in town until then. I'll Bnet add you over the weekend, and we can play sometime monday afternoon/evening, okay?

Shit's gonna get real now.

@adamwd Hey duder, I'm free just about any day of the week from 5 - 10 PM EST, if that doesn't work, I'm pretty flexible.

@TheFeenMachine: Works for me.

@devise22 Hello guy/gal. I'm good to do this Hearthstone stuff just about whenever so feel free to name a time you're open.

@veovisjohn Yo yo, we've got over a week to do this, but I'm around this weekend if you want to get to it. Afternoon (EST) works best for me, but I'll be around some nights too.

@greigwatt hello there fellow duder! I'll be free after 3 on sat and anytime on Sunday or after 7 Monday night pacific. Feel free to hit me back when whatever times work for you. Good luck everyone!

@busted1der: Just PMed you.

@electric_zen: That one is... fantastic.

@zevvion: Roger that, my weekend is free and I'll also keep my Battle.net open.

@l44 I PMed you. Let's do this!

@electric_zen: Fuck yeah, Klepek bracket! We're gonna smoke your fucking asses, non-Chicago barbarians!

I emerge victorious, Ironbark Protector saved my ass. Also added @gkhan on Battle.net.

Looking forward to it. I'm grateful that the next round is in a couple of days, because it gives me a little bit of time to build up my deck (usually play on European servers). See you June 5th!

Hey @chim21, we're up first! I'm free any time tomorrow after 5pm EST.

And representing my bracket...

Well, I'm out. @donmfjohnson is a cheater. He made like, tactically superior decisions and stuff. I thought we weren't allowed to do that?

@spunkyhepanda So looks like we both got a bye to the second round. I can do most evenings on the 5th-9th as well as daytime that Saturday and Sunday. I'm on West Coast time. Let me know what works for you.

Fuuuck, why did I learn of this only now.

@landonrobinson You good for tomorrow? I'm EST. Let me know what works for you.

@veovisjohn said:

Yeah, I should be around Thursday night and most of the weekend. Since we're not waiting on anyone though, there's no harm in getting our match done early if you want. I added you on Battle.net (Zorxy7) so it shouldn't be too hard to find a time.

@blargonaut hey buddy me and you are first round so i added you to my BNid, so i stated before that im a chef so i mainly work nights starting at 2:45pm im EST so any morning is good for me....i have the 3rd. and 4th. off so i can play those days as well just let me know whats up.