BlizzCon 2018 was as good as fans had hoped

Blizzard
November 6, 2018
Mel Hawthorne

It’s over – the biggest event of the year for fans of any of Blizzard’s games and esports tournaments. Over 40.000 gamers gathered in person (and even more of them took part online) to celebrate all that is great about Blizzard’s games. There were panels, events, tournaments and plenty of new announcements as well – in Overwatch, for example a new character was announced!

One of the most important aspects though, was of course the many, many finals of the different esports that Blizzard has created over the years. The results are in, the wait is over, we have several new (and old) world champions.

blizzcon-2018-outside-crowd

© Blizzard Entertainment

In the much anticipated StarCraft 2 World Championship Series Global Finals, Joona ‘Serral’ Sotala took first place. The first ever non-Korean to win a global final in the franchises 20 years of history. He defeated South Korean Kim ‘Stats’ Dae Yeob 4-2 in a best of seven matches.

In the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship Finals, the winning team was Gen. G. They took the title in a 4-3 match over Team Dignitas during the mid-season brawl and managed to repeat their victory here. The Korean Gen.G ended up winning 3-0 in a blowout victory – making them the first back-to-back winners at the HGC World Championship.

The World of Warcraft Arena World Championship was won by Method Orange – North American squad Method Orange won 4-0 against another American team called The Gosu Crew. This win was particularly special for Charles ‘cdew’ Dewland who played his first BlizzCon in 2014 and only very recently became a father! Congrats, Charles.

blizzcon-2018-crowd-world-of-warcraft

© Blizzard Entertainment

The World of Warcraft Mythic Dungeon Invitational All-Stars tournament was won by the team Free Marsy. The inaugural MDI Champions came back for an encore – and what an encore their win was – they died only twice across four maps!

The Overwatch World Cup was easily one of the most anticipated events of the esports season, and the winning nation was, as expected, South Korea. The favoured team won, dispatching China 4-0 in a gold-medal match. South Korea’s Seong-Hyun ‘Jjonak’ Bang was even named MVP after racking up more kills than any other support player during the tournament! In the bronze-medal match, Canada managed to beat the UK.

Hearthstone was almost as popular as Overwatch (okay, not quite, but it WAS popular!) and the HGC were won by China. Out of the 48 teams that set out to win, China managed a clear 3-0 win in the finals against Brazil. The players were very proud – for many, it was their first trophy at a global tournament in the game, thus proving their epic skills!

StarCraft: Remastered had a show match between the Korean StarCraft League (KSL) and the Afreeca Starleague (ASL). Two players were invited to battle it out in a best-of-five series at BlizzCon. In a 3-1 victory, Jung ‘Rain’ Yoon secured his first ever trophy at BlizzCon.

Congratulations to all the winners and finalists – it was an epic year for Blizzard’s esports!

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