The first day of the Hearthstone Championship Tour (HCT) World Championship took place yesterday, starting off the action in Amsterdam, and it was Group A who kicked off the action, as Spring Champion Hoej faced Docpwn, the latter clinching a victory in the fifth match to make it a poor start for Hoej.
Things got worse for Hoej as he faced Orange later on, losing 3-0 this time after a convincing performance by Orange, who had fallen previously to tom60229. This set up a match between Docpwn and tom60229, a tense affair in which Docpwn managed to clinch victory and seal a 2-0 record for himself.
Group B, however, started with Muzzy facing JasonZhou, with the former fighting back from near death at times to get his own 3-1 win of the day. When Kolento and SamuelTsao faced off after that, this was pushed to a fifth game to entertain the crowd, and the tense back and forth ended with a win for SamuelTsao, who followed that up with a win over Muzzy to top the group. Kolento and JasonZhou's elimination match was another tense one, but Kolento's confident opening was counter by JasonZhou, who took home the victory.
With Hoej and Kolento already eliminated, things have gotten very real in Amsterdam. You can watch our round-up of the first day, as well as an introduction to the second, down below. What has surprised you so far?