Pinoy wins Hearthstone championship at WESG 2016

A Filipino won the “Hearthstone” championship at the recent World Electronic Sports Games (WESG) 2016.

In the Grand Final, Euneil “Staz” Javinas defeated Team Alliance’s Jon “Orange” Westberg from Sweden with a score of 4:3. As champion, he took home US $150,000 (around PHP 7.5 million!), purportedly the biggest cash prize ever won by a single Filipino eSports athlete.

Staz was also awarded a trophy weighing a whopping 25kg.

“WESG is the best,” Staz told Mineski. “I am having a wonderful time here at Changzhou, China.”

As first runner-up, Orange won US $70,000. In third and fourth place, Bunnyhoppor and Xixo received US $40,000 and US $20,000 respectively.

Staz is a full-time “Hearthstone” player. He first appeared on people’s radars early last year, after qualifying to represent the Southeast Asian region at the Hearthstone Championship Tour (HCT) Winter Championship 2016, which was held in the US. He was victorious in the next Southeast Asian seed, which would have seen him participating in the HCT Spring Championship. Unfortunately, issues with his visa prevented him from attending said event.

International eSports tourney WESG was organized by AliSports and hosted by Alipay. The Grand Final took place at Changzhou, China, from January 12 to 15. Over 60,000 players participated at the event.

The Filipino team TNC Pro Team also won the Defense of the Ancients (Dota) 2 championship at WESG 2016. They took home US $800,000, which is approximately PHP 40 million. — TJD, GMA News