I sat down to interview Jökull ‘Kaldi’ Johannsson, winner of the MLG Hearthstone ‘EU ManaGrind Open 11 Tournament’. Read what he had to say about his win below..
So, you’ve just won the MLG Hearthstone EU ManaGrind Open 11 Tournament, congratulations again, how tough did you find it to win it all?
Thanks! I would describe the experience as very draining, the tournament started at 4pm and was over at Midnight, so I was very tired when it was over.
Blimey, a bit of a marathon session then! Is there a particular match or opponent that was the toughest?
Yes definitely, I played a guy called ‘Airbrushed’ in round of 16, we both played the Druid deck and it ended with an extremely close game 3 in the Bo3.
Leading on from that then, after winning that match against Airbrushed, did you feel you could go on and win the whole thing? Or was that how you felt regardless of the Airbrushed match?
My thinking after the match vs ‘Airbrushed’ was that it would be cool to make it one round further, because then my deck would be featured. I didn’t even think about the possiblity of winning the event until the finals.
So back-tracking a bit, what about Hearthstone made you want to play it competitively?
I never decided to play it proper-competitvely really, it was and still is just a hobby. It’s something to play when I’m not in the mood for Starcraft, but Starcraft remains 100% my priority.
So finally and hypothetically, for a bit of fun, if you could combine two different Hearthstone decks to create a ‘Super Deck’, so to speak, what would those be and why?
I would have to go with Druid and Warrior. Giving all those big end-game minions Charge would be truly devastating.
Before we close out the interview, do you have any shoutouts?
Yea, shoutout to Stephen and the guys who went to i50, it was great to meet all of you. Also shoutout to the sponsors, Steelseries, Mobafire, IT rentals, Esports Clothing and Duality media.
So thanks for talking to me today Kaldi, I enjoyed talking to you & wish you all the success in the future. Who knows, if & when you retire from Starcraft, perhaps Hearthstone could be your next main game!
Thanks man, was a pleasure!
