CupCake: "I brought a Handlock which beats Miracle Rogue quite consistently"

Can you introduce a bit about yourself to your new Hearthstone fans?

I'm Thomas Glinski, also known as CupCake in Hearthstone and ThomasG back in my Warcraft 3 days. I just recently joined Copenhagen Wolves and qualified for the phase 2 of the RoadToBlizzcon tournament. In real life, I have a masters degree in mathematics, specializing in cryptography, and am now working full time as an IT consultant for IBM while living with my girlfriend in the southern part of Copenhagen.

Oh wow, congrats. When we talked about teams a few days ago, you had joked about joining CW. I'm happy for you that you finally did. Can you link to the announcement?

Here you go! Announcement Link.

How are you liking CW so far and have you met and gotten to know all your teammates yet?

I've already been in CW once before when I played Starcraft II, so I already know the organization and the people behind it quite well. As for the players, I have mainly been talking with DuckWingFACE, our other strong Danish player, and hes both a great guy and an excellent player. As for the american part of our roster, I am looking forward to getting to know them better in the following weeks.

Wow, I was a big fan of WC3, but even I had forgotten that you were on CW. Can you talk a bit about your WC3 career? You know, I hear some people call you the Grubby of Denmark.

Sure - in the early days of my wc3 career I focused a lot on 2v2, and Rosenkill and I became a semi-famous 2v2 team. However, as 1v1 was way more competitive, I took up that challenge. I was quite long standing in the shadows of Ciara who was the best danish player for a long time, but the last few years I played I had some success myself, which led to winning SEC (Samsung European Championship) in Poland, getting a 3rd place at the IeSF finals in Korea and consistently competing in WCG and other LAN events around the world.

Many people do not know it, but back when ReMinD won WCG in Los Angeles, and the Korean commentators cried out of happiness, I had played him and th000 in the groupstage and only after two 3-way ties and one piece of determining RNG (an arrow missing due to Demon hunters evasion), was he able to make it out of the group finally, and ended up winning the whole thing.

Haha, I've never heard it being called RNG in WC3. Out of those accomplishments, which would you say is the one you're most proud of?

Skill-wise I would say that I played my best tournament at WCG Los Angeles, but result-wise, winning is the only thing that really matters, so I am the most proud of my first international lan tournament win which was SEC 2010. I am also proud of once winning, and multiple times entering the podium, with the Danish national team in the European Championships hosted by ESL in Germany. We had some great trips there. WC3 has given me so many memories I will never forget. (And I never called it RNG in WC3 either, but might as well use the Hearthstone terms... )

You must have developed a lot of friendships back in Warcraft 3 and Starcraft II. Have any of them carried all the way to Hearthstone?

I met my girlfriend kinda through WC3 and she is playing some Hearthstone now so that would be the best example... Except for that, I would say not much, mainly since a lot of them aren't playing hearthstone at all. I am regularly speaking with a few old Danish WC3 players in hearthstone, but while most people transitioned from WC3 to SC2, way fewer people make the transition from SC2 to Hearthstone. Probably due to the completely different nature of the game. For me though, getting older and slower (but wiser?), it has been the perfect change of pace. I hope to meet a few old friends at DreamHack though

A lot of people like to talk about poker skills or starcraft II skills transfering to Hearthstone. Warcraft III was kind of like a mix between the two, offering an RTS with perhaps more RNG. Would you say there's any important skills you learned in WC3 that helped you along in Hearthstone?

I don't think that playing particularly Warcraft 3 has helped me. What mainly helped me, has been playing a game on a high level before. In that sense there are many aspects which transfer - I know the level of determination it takes, I have a feeling for which plays to make and which not, and I have a lot of tournament experience which helps me keep my cool, even when things aren't going my way. I think the only players who come in with a real edge in Hearthstone are the ones who used to play Magic or similar cardgames, but anyone with a competitive background in eSports will also have a bigger chance at making it in Hearthstone; despite which game they played.

You know, I've talked to Strifecro and Axslav before about being kind of specialty 2v2 players in WarCraft. What additional skills do you think it takes to be a 2v2 player in that game compared to 1v1. Bonus Question: Will you pull Rosenkill out of retirement if Hearthstone 2v2 is announced?

Honestly I think it takes less in-game skill to do well in 2v2 than in 1v1 due to the much more competitive environment in 1v1. What you do need though, and what most 2v2 teams didn't have, is a thorough understanding of your teammate and great communication skills. You need to know what your teammate does in a fight without him even having to tell you - there is no time for that. You need to realize that everyone makes mistakes, and not let it get to you when your teammate fucks up right in the beginning of a game. So there are some other skills involved, but once you got that going, it is a lot more forgiving, and for me, not as exciting, to play 2v2 compared to 1v1.

Haha, about the bonus question, I don't even know how 2v2 in Hearthstone could work properly, but honestly I haven't spoken with Rosenkill for years, and I'm sure I'd team up with my girlfriend and you'd see us at Blizzcon next year

You know I hear Grubby and Casandra are big fans of Hearthstone and they even played together in one of our TLOpens. Would you be up for a showmatch if this happened?

Haha hell yeah! I used to practice with Grubby a lot and both my girlfriend and I have traveled with them multiple times to tournaments. Haven't spoken much for a while, but I'd gladly reunite and show them how Hearthstone should be played

Now enough about Warcraft III, let's talk about Hearthstone! How did you prepare for this tournament and how did you end up with your three decks?

My decks are all modified versions of some decks I've been using for a long time. They are simply tweaked to fit the current metagame. I think when playing a tournament, you have to take very much into consideration which decks your opponents are gonna be playing and not just choose whatever you think is best. For this tournament I knew that almost every opponent would bring Hunter, but that also means that a lot of players are bringing anti-Hunter decks.

Basically I decided to bring three decks which are all somewhat favored against most anti-hunter decks (such as control Warrior), and hoped that at least one of them would beat my opponents actual Hunter deck. The Paladin was tweaked so that it was particularly good against Hunter, so my main strategy was to beat their Hunter with that, and then either of the other decks could clean up the rest. It worked out okay, but in hindsight it would have been beneficial to bring a Hunter deck myself. If the tournament would have been after the patch, I think I would have had a much easier run, but it ended up being quite nerve wracking, and I got a lot of strong opponents on the way.

Yea, you were actually the only player not to bring either a Hunter or a Miracle deck out of the top 14. You said you regretted not playing Hunter. Looking back at it, do you also regret not playing Miracle Rogue?

Not really, I think Miracle Rogue has been one of the most consistent decks for a long time, but it has decreased somewhat in strength after Naxxramas. Furthermore, I brought a Handlock which beats Miracle Rogue quite consistently, so my opponents who did bring Miracle Rogue usually had to use it just to counter the Paladin and then get smashed by Handlock. I don't mind that trade, as I mainly brought the Paladin to beat Hunters.

Something I noticed in your Shaman deck is that you ran 2 Argent Squire and 1 Gadgetzan Auctioneer. These were cards frequently used pre-Naxx, but they've since dropped in popularity. Can you explain why you've decided to bring them back?

I don't wanna go in complete detail here since it reveals my way of thinking about the game, but basically I found that the squires were more consistent in the current meta than for example undertakers which some people run in Shaman, or even eggs, which I personally don't find to be very good in Shaman decks at all. As for Gadgetzan Auctioneer, I personally think it is one of the best cards in the game, and he helped keeping my hand a bit more full while playing a deck which had many low drops (both squires and spiders).

In your Paladin deck, you said you had wanted to counter Hunters. Did you consider Zombie Chow for that purpose?

I have considered Zombie Chow's in that deck and yeah, it does make it even better against hunter. However, I felt that it was consistent enough against Hunter, I really only lost if they had an insane hand. In the whole tournament, I think the deck went something like 5-1 against Hunter which is very good, and the game I lost with it vs Amaz who had insane draws, I wouldn't have won with chows anyway. I feel like once you get to a certain winrate there is no need to strengthen it further in that matchup - it would make the deck a lot weaker in control matchups.

With your particular Paladin deck, how does a typical Paladin vs Hunter game play out? What are the key cards in your deck that make the matchup so good?

Basically there are lots of taunts, lots of heal and lots of potential to play the game with 1 minion on the board at a time. You have answers to Savannah Highmane through Aldor Peacekeeper and Humility, and you have both Wild Pyromancer and Consecrate to help clean up after an Unleash the Hounds, in case he gets a good one, which is rare. If you have no 3-drops in your hand at all it can get hard, or if your opponent starts with double Undertaker into 3 deathrattle creatures by turn 3 or something its quite impossible. But that is impossible to deal with for any deck. The Paladin deck has something like 30 points of healing in it, so you don't have to be so scared to take some damage. Believe it or not - I won 2 games vs Hunter in the tournament simply by fatiguing them

Out of the 9 opponents you had in the entire tournament, who was the hardest and vs whom did you have your most exciting games?

The most exciting games of hearthstone was probably my match against Frezzar when I had a 5-1 score, which meant that I would qualify if I beat him. I was up 2-1 and prayed that his last deck wasn't Hunter since my Paladin was already gone. It was Hunter though, and in my last match against him with Shaman, I was 1 damage off lethal but topdecked Earthshock two turns in a row.

I ended up losing the series and had to get some fresh air before playing my next games against Amaz and FaKe. Luckily they both turned out well and I managed to qualify

I also had some good games vs Lifecoach where I really thought very hard about almost every move I made. He is a very intelligent player and brings the opponent into many inconvenient situations by carefully thinking about all the cards I could have.

My hardest match I guess you could say was vs Thefishou since he 3-0'ed me with zoo. I had put my trust in my Handlock deck to beat any zoo opponent - and I think it should - but after one misplay from me and some very good draws from him I saw my Handlock defeated, and the other two decks aren't very good against zoo. Overall I think I had lots of very exciting games in the tournament though, and the series against Thefishou was probably the least exciting one for me

And finally, can you rank the top 5 scariest players for you at the EU LAN finals?

Honestly I dont think anyone is very particularly scary - most of the players are roughly on the same level of play. If anyone, I think that Kolento, Lifecoach and possibly Neirea are a bit above the rest, but that might be just as much due to my lack of knowledge about many of the qualified players. Most of all I am just really looking forward to the event, and I think that any player there has a decent show at making it to BlizzCon.

Thanks for the interview, Cupcake! Do you have any final shoutouts or plugs?

Thanks! Yeah I'd like to thank my girlfriend for supporting me for the tournament - we had some other vacation plans in mind which we cancelled to go to Stockholm together instead, and I am glad she is supporting that, as I think it will be a blast.

Then I want to thank Copenhagen Wolves for picking me up, I'm sure it will be a great cooperation - and finally, of course go follow me on Facebook, it has been a bit inactive as of late but I will start posting updates there again. Perhaps even some streaming will be announced some time after Stockholm?

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