Article by: Hamboy
This week’s edition of Tuesday Night Hype featured another great crop of pros looking to fight through a field of tough opponents for their shot at HCT points for the coming season. Winter Championships are coming on the horizon, and hype for the next season is growing quickly, with players looking for a chance to experience what pros like Chakki and Nostam were lucky enough to achieve this past season. Veterans such as Hotform, Crimzig, and Powder looked to fight their way through the 256 man cup to get one step closer to the Spring Championships. Despite the best efforts of some of Hearthstone’s more familiar faces, a rather top heavy bracket led to a top 4 with quite a few relative unknowns. Crimzig was the closest of the aforementioned pros, falling in the top 8 to TNH regular Thekamsh. Joining Thekamsh in the top 4 were Damon, Pineapple, and Bama, all somewhat fresh faces in the hearthstone scene.
Looking to make a name for themselves, Pineapple and Bama faced off in the first semifinal. Pineapple would bring his Aggro Druid, Face Hunter, and Patron Warrior to face off against the Tempo Mage, Secret Pally, and Zoolock of Bama. 
Pineapple took his fastest deck and used it to get off to a fast start, grabbing a quick 1-0 lead with a win over Bama’s Tempo Mage. He then ran out his slightly less face oriented Patron Warrior and beat Bama’s mage again. Avoiding being swept however, Bama managed to find a win with his Mage over the Aggro Druid, and attempted to start the reverse sweep. In another speedy game however, the Aggro Druid of Pineapple would not be denied. On the back of an early Fel Reaver, Pineapple was able to win the game and the set, and become the first fruit to ever participate in a TNH final.
Fresh off of his Win over Crimzig, Thekamsh looked to bring his rather slow Renolock, Control Warrior, Freeze lineup and find a spot in the finals over the Combo Renolock, Patron, and Secret Pally of Damon. Thekamsh took the lead in game one, winning after a rather interesting use of combo by Damon. 
He was then able to queue his Control Warrior into a favored matchup in Damon’s patron. Despite this, Damon was still able to even the series thanks to some quality Patron play. Cornering the Control Warrior of Thekamsh, Damon took another win off it with his Secret Paladin. Thekamsh was able to get a win by switching to his freeze mage, taking a second win over Damon’s Renolock. With both players now forced on to their 0-2 decks, Damon was able to come out the victor, finally piloting his Renolock to a win and securing himself a spot in the finals to play Pineapple.
With that the Finals were set, the Druid, Combo Renolock, and Secret Pally of Damon up against the Zoo, Face Hunter, and Aggro Druid of Pineapple. With the fast decks of Pineapple, the series looked to be a quick one, and Damon took a very quick turn seven win with his Secret Paladin over Face Hunter after some tense secret navigation. Pineapple then ran his Face hunter out again in game 2, and once again was unable to find a win despite getting Damon all the way down to two health before he was able to Alex himself. Looking now just to avoid the sweep Pineapple played his zoo into a slightly favored matchup against Damon’s Druid, but was once again unable to find a win, and Damon found himself the TNH 64 champion on the back of a 3-0 sweep.