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Ohio State defeats UC Santa Barbara to win the 3rd TeSPA Collegiate Hearthstone Championship

With a $100,000 scholarship on the line, Ohio State was able to overcome a very game UC Santa Barbara to take the first of the TeSPA Collegiate Hearthstone Championship tournaments to be held with a team format.

Ozzie Mejia

January 31, 2016 4:38 PM

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The 3rd annual TeSPA Collegiate Hearthstone Championship is officially in the books. The college tournament kicked off back in September and the final rounds were held during this weekend's event over at PAX South. This was the first time the team format was used and it led to some intense matches, albeit with a slightly slower pace than normal.

The final four for this year's tournament was UC Santa Barbara, Laval University, University of Texas - Arlington, and Ohio State University. The final match came down to UC Santa Barbara and Ohio State, with both teams able to push it to a fifth an deciding round. In the end, THE Ohio State University and their Mage was able to take advantage of some iffy Druid play from the UC Santa Barbara team to come out on top. Don't leave that Flamewaker alive, fellas!

What are the other big takeaways from today's action? Well, Ohio State was able to prove that some of the meta's most powerful decks (Secret Paladin and Ramp Druid) are entirely beatable, thanks to some solid strategy and the luck of the draw. The much-maligned Mysterious Challenger, in particular, stood no chance against a strong combination of Flamewaker, Ragnaros the Firelord, and the Arcane Missiles spell. Even though Tirion Fordring was able to bail UCSB out on the next turn, Secret Paladin looked quite vulnerable in this game.

As the winning team, the Ohio State University kids have won a $100,000 scholarship, which should come in handy, since all three team members are first-year freshmen. Catch the full final day of action in the video below.

Watch live video from Twitch on www.twitch.tv

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?