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Russia’s 18-year-old wunderkind Pavel becomes Hearthstone’s 2016 World Champion

Pavel HWC 2016

In a close-run finals at BlizzCon, Russian player Pavel Beltukov has become the 2016 Hearthstone World Champion after defeating Ukraine’s Artem ‘DrHippi’ Kravets 4-2.

For more breaking news from BlizzCon 2016, see the event hub here.

Pavel takes home the $250,000 top prize after fighting his way through the lower bracket of Group D last week, while his opponent (also a lower bracket survivor) pockets a not-insignificant $150,000 for his troubles.

The final best-of-seven was very much in Pavel’s favour as he lead 3-1 early on, but a late effort from DrHippi was not enough to stop Pavel’s Rogue deck after dropping a 10/10 Edwin VanCleef on turn five.

The all-EU final came about after Pavel defeated China’s remaining player Jason Zhou in the semis 4-2, as DrHippi managed the same against South Korea’s Kim “Che0nsu” Cheonsu to prevent the South-East Asian achieving a finals appearance in every eSport event held this weekend. Maybe with the exception of WoW.