CD PROJEKT RED, creators of The Witcher series of games, announce that Frederick “Freddybabes” Bird has won the December 2017 GWENT Challenger tournament, which took place this weekend in Moszna castle, Poland.
Fighting for their share of the $100,000 prize pool were 8 of the best players of GWENT Masters — the official esports series of GWENT: The Witcher Card Game. The tournament’s winner also claimed the December 2017 GWENT Challenger winner’s ring and right to compete in the grand finale of GWENT Masters — the 2019 GWENT World Masters.
The venue for the tournament was the beautiful Moszna castle in Poland. For the duration of the tournament, the castle transformed into a royal Nilfgaardian stronghold, populated by many fan-favorite characters from the world of The Witcher, including Emperor Emhyr var Emreis himself.
Quarterfinal matches took place on Saturday, December 16th. Two of them ended in complete 3:0 shutouts, with GWENT’s top Pro Ladder players Andrzej “Adzikov” Bal and Raffael “GameKingAT” Iciren eliminated from the tournament. Only Elias “Shaggy” Sagmeister and Magnus “J0rah” Botscher managed to take a single game off their opponent’s quarterfinal track record.
Sunday’s first semifinal match saw November GWENT Open finalist Damian “TailBot” Kaźmierczak go up against Wild Card player Benjamin “Kolemoen” Pfannstiel. The match ended with a close call 3:2 win for Pfannstiel. However, it was the second semifinal between November GWENT Open winner Frederick “Freddybabes” Bird and previous GWENT Challenger champion Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy that turned out to the the real shocker, with Bird managing to pull off a 3:0 win against one of the best card players in the world.
What followed was a fierce final match between Benjamin “Kolemoen” Pfannstiel and Frederick “Freddybabes” Bird. The winning play came from Bird, who’s expert passing game in a series of mirror matches allowed him to defeat Pfannsiel 3:0 and take home the ring, as well as the title of the December 2017 GWENT Challenger winner.
The tournament’s final standings are as follows:
FINALISTS
Frederick “Freddybabes” Bird (United Kingdom) — TOURNAMENT WINNER — $68,750
Benjamin “Kolemoen” Pfannstiel (Germany) — $14,000
SEMIFINALISTS
Damian “TailBot” Kaźmierczak (Poland) — $9,750
Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy (Germany) — $5,000
QUARTERFINALISTS
Elias “Shaggy” Sagmeister (Austria) — $1,250
Magnus “J0rah” Botscher (Germany) — $1,250
Raffael “GameKingAT” Iciren (Austria) — no share in pool
Andrzej “Adzikov” Bal (Poland) — no share in pool
The tournament is available to watch on the official CD PROJEKT RED Twitch channel.
CD PROJEKT RED would like to thank the December 2017 GWENT Challenger participants for their amazing performances, as well as everyone watching the tournament online. Coming up next for GWENT’s official esports series is the January 2018 GWENT Open. For the complete overview of GWENT Masters, including the rules, tournament dates and format, visit masters.playgwent.com.