In its inaugural year, the Boise State Hearthstone team qualified from the round of 16 playoffs to the final eight teams in the collegiate Hearthstone tournament hosted by TESPA, the tournament body for Blizzard. After being ranked 1st in the nation for the latter half of the regular season, the team failed to win the varsity conference title, which went to rival University Utah. However, the postseason qualifying tournament was a different story. Russell “Onionrings22” Leinenger, Augustin “ForTheHorde” Cheeley, and Jonathan “Bawrkers” Demaree brought a clever approach with deck composition to ensure they would win in the qualifying tournament. They will face Stanford University in the opening bracket in a best of 11 series with the chance to advance to the semi finals and the finals.
