And then there were eight. The long road to the Hearthstone World Championship has ended, with eight competitors surviving the grueling thinning-out process, facing tougher odds to survive than a character in a teen slasher movie.Jason Jasonzhou ZhouJasonzhous path to the final eight consisted of two close wins in Group A, considered the toughest bracket based on the names involved. Not only did he topple the favorite, Thijs Thijs Molendijk, in his first game, he also defeated the Americas Spring champion, Julien Cydonia Perrault to be the 2-0 advancee in the bracket.As a noted Control Warrior player, Jasonzhou certainly hasnt passed up bringing a Warrior deck, this time going with a heavy Dragon Warrior that includes Deathwing and The Curator. Also coming for the tourney is a fairly traditional Shaman build with Harrison Jones as a card-drawing tech choice, a possible indication that hes going to avoid banning Shaman in his games, using Harrison to deal with the troublesome Spirit Claw.Rounding out Jasonzhous lineup is a fairly traditional Miracle Rogue, Discolock with the Young Priestess choice, and a Malygos Druid that still retains the nerfed Yogg-Saron.Zhuo Hamster WangFacing off against Jasonzhou in the first round of the quarterfinals is Chinas Hamster, who survived the bottom of the bracket, knocking Hao Bbgungun Li out of the tournament in the final set of games last Sunday.Hamster made some unusual -- and for this analyst, exciting -- choices in the round of 16, playing the only Priest and Paladin decks of this stage of the tournament. Hamster is again bringing those decks, a Priest with two Doomsayers, hopefully drawn early to keep from falling too far behind in the initial turns, and the bursty Anyfin Paladin.Also coming along is a Ramp/Token Druid, not only eschewing Yogg-Saron that is no longer a must-include, but also not bringing Malygos, which has become a common feature in the standard Druid deck of the moment. While there are lots of spells and the Arcane Giants to go along with it, there are two Ancients of Wars, indicating the desire to build a very strong board as his win condition rather than the unavailable Malygos shenanigans.CThun Warrior and a standard Midrange Shaman deck finish up Hamsters lineup.William Amnesiac BartonDescribed fairly as a prodigy as one of the youngest top competitors in Hearthstone, 2016 was really Amnesiacs breakout year and he almost coasted his way through the final 16 with two fairly easy matchups.Amnesiacs going for the tried-and-true, but choosing to not bring a Warrior deck, going with Midrange Shaman, Malygos Druid, Tempo Mage, Midrange Hunter and Discolock. The Shaman deck included the tech choice of Kobold Geomancer, in order to have another early spell damage minion that can activate Spirit Claws. In Druid, theres Baron Geddon, who can decimate Shamans totems and stealthed Cat Trick minions.For Hunter, while Amnesiac is playing the Cloaked Huntress, its still more of a Midrange build, only going with the two Freezing Traps (Huntress is a 3/4 minion which is fine in itself). Stranglethorn Tiger is included, one of my favorite choices in Midrange Hunter builds, simply because its a terrific Kill Command activator in this meta and going against very few Doomsayers, is harder to remove on that first turn than the Savannah Highmane, in a lot of situations.Pavel Pavel BeltukovNot every player that makes a major mistake in a high-pressure game gets the opportunity to redeem themselves, but Pavel does. Eliminated in the European World Championship in 2015 and missing BlizzCon after a play order mistake that resulted in Adrian Lifecoach Koy stealing his Dr. Boom with a Sylvanas Windrunner, Pavels getting that second chance this year.Like Hamster, Pavels bringing a heavy CThun Warrior deck (as opposed to the lighter, cycle CThun that was played a few months ago). Gorehowl is in the build and two Brawls as well to deal with faster decks, so Pavels not likely to be banning Druid or Warrior.For Rogue, Pavels going with the Malygos Rogue, a Miracle-type deck that uses Thaurissan-reduced magic spells rather than Leeroy Jenkins for the final burst. Tempo Mage and the Yogg-Saron-and-Malygos themed Druid deck complete Pavels lineup.Kim Cheonsu CheonsuThe round of 16 was a tough-time for players of the Asia-Pacific region, with only Cheonsu advancing of the four participants (China is a separate region from Asia-Pacific in Hearthstone).Cheonsus five-deck slate consists of Discolock, Midrange Shaman, Dragon Warrior, Malygos Druid (no Yogg-Saron) and Tempo Mage. While the deck order is familiar, Cheonsus tinkered with some of his choices, with some interesting ideas like playing Demonfire in Discolock, a reach/board card that is almost never seen in tournament play. Gone from the round of 16 is his Secret Hunter, a powerful deck that can sometimes run out of steam after a big Secret turn.Julien Cydonia PerraultWhere other players have either cut Secret Hunter for Discolock or backed off the secrets package somewhat, Cydonias going all-in with his Hunter, going with the full slate of secrets. Cydonias Hunter is even going a little more aggressive, swapping out the Deadly Shot for an Argent Horserider, the latter common in more face-oriented builds.The rest of Cydonias lineup stays the same as the round of 16, and given that he had the second-best record in last weeks games, behind only Amnesiac, its hard to blame him for not tinkering with success.Edwin HotMEOWTH CookHotMEOWTHs deckbuilding in the Americas Summer championship was a real treat, featuring some distinct choices such as Lance Carrier in Zoolock that really spiced up the tournament games. The BlizzCon finals are no different, with HotMEOWTH going way out of the box, eschewing all the common Warrior archetypes and going with a highly unusual Patron Warrior build. This isnt the Patron Warrior deck you remember from 2015 or even the modified post-Warsong Commander nerf list, but one featuring Bloodmage Thalnos, Blood Warriors, Wild Pyromancer and Commanding Shout. Patron Warriors lack of charge ability due to the loss of Warsong means it wont suddenly hit you for 60 damage out of the blue, but literally nobody is teching in for this particular deck. Hopefully for the viewers, it wont simply be banned all weekend as a result!HotMEOWTH is also choosing similar tech to Amnesiac, bringing Baron Geddon in his Malygos Druid and Kobold Geomancer with Shaman.Artem DrHippi KravetsUkraines DrHippi had a terrific 2016, not only winning the European Summer championship, but also collecting a cool $15,000 as the runner-up in the European Winter championship, another $5,000 in the Starladder Series, and joining Virtus.Pros new Hearthstone division.DrHippis Dragon Warrior is a more tempo-heavy version, featuring Malkorok, a card that we saw in Tempo Warrior before Dragon Warrior took over its spot in the meta. 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RIO DE JANEIRO - Andrew Bogut, Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic should maybe all take a leaf out of John Millmans book.The 27-year-old, one of only two Australia players left in the mens singles at the Olympics after day one, has a simple approach to these Games that might perhaps benefit some of his nations better-known athletes.I can [only] speak from my experience and its not an event to miss, Millman said after making Games history by becoming the first man to shut out his opponent, his 6-0, 6-0 victory against Lithuanias Ricardas Berankis coming in just 50 minutes on Saturday.With all the rubbish stuff that goes on in the world, the Olympic Games is the world community coming together to celebrate not just athletes but compassion, friendship and respect for one another.Its humbling walking into a stadium among people from all over the planet.That could easily be taken as a swipe at Kyrgios and Tomic, both of whom have had differences of opinion with the Australian Olympic Committee and made themselves unavailable for the Games.It wasnt, but the implication was that Millman found their decisions strange.Nicks got his whole career ahead of him, he added. Nick and Bernie are not the only athletes who have sat out these Olympics and everyone has reasons for doing so.Theyre good enough players and they have both represented their country in Davis Cup, Im sure they will have a chance to play in the Olympics down the track.How about Australia basketball star Boguts less-than-complimentary tweets about the accommodation in the athletes village, then, maybe Millman shared those sentiments?Nope. There was a bit of smoke and mirrors there, the Brisbane player said. We are used to roughing it a little bit. Ive played my fair share on the Futures tour and we roughed it a lot more than in the village. Ive slept on floors and that sort of thing. Were kind of used to it.All the tennis boys are in the same kind of dorm and village life is good. With all these unbelievabble sports people walking around, you dont get that [elsewhere].ddddddddddddIt was refreshing to get a positive take from the Australian camp, even if some of the complaints they have made about the facilities have been well founded.It has been unfortunate that theirs have been the loudest voices in the build-up to the Games because it has started to earn them a reputation around Rio for grousing. Even Millman slipped a little when he said having to eat the food in the village was tough.His result was a contrast to those of the other Australian men playing on the first day of the tennis tournament, as Jordan Thompson went down 6-4, 6-2 to Britains Kyle Edmund and Thanasi Kokkinakis lost 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3) to Portugals Gastao Elias.The latter result, which left Millman and Sam Groth in the draw, was tough on 20-year-old Kokkinakis, who hadnt played a match since last October because of a shoulder injury.He may not have enhanced Australian tennis image by getting himself told off by the umpire for quietly saying the F-word, but could probably be forgiven a bit of frustration.I was just hoping to play well and get through the match without an injury on the shoulder, he said after his first-round defeat. It was better than I thought it would beI was limited on some serves, hit a lot of double faults. It was a little bit of a big ask [being thrown back in at the Olympics] but it was my choice. I wanted to be in there and start somewhere. I was going to live with the result whatever happened.Kokkinakis, 20, is talented with a lot of potential but Australia having to rely on him didnt reflect well on the decisions of Kyrgios and Tomic.He was frustrated to go out after raising his game but not being able to sustain it and at least he chimed in with the sentiments of Millman, vowing to get over the defeat and enjoy a bit more of the Games. ' ' '