Frederick “Freddybabes” Bird is GWENT Challenger Champion!

Frederick “Freddybabes” Bird is the new GWENT Challenger champion!

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, whose 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.

About GWENT: The Witcher Card Game

In GWENT: The Witcher Card Game, gamers clash with their friends in fast-paced duels that combine bluffing, on-the-fly decision making and careful deck construction. The game is played over a best-of-three series of rounds, as players unleash their hand by slinging spells and diverse units with special abilities and use clever tricks to deceive their opponents. 

About CD PROJEKT RED

CD PROJEKT RED is a game development studio founded in 2002. It develops and publishes video games for personal computers and video game consoles. The studio’s flagship franchise, games from The Witcher series, has sold over 25 million copies worldwide. Its newest release – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – debuted in 2015 for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and has since received over 800 awards and accolades, including 250 Game of the Year awards. Together with GOG.COM, a game store offering hand-picked titles for PC and Mac, CD PROJEKT RED is part of the CD PROJEKT Capital Group. CD PROJEKT S.A. is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (ISIN: PLOPTTC00011).