VKLiooon is the first woman to become Hearthstone global champion

(Image credit: Blizzard)

With her 3-0 win against US player Brian "bloodyface" Eason of Lazarus Esports at BlizzCon 2019 China's Xiaomeng "VKLiooon" Li has become the first woman to be crowned Hearthstone Global Champion. 

VKLiooon was already the first woman to qualify for the Hearthstone Global Finals, having won the Gold Open Tianjin Master Group Season 1 Playoffs, and had an incredible run of 10 tournament victories in the lead-up to this final. She went unbeaten throughout the event at Blizzcon before clean sweeping the deciding series.

VKLiooon's Malygos Druid deck performed well against bloodyface's Quest Shaman early on, and her Highlander Hunter defeated his Quest Druid in the third round to close out the victory. That game was particularly delicious—the Asia-Pacific region's fondness for Highlander Hunter in competitive play has been questioned by Western pros and casters. 

Though not a familiar name in the West—VKLiooon hasn't been part of the Grandmasters programme so far—off the back of this win we can expect to see much more of her impeccable play in the future. Clearly emotional in her after-match interview, she thanked the fans for their support over the past two days.

(Image credit: Blizzard)

She also went on to tell an anecdote about how, at a major tournament a couple of years ago, a male player told her she was in the wrong queue because "this isn't for you". Finally, she was asked what it meant to her to be the first woman to win Hearthstone's biggest prize: "I want to say for all the girls out there who have a dream for esports competition, for glory, if you want to do it and you believe in yourself you should just forget your gender and go for it."

VKLioon goes home with both the title of world champion and $200,000 winnings.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

Latest in Card Game
Hands pushing poker chips on a table
Winning $2.6 billion in this poker videogame has completely ruined fake poker for me
A pack of real life Balatro cards.
The official Balatro Timeline documents the history of 2024's biggest game as its developer went from 'obsessed' with making it to 'shocked' at the reception
Mage cards from Hearthstone's Into the Emerald Dream expansion.
Hearthstone card reveal: If it's wrong to love a magic blue owl, I don't want to be right
Characters in The Bazaar, a Hero-Builder game by Tempo, stand confidently with their weapons of choice raised.
Early backers of game decry 'bait and switch' after it backtracks on monetisation promises, dev chooses to stir the pot: 'Seeing Reddit lose it today lets me breathe a huge sigh of relief'
Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION screenshot showing a character complaining about losing a battle
This Yu-Gi-Oh! retro collection transported me to a simpler time in TCGs, before Pot of Greed was banned and the Avengers were in Magic: The Gathering
A smudged joker face
Balatro finally escapes its silly 18+ age rating, PEGI promises 'a more granular set of classification criteria' for gambling-themed games in the future
Latest in News
Man facing camera
The Day Before studio reportedly sues Russian website for calling infamous disaster-game a 'scam'
Will Poulter holding a CD ROM
'What are most games about? Killing': Black Mirror Season 7 includes a follow-up to 2018 interactive film Bandersnatch
Casper Van Dien in Starship Troopers
Sony, which is making a Helldivers 2 movie, is also making a new Starship Troopers movie, but it's not based on the Starship Troopers movie we already have
Assassin's Creed meets PUBG
Ubisoft is reportedly talking to Tencent about creating a new business entity to manage Assassin's Creed and other big games
Resident Evil Village - Lady Dimitrescu
'It really truly changed my life in every possible way': Lady Dimitrescu actor says her Resident Evil Village role was just as transformative for her as it was for roughly half the internet in 2021
Storm trooper hero
Another live service shooter is getting shut down, this time before it even launched on Steam