ST. PAUL, Minn. - The Concordia-St. Paul Hearthstone team (4-3) came out on top in a back and forth match as they defeated Syracuse (3-4) in five games on Monday night in the Tespa Hearthstone Collegiate Cup.

GAME ONE: CSP Mage vs. Syracuse Mage (CSP Win)
CSP started game one with a Spell Mage mirror match. The entire game went back and forth, with both sides playing deck of lunacy, changing all of their spells in both decks to random spells that cost three mana more but kept their original mana cost. A power spell, or a unique deck type. However because of Syracuse running the C'thunn variant, CSP was able to have more draw and spell damage potential and eventually clutched the match with a twin fireball and stormstrike swing for lethal taking game one.

GAME TWO: CSP Rogue vs. Syracuse Mage (CSP Win)
With a great first hand gave CSP an early head start onto their combo which exploited Syracuse into a spell damage misplay by clearing any board the Orange wanted to have.
After aggressive board presence combo'd with enough burn spells, CSP was able to find lethal on the Syracuse mage by turn eight, setting the score to 2-0 in favor of the Bears.

GAME THREE: CSP Priest vs. Syracuse Mage (Syracuse Win)
In game three the Orange's Mage got off to a powerful start, using devolving missiles to destroy the Nazami Bloodweaver central to the Bears combo. CSP however managed to hang in for a while with healing spells and board presence, but Syracuse had too many opportunities to place enough spell damage onto the board and overwhelmed the Bears setting the score to 1-2.

GAME FOUR: CSP Priest vs. Syracuse Druid (Syracuse Win) 
CSP stalled out the aggression from the token druid's attack with some powerful healing, board control swinging back and forth. Eventually the druid pulled a string of lucky spells and dealt the final blow Solar Eclipse and an Adorable Infestation bringing the score 2-2.

GAME FIVE: CSP Priest vs. Syracuse Rogue (CSP Win)
CSP starts out with a strong hand with both combo pieces and the support to make it work. Comboing in turn four allowed CSP to generate enough value to skyrocket their lead on the game. Syracuse failed to play any of their watchtower cards and spent quite a bit of time and energy trying to remove our combo minions, giving the Bears a win on turn 8 to bring them to 4-3 on the week.

CSP will be back in action this Thursday, looking to keep their streak going against a TBD opponent.