While the collective Hearthstone world looked to Bucharest this weekend, the NESL regular events were going on regardless. This time it is hyped from the States to take home the title, the cash and a chance to compete for the KotH title this Tuesday.
Despite the festivities over in Romania for the DreamHack Bucharest Hearthstone event, NESL went forth with their normal and standard procedure of holding a high-stakes cup with $500 USD on the line this Sunday. As usual, the likes of all the North American players gathered and tried to not only get some cash on their account, but also play for a chance to be featured in the King of the Hill event on Tuesday. The opportunity to go there this time and play against one of the invited guests and potentially the King Amaz was granted to hyped, who walked away victorious.
On his way to the top, Hyped had to overcome a lot of big names and the DKMR Daily Double with Brad and Atlanta, while also playing the newest member of Curse Gaming, Alchemixt in the Quarterfinals. With all those big names late in the bracket, the start with Willaf, Chonqi, futna and Boneshanks almost looks easy in comparison.
His adversary in the Grand Finals of the cup was mitjdw, someone who had already recorded a high finish in the NESL preseason cup #13. Back then his run was only stopped by the eventual runner-up RomaNorgy. This time mitjdw fought his way through yoitsflo, London Conspiracy's own Dart, Jaykers, joketa, Jushyfruit, former NESL champion DJBigRuss and Tiandroy to face hyped for all the marbles. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't quite come through and now has to sit back on Tuesday and observe the King of the Hill showdown as a spectator, not as a participant.
That fate also goes out to several of the big names that once again signed up for this cup again, including #21 champion Firebat and #19 champion Varranis. The former teammates in DKMR even squared off in the fourth round of the cup with Varranis prevailing and moving on to fight yet another former champion in Twisted. The DKMR pro could also overcome that, but was then edged out by Tiandroy in the Quarters. Quarterfinals were also the end of the line for Alchemixt, while his former teammate Atlanta made it all the way to the Semis.
Far away from that depth in the brackets were other big names like Fight Night veteran Realz, Clarity's own ThatsAdmirable, zRusher, MeetYorMaker pros Ignite, ThijsNL, Semijew and BlazingGlory, while Root Gaming also didn't have the most successful outing either with SjoW going out in the second, CatZ losing the initial first round match already.
With this cup the Sunday events of the first NESL Preseason Cups are coming to an end. The last official Preseason event will be hosted on Wednesday, while the NESL King of the Hill event will take center stage on Tuesday.
NESL Preseason Cup #23 Final Standings
- 1.
hyped - $250 USD - 2.
mitjdw - $150 USD - 3./4. Atlanta - $50 USD
- 3./4. Tiandroy - $50 USD
Full Bracket here.
