The curse seems broken. On Tuesday evening, TidesofTime successfully retained his NESL King of the Hill throne - as only the second player to accomplish that. Overcoming the Miracle Rogue and his signature Shaman proved to be enough to stop Gnimsh's miracle.
TidesofTime seems to have broken the curse that was casted upon the NESL King of the Hill. For weeks and months the crown switched owners every other week, provided the king was not listening to the name Amaz. The Priest master was the only one to make several title defenses in his two runs as king. Now Tides is in his second tenure and was able to extend this reign for at least another week.
Standing in the way of this historic moment were IEM Katowice champion Gnimsh and NESL Preseason Cup #31 champion Luffy. Both came in with a lot of momentum and confidence, Gnimsh being a superstar of his own in the European market as a multiple time ESGN Fight Night contestant, a IEM champion and a runner-up at the SeatStory Cup. Luffy on the other hand made a name for himself in the online competition, having a firm grip on the #1 spot in the NESL ladder from the start. Two NESL Preseaon championships, a runner-up in that competition and several more top 10 placements solidified the Italian living in Canada as a force to be reckoned with.
Unfortunately for him, the odds seemed to be against him on this Tuesday, running into Gnimsh and his Miracle Rogue. Three sweeps, three fairly decisive games and the Auctioneer showing off his tremendous power in that type of deck were just too much. All three times the shout of Leeroy Jenkins running in was the last Luffy heard, seeing his Shaman, Warrior and Handlock go down. The burst was too much, neither heavy armor, multiple small taunts nor giant creatures taunted up were enough to stop it.
So the Polish aggro specialist moved on, on his own quest to make history and become the second European to reign the NESL country. Only the German Gaara had that privilege thus far, while Portuguese Ignite made it to the Grand Finals and Savjz couldn't make it out of the play-in match.
Picking his flawless Miracle Rogue deck once more, TidesofTime started out in a similar fashion as Luffy - with a control Warrior. Sadly for the Tempo Storm member, the result was also the same as the battle of Gnimsh's Rogue against Luffy's Warrior - a Polish victory.
Now it was "If you can't beat him, join him" time for Tides, who opted for his own variation of Miracle Rogue to fight of the flurry of card draw and burst potential with his own weapons. In an intense match all focused around the question who'll get Leeroy first, TidesofTime prevailed with only 2 cards left in his deck, forced to backstab his own Thalnos to draw into Leeroy. At that time Gnimsh had already burned through his entire deck, suffered two ticks of fatigue damage, but lacked the mana to deal the finishing blow.
The counterpick was Handlock, the game decided after the big giants were taunted up and Gnimsh was only inches away from the throne. The Shaman was Tides' last resort, a deck with a lot of burst and good weapons to deal with Handlock threats right away. Exactly that happened, the early Twilight Drake was hit by an Earthshock, the giants were equalized and the board of Shaman developed into a unstoppable force - pushing the game to the deciding ace match.
On paper it looked like a good matchup for Gnimsh, having his Hunter left, but the Midrange Hunter doesn't have as much of a field day with Thrall's powers than the old aggressive Hunter. This proved to be true on the battlefield itself where the Hunter could actually pressure the Shaman a lot by relentlessly hero powering to dwindle down the health, but the killing blow was not possible. Tides bought himself enough time to draw into his burst and finished the game and the series off with the power of the elements.
With this win Tides is now a three time king, pushing him to the second spot in the list of all-time kings. Next week he will go to battle next, trying to extend his impressive streak in tournaments. In the last two weeks he collected two NESL titles and the Deck Wars Season 1 title - having the best stretch of any HS pro in the last couple of weeks.
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