Good draws and even better plays helped the Europe champion to a 9-3 win over Tempo Storm’s captain.
A Tempo Mage on Druid match opened the series between Thijs “ThijsNL” Molendijk and Andrey “Reynad” Yanyuk in today’s Celestial Invitational game, the first of Group B. A slow start on Druid saw Reynad lose one of Hearthstone’s best decks at the very start, giving a serious boost to the Dutchman going deeper into the series. ThijsNL’s advantage became insurmountable after his own Druid was on point with the ramp and won five in a row to make for a 6-1 lead before it fell to Reynad’s Midrange Shaman in game eight.
On paper, Thrall could’ve made the turn-around for the Tempo Storm captain and owner had it not ran into ThijsNL’s specially prepared control Priest. Packed with lots of heals, removal and a pocket [card]mind control tech[/card], Thijs’ Priest took an important victory, knocking out yet another metagame staple out of Reynad’s line-up and repeated the feat once again in game ten by shutting down the Dragon Warrior of the American.
Down only to his own Dragon Priest, Reynad’s odds at making a comeback were looking slim and the final shut-out was done in game twelve for a final 9-3 in ThijsNL’s favor, ending a relatively quick Bo17 series.
Tomorrow’s match will see Lifecoach play ZhangBo in yet another Germany versus China series. The first one ended in Xixo’s favor against Celestial’s Breath after a narrow 17-game thriller.
All 18 decklists used by Reynad and ThijsNL in today’s match-up are available below, while full coverage of Celestial Invitational can be found in our event coverage hub.
Reynad
ThijsNL
