Photo: Frederike Schmitt / DreamHack
The Dutchman’s consistent performance combined with a 77% win-rate this month put him just eight points short of being the second player to reach the 1,300 mark.
At the end of 2014, Thijs “ThijsNL” Molendijk, then a member of Meet Your Makers, was one of Hearthstone’s best players. Starting his career with multiple ZOTAC and King of the Hill victories in the early days of the game, Thijs went on to place well in several high profile tournaments, including back-to-back DreamHack grand finals. The latter brought him his first major gold (Bucharest) and silver (Winter) medals.
The start of 2015, however, saw ThijsNL struggling to recover his past form. The switch to conquest from last hero standing – a format which he was famously good at – was a rough transition for the Dutchman, something he admitted himself when we caught him for a chat at DH: Bucharest in April.
Since then, Nihilum’s player has been steadily improving. Just this month, ThijsNL hoisted the Archon Team League trophy alongside team-mates Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy and Dima “Rdu” Radu and pocketed $50,000 for himself, a personal record. An instrumental part to Nihilum's success, ThijsNL finished the league with a score of 32-18 or 64% winrate.
Apart from the ATLC success, ThijsNL has made numerous top 8 finishes this year, in both online and offline tournaments, including Assembly Summer (5-8th place), HouseCup #3 (5-8th place), HouseCup #2 (3-4th place) and OTK Invitational (1st place). Thijs will also be competing in the StarLadder Season 1 playoffs, after taking victories over Kolento, Firebat, ShtanUdachi and Surrender.
That’s not all for Mr. Molendijk’s journeys as he will be making his second appearance at the Blizzcon EU regionals. Thijs made an undefeated run through the 40-man online qualifier, beating Meyger, Greensheep, Xixo and his team-mate Lifecoach on the way to the top 8.
All things combined put ThijsNL on the very top of the GosuRankings not ten days before the end of the month, leaving the trio of North Americans in Dog, Firebat and Trump behind. Currently at 1,292 points, ThijsNL is also in prime position to be the second player in history to break the 1,300 barrier after Xieyu “TiddlerCelestial” Wang did so after DreamHack Summer. Tiddler also holds the all-time GosuRanking peak of 1,327 but with ThijsNL slated to play in both the StarLadder finals and EU regionals in the coming month, there’s a good chance of seeing a new record.
