The two household names are making up for their unsuccessful runs at last year’s EU championship.
For Dutch player Thijs “ThijsNL” Molendijk, this was the test of his career. The Gamers2 spearhead was greeted by the group of death as he had to overcome Frederik “Hoej” Nielsen, Sebastian “Ostkaka” Engwall and Michael “Maverick” Looze if he wanted to make it through to BlizzCon, a goal that eluded him in 2014.
Despite the stacked competition, ThijsNL came into the tournament considered by many, including ourselves, the best player of the eight. Also holding the #1 spot in the GosuRankings, with a record quickly approaching the all-time high 1,327 held by TiddlerCelestial after DH Summer, the Flying Dutchman was seen as the favorite.
Thijs played his opening match against Maverick off-stage. Despite admitting to having played his Patron suboptimally, he took a 3-1 lead and stepped on the main stage to face Ostkaka, the winner of the Na'Vi team kill in the first game of the day. Bringing an anticipated line-up of Druid, Handlock and Patron, Thijs looked as solid as ever, only losing one game in the series.
The repeat 3-1 put Thijs in the top 4 of the tournament, and thus locked him for BlizzCon. He was soon followed by Yevgeniy “Neirea” Shumilin of Liquid, who before the tournament started found himself in a similar position – a last year EU Championship attendee who failed to snatch a BlizzCon seed.
Neirea opened the group with a surprising win against pool favorite Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy, dropping only a single game to his Druid. The winners match was a tougher task for the Ukrainian, however, as he faced Empire’s Pavel Beltukov. The Russian youngster did not go down without a fight, and Neirea had to fight back from a 1-2 deficit, locking the series in a Warlock mirror in game five.
Now that their BlizzCon seeds are secured, Thijs and Neirea have only one thing to worry about – the title of the first European champion and the $10,000 that go with it.
