Cloud9 return to winning ways in Hearthstone

Cloud9 reasserted itself as the top team in Hearthstone this weekend as two of its players took home victory in two of the biggest online tournaments.

Two of Cloud9’s leading lights, Aleksandr “Kolento” Malsh and Cong “StrifeCro” Shu, were victorious in the Kinguin Winter 2015 and Pinnacle 2 tournaments respectively this weekend, pocketing $2500 each in prize money and claiming another two titles for their team.

For Malsh, the victory represents a return to the kind of winning ways that saw him claim a number of tournament titles in 2014, including DreamHack Winter. Since that victory in November, Malsh had managed just one match victory and crashed out of Battle of the Best II, Tavern Takeover 3 and the Inven Invitational.

However in the Kinguin tournament, which took place over two weekends due to DDOS attacks, Malsh won four matches in a row including games over Team Liquid‘s Janne “Savjz” Mikkonen and world champion James “Firebat” Kostesich in the single elimination bracket to take home the victory.

While Malsh was cleaning up in the Kinguin Winter event, his teammate Shu was cleaning up in Archon‘s Pinnacle 2 tournament. Topping his group with wins over Team SoloMid‘s Jeffrey “Trump” Shih and open qualifier Jon “Orange” Westberg, Shu pulled out back to back victories over Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy of Team Nihilum to take home the title.

It was not all success for Cloud9 this weekend however as team captain Marcin “Gnimsh” Filipowicz failed to make it out of his group at the first LAN event of the year, Assembly Festival. The tournament was eventually won by open qualifier Teun “Vortex” Eielts, who dropped just one game in the entire tournament, defeating Filip “Numberguy” Samuelsen of SK Gaming 4-0 in the final.

Cloud9 were the most consistently successful team in Hearthstone in 2014, with seventeen tournament victories and over $128k in total accrued prize money.

Image via DreamHack/Flickr