After eight weeks of regular play, several playoff stages and two days of seeding matches, it team Nihilum who stood tall as the first Archon Team League Championship winners.
The team, made up of Thijs “ThijsNL” Molendijk, Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy and Dima “Rdu” Radu, had to battle back from being seeded in third place in the first two days of the finals. Not only that, but thanks to technical problems on day two, the team had to play their final seeding game before the finals could get underway.
Though they dropped that game to Value Town, after beating Tempo Storm to secure a spot in the top three they were able to avenge that loss. In the semifinals, Nihilum overcame Value Town 6-4.
Waiting in the finals were top seed Cloud9, who had looked impressive throughout the weekend after topping the league in the regular season, going undefeated in their last six matches. As No. 1 seeds, Cloud9 had a significant advantage. While Nihilum were playing in their fourth match of the day, it was Cloud9’s first. After the seeding rounds teams had changed their decks, and Cloud9 had yet to reveal their new lineup. Despite all this, Nihilum powered through to win the final 6-2 and $150,000 for their team.
Cloud9 were awarded $60,000, while Value Town took $30,000 for third place. Value Town’s Brian Kibler also pocketed an additional $5000 for having the best individual record throughout the regular season.
Nihilum’s win was made all the more impressive by having to negotiate working with team mate Radu remotely, as the Romanian failed to get a visa in time to travel to the Archon house in Texas.
With viewership peaking at 140,000, one of the highest in the history of Hearthstone esports, and almost universal praise from the players, the inaugural ATLC season cannot be considered anything less than a rousing success. No surprise then that Archon owner Jason “Amaz” Chan announced a second season was on the way, targeted for January 2016.
Image via Amazhs/Twitch
