Team Liquid have continued to expand their Hearthstone division, and are bringing back a pioneer from the early days of esports to do it.
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, who competed in StarCraft: Brood War, StarCraft 2 and Warcraft 3 before beginning a $10m poker career, has signed on with Liquid to play Hearthstone. He will also continue competing in poker, and will remain with the Pokerstars organisation.
Grospellier is one of a number of poker stars who have taken up Hearthstone casually or for streaming, including the winningest poker player of all time Daniel Negreanu. Negreanu defeated Grospellier in a Hearthstone showmatch at Blizzcon last weekend in Grospellier’s first appearance at a competitive gaming event since 2010.
One of the most successful foreigners in StarCraft: Brood War, Grospellier had back-to-back top four finishes at the World Cyber Games in 2001 and 2002 and took gold at the Euro Cyber Games in 2013. He’s one of the few Western players to compete in Korea’s OGN leagues.
Grospellier was invited to this weekend’s Seat Story Cup where today he played his first matches under the Team Liquid banner. But losses to newly crowned world champion Sebastian “Ostkaka” Engwall and controversial Tempo Storm streamer Byron “Reckful” Bernstein saw him fail to advance from the first group stage.
Image via TeamLiquidPro/Twitter
Published: Nov 13, 2015 01:06 pm