Top NA player Brad "Brad" Christensen of team Don't Kick My Robot will be retiring from competitive Hearthstone, leaving his team down to five players.

Mostly known as a weekly cup king, Brad started his career in the open tournaments, winning several ZOTAC and NESL titles before he moved on to televised competition. Between June and July, the American also became the longest-standing DKMR Invitational champion, remaining undethroned for four straight weeks. 

Brad's first break-out in major tournaments came during the first edition of the Prismata Cup. Crushing the swiss preliminaries by dropping just one series, Brad made his way to the playoffs where wins against Ignite and Freshca qualified him for the grand final. A narrow 2-4 loss to Gaara sent him home with the runner-up cheque. 

Brad never managed to repeat this success but made another appearance in NESL #54 to win yet another weekly cup tropht. Since then, however, Brad's tournament record has been going downhill, ending at 42,85% win-rate in August, his lowest to date. In spite of the decline, Brad's career win-rate of 63% put him as #7 in the North American rankings and #18 worldwide and as DKMR's best performing player.

Today, DKMR team captain coach told GosuGamers that Brad will be retiring from competitive Hearthstone altogether to pursue "real life" engagements.

“It is with a heavy heart that we have to say goodbye to one of our oldest members, Brad. Brad has decided to retire from professional gaming as of 10/1/2014.  Brad was a key member of DKMR and over the last year he has developed into one of the best players in the NA and one of the top players in the world.  Brad was most known for his Druid that crushed tournaments in open Beta and into Hearthstone when it was released.  

He was a great friend to the team and he was an excellent coach.  Brad has decided to move forward with his other passion in life, his girlfriend.  You may still see him online and in some of the open tournaments.

DKMR wishes Brad the best and he will be missed.”

Team DKMR roster:

Varranis
Dtwo
Kisstafer
Powder
Faramir