Photo: ESL 

Last night, the ESL Legendary Series (HLS) finals crowned an unlikely winner, Austin "SilentStorm" Li. Contrary to community expectations, the youngster delivered one upset after another to take the first big major of the year.

Although SilentStorm is somewhat unknown as a player, the 17 year-old Canadian has been working towards his breakthrough for some time now. In September 2014, he made his televised debut in the second Prismata Cup, defeating several notable names like Jeffrey "Trump" Shih, Aleksandr "Kolento" Malsh and Jan "Faramir" Engelmann, among others. That day, the up-and-comer came within hand's reach of his first championship but ultimately lost the rematch with Kolento 1-4.

After the Prismata silver, SilentStorm disappeared from the competitive scene for a while and would not be seen competing on stream until ESL announced their new Legendary Series circuit. Still lacking the fame or achievements which could get him a direct invite, SilentStorm had to start in the open qualifiers before moving to the televised match days. It was there that he made his first steps towards the main finals, beating Jan "Ek0p" Palys, Daniel "Dtwo" Ikuta and Brian Kibler pocketing enough points to secure a ticket to Burbank, California. At the time, SilentStorm had also found his spot among the best competitive NA players - our GosuRankings January report placed him fourth in the region, ahead of names like TidesofTime, DTwo and Chakki.

The initial group stage pairings at HLS put SilentStorm in a tough situation, at least on paper, as he was matched against tournament favorite Janne "Savjz" Mikkonen. The youngster ended playing Team Liquid's spearhead twice - once dismantling him 3-0 and later persevering through a five-game thriller in group's decider.

His challenges didn't end there and the playoffs met SilentStorm with another two household names in Hearthstone - Johan "Darkwonyx" Hansson and Keaton "Chakki" Gil, both on the hunt for their first offline victory. Despite their richer achievement records, however, the known names couldn't withstand SilentStorm and his Demonlock, as the latter reaped heads and carried him to victory.

[deck linked]1191[/deck]


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