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With a combination of great plays and more than helpful RNG, the Dutchman topped Group A of the round of 8 and was followed by Hellraisers’ player into the LAN finals in Kiev.

Thijs “ThijsNL” Molendijk is quickly approaching the top form he enjoyed in 2014. Although the Dutchman is still lacking a major victory on the scale of DreamHack Bucharest, his results in 2015 – including a top 4 at Viagame HouseCup #2 and being instrumental to Nihilum’s success in ATLC – are certainly getting him closer to a repeat success.

One tournament that ThijsNL will try to conquer this fall is the StarLadder Season 1. Thijs finished second in group stage #1 behind Stanislav Cifka but managed to take the top seed in last night’s Ro8 group stage, in a pool featuring world champion James “Firebat” Kostesich, Gareth “Cipher” Rouse and Alexey “ShtanUdachi” Barsukov.

Despite being on top of his game, a pinch of lucky RNG came to Thijs’ aid in his opening match against Firebat. Getting [card]Dreadsteed[/card] off of [card]Unstable Portal[/card] in one of the games and spawning a [card]Doomsayer[/card] from a [card]Piloted Shredder[/card] to clear Firebat’s massive board in another put Thijs in the winners match. There, a victory in five games against ShtanUdachi punched his ticket to the playoffs.

Firebat’s unlucky loss developed into elimination from the group as Archon’s bannerman played and fell to Cipher. F2K’s player did not stay long in the competition and finished third after ShtanUdachi steamrolled him 3-0 in the decider.

While Thijs’ success could’ve been expected, it wasn’t the case for the Russian player. Put in arguably the tougher of the two groups, ShtanUdachi brought another victory for Hellraisers. Tonight, two of his HR team-mates will also try to join him in the playoffs as Alex “Lostov” Lostov and Alexander “Kucha” Kulinich go against Stanislav Cifka and David “Dog” Caero in Group B in an attempt to continue their hot streak in StarLadder.