Cloud9 win HTC Reborn Invitational

Cloud9 take first place in the HTC Reborn Invitational, an online tournament for North American teams which featured $10,000 total.

The HTC Reborn Invitational was announced earlier last week and saw the Taiwanese telecommunications company HTC venture into the realm of hosting CS:GO tournaments, with this particular tournament offering $10,000 for eight invited North American region teams.

Quarter-finals action on Saturday, June 6 already put up some surprising results with Brazilian Keyd Stars (who are currently located in the Los Angeles metapolitan area) being upset by Arya "⁠arya⁠" Hekmat's affNity, as well as Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin's Nihilum falling to CLG early on.

seang@res and his men won out over their regional rivals this weekend

Both eventual grand finalists, Liquid and Cloud9, scraped out narrow victories in the semi-finals on Sunday, with Cloud9 in particular grinding out victories the whole tournament, with most maps being decided in their favour by three or four rounds.

The grand final got off to a similar close start, with Cloud9 just edging out Liquid 16-14 on de_cache but de_dust2 was the first map of the tournament when Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert & co. could relax as it was a fairly one-sided 16-6 affair.

HTC Reborn InvitationalBest of 3 LiquidMatchpage 0 2 8th June 2015 Cloud9 14Cache 16 6Dust2 16

As a result, Cloud9 take home the first place prize of $5,000. Final standings and prize-pool breakdown are:

1. Cloud9 - $5,000
2. Liquid - $2,500
3-4. CLG - $1,250
3-4. affNity - $1,250 

Spencer 'Hiko' Martin Age: 25 Team: Nihilum Rating 1.0: 1.14 Maps played: 197 KPR: 0.76 DPR: 0.61 Arya 'arya' Hekmat Age: 22 Team: affNity Rating 1.0: 0.94 Maps played: 52 KPR: 0.66 DPR: 0.72 Jordan 'n0thing' Gilbert Age: 24 Team: Cloud9 Rating 1.0: 1.09 Maps played: 177 KPR: 0.76 DPR: 0.68