UPDATED -
Three teams were left standing last night as Spacestation Gaming, Rise Nation and Orgless all had a trip to Montreal in their sites. The opening losers' final of Rise vs Orgless cast by the CCS casters of XRTROIKA and Sternab was fairly close with the second map, Villa, ending in a nail-biting 8-7 result to Orgless as they won in a 2-0 scoreline and passed quickly onto the winners' final - a rematch against SpaceStation Gaming.
After their loss to PENTA Sports at DreamHack Winter, this is SSG's second decider match to qualify for the Six Invitationals and they were determined not to let this chance slip. The first map of Consulate went the same way as the last time they played it against each other earlier in the bracket - a 7-5 victory to SSG - however that was the only similarity as viewers were treated to a slog of a match on maps 2 and 3. And extremely back and forth contest on Oregon was finally tipped in Orgless' favour just as they reached match point ending the game 8-6 before a weak defensive half by Orgless on Coastline sealed the game 2-1 to SSG.
This means the SpaceStation Gaming roster of Chala, Redeemer, ThinkingNade, Rampy, Bosco and Lycan (their coach) will join Rogue, Evil Geniuses and Team Reciprocity in representing North America at the upcoming Invitationals next month!
The final brackets for the qualifier via Liquipedia
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Original Article - We have already seen a week of qualifiers in which the top eight performing teams were invited to compete with the three remaining Season 9 Challenger League teams and the five Pro League teams who have yet to earn a spot at the Invitationals. These teams will compete in the following bracket:
The upper portion of the double elimination closed qualifier bracket via Liquipedia
Pro League Teams
DarkZero Esports: Mint, Pojoman, Hotancold, Jarvis, Nyx, BC and BKN (their two coaches)
Excelerate Gaming: Achieved, biolog1cs, Schlongii, Krusher and Tomas
Orgless: Yeti, Acid, Krazy, Bryan, MahMan and UnrealGS (their coach)
Rise Nation: Beastly, vandal, Hyper, England and Ghxst
Spacestation Gaming: Chala, Redeemer, ThinkingNade, Rampy, Bosco and Lycan (their coach)
With Evil Geniuses, Rogue and Reciprocity already attending the Six Invitationals 2019, this tournament is fairly up for grabs but does still have a few firm favourites. Most notably will be the teams of Spacestation Gaming and DarkZero Esports who both have looked extremely menacing this Season and both will likely do NA proud on the international stage. These two teams met just yesterday in Pro League which ended in a 6-6 draw after two strong defensive halves; both these teams will now be preparing for this matchup once again as they anticipate a rematch in the later stages of these open brackets.
Meanwhile, the other three teams invited from Pro League of Orgless, Excelerate and Rise have all been struggling so far in Pro League with all of their victories in the first two playdays happening between each other. One wildcard that may help Excelerate, though, is their recent addition of Tomas “Tomas” Kaka who up until yesterday was listed as their coach; despite this Tomas played in replace of the departing player of Nicks and achieved an astounding 4.5KD against Orgless. It is performances such as this that these three teams will need if they hope to be the final team to make it to Montreal ahead of their rival teams.
The statistics for yesterdays Excelerate Gaming vs Orgless matchup
Challenger League Teams
Disrupt Gaming: Modigga, Spades, Remorce, EvlWaffle and Splek (their coach)
Elephant Gang: Avian, Trippen, Neptunez, supr and Goddess
Team SiNister: HolidayNOG, PiXeL, awD, Oasis and Prod
Elephant Gang ended last Season narrowly losing out to Noble Esports (now known as Orgless) in the Pro League relegations, however, with the talent injection of Seth “supr” Hoffman, the eGang founder and ex-Rogue player, and Lauren "Goddess" Williams, the ex-beastcoast/Cloud9 player, Elephant Gang looks as strong as ever and will be hoping to upset the Pros and join their ex-teammates in the biggest tournament in R6 history.
Other than this, the main question coming out of the two other Challenger League Season 9 teams is simply, who is Disrupt’s 5th? Disrupt Gaming was another one of the favourites to qualify for Pro League after a strong Challenger League showing last Season, however, they suffered a massive setback as Aaron "Gotcha" Chung left to join Evil Geniuses as their coach (and player at the US Nationals) ultimately leading to them being grounded in Challenger League. It is at the moment unknown who will replace Gotcha with their only previous roster member, Skittlz, playing in this tournament on a different roster.
Open Qualifier Teams
‘92 Dream Team: Rexen, Filthy, Hyena, XecratioN and YardySosa
Least Wanted: Billboard, Chapstick, GurmyWormy, Skittlz and Daave
MembersOnly: Gavin, LawJ4X, Timzy, WiKeD and sYnceD
Passionfruit: Chef, Cali, Euphoria, Karnageb and toughy
Spaghetti Monsters: Kilo, Lanternman, LayMon, Spartan and Sum
Taichou: Benji, Nekkro, Prompted, VoN and karlido
Team THICC: DarkStar, GoodKiddmehCity, Mystro, Noctis and Titans
Tune 6quad: Rainbow, AFactor, Glitch, Sour and Talon
While they come into this tournament as the underdogs these teams include a number of recognisable names from the ex-Obey Alliance player of Benji, the Candian National Champion of Euphoria and the ex-Pro Halo player of Spartan however the most anticipated and promising roster here must be the lineup of ex-Pro and Challenger League players in Least Wanted.
With four ex-Pro League players this newly formed roster is very likely to be a real contender during Season 9 of the Challenger League and, while they still sit as big outsiders at this tournament, they will see it as an excellent chance to a) get some practice against big-name teams, b) gain some new fans for their new roster and c) refresh themselves after quite a while out of the limelight for some of these players.
The Broadcast
To recap, the tournament will consist of best-of-three map matches in a double-elimination format with only one team qualifying for the Six Invitationals 2019. The games will be streamed primarily by community casters with the usual Challenger League talent as well as Interro all likely to cover games.
The games will take place starting from 6PM local time with the following schedule:
Tuesday - WB Round 1 and Quarterfinals, LB Round 1
Wednesday - WB Semifinals and Finals, LB Round 2 and 3
Thursday - LB Round 4 and Semifinals
Friday - LB Finals and Grand-Finals
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Keep an eye out here at SiegeGG for more updates on the results and streams over the next week!