Today saw the rest of the group stage of the tournament take place continuing on from yesterday’s first-round games. Here, the 12 invited teams and 4 BYOC victors were split into four groups of four to decide the teams that will make tomorrow’s playoff finals.
Group A
Teams: Evil Geniuses, Mock-It Esports, Motiv8 Gaming and Disrupt Gaming
The first game saw the Pro League team of Evil Geniuses play against Disrupt Gaming, a team mainly made up of content creators. This experience gap didn't seem to help EG as Disrupt managed to storm to a 4-2 lead before eventually taking the first map 6-5 thanks to the standout plays of Hyper. Similarly, map two saw Disrupt rush to a 3-0 lead before a series of high kill rounds by Canadian helped slow the team down; however, the pure fragging power of Disrupt helped close it out 5-3. This upset put Disrupt in the winners’ bracket while Evil Geniuses dropped to the losers’ bracket
Next, in Group A, we had the winners’ bracket in which Disrupt played yesterday’s victors Motiv8 Gaming. Here, Motiv8 had to do what their fellow Pro League Season 7 team couldn’t do and beat Disrupt in order to guarantee their spot in the playoffs. This started off well for them as they managed to take map one of Consulate 5-3, however, this was obviously just their map as Disrupt confidently won the following 2 maps with a 5-1 score on Coastline and a 5-2 score on Oregon. This means the BYOC 4th seed wins Group B while Motiv8 drops down to the decider match.
Next up came the unexpected matchup of Evil Geniuses vs the French side of Mock-It Gaming. This started much closer than expected as well with Mock-It pushing the ex-World Champions right to round 11 before eventually falling 6-5 on Oregon. Following this, MockIt also managed to take multiple rounds on Clubhouse; however, they eventually lost 5-3. This knocks Mock-It out of the tournament and pushes EG to the elimination march against Motiv8.
This Pro League matchup started out as you’d usually expect it to with Evil Geniuses easily taking Oregon 5-1 before Motiv8 Gaming fired back taking Border 5-3. The decider map in this match played out on Chalet, a map that will be removed from the map pool in Pro League when the new season begins. The increased experience of EG eventually managed to overcome the relatively new lineup of Motiv8 taking this map by a score of 5-3, which knocks Motiv8 out of the tournament and pushes Evil Geniuses through to the Quarter Finals
Disrupt Gaming vs Evil Geniuses - (6-5, 5-3)
Disrupt Gaming vs Motiv8 Gaming - (3-5, 5-1, 5-2)
Evil Geniuses vs MockIt Esports - (6-5, 5-3)
Evil Geniuses vs Motiv8 Gaming - (5-1, 3-5, 5-3)
Group B
Teams: Team Vitality, Mousesports, Team SiNister and beastcoast
The first match of the day in Group B saw the French team of Vitality play against the newly promoted Pro League team of beastcoast. The game started closely as the relative underdogs managed to keep up with the Siege veterans of Vitality taking them to overtime before eventually losing the first map 6-4. Map two, however, was much less of a contest as Vitality showed their might stomping beastcoast 5-0 taking themselves to the winners' bracket and demoting bc to the losers' bracket.
The next game saw the group’s two victors, Team Vitality and Team SiNister, face off in which Vitality seemed much more in control. On the first map, we saw Vitality take Coastline in almost straight rounds, ending at 5-1, before actually managing the sweep on border winning five rounds in a row and taking the game 2-0
The closest game of the day came next in the losers' bracket as beastcoast played yesterday’s losers of mousesports. Map one of Consulate started off with even trades of players and rounds leading right into overtime; however, the lack of diversity in strats in overtime hurt beastcoast as rushing through the Consul Office window lead to their quick shutdown and loss of 6-5 to mousesports. The next map, Border, went about the same with both teams trading rounds; however, mousesport’s losses in the “off-sites” of Bathroom/Tellers and Customs/Supply Room led to a 6-4 loss in Map two. Finally, standout plays by both FoxA and VertcL on Bank saw mousesports initially take the lead and reach match point at 4-2 before beastcoast managed to bring it back to yet another overtime. Here, a hatch drop into the objective covered by a Glaz led to a victory for beastcoast 6-4. This knocks mousesports out of the tournament while beastcoast will now play SiNister for their spot in the playoffs.
This final match of the group saw SiNister play beastcoast in what is the most commonly picked competitive site of Oregon. Here the two teams pushed each other to the limit with beastcoast eventually taking the match in overtime 6-4. The next map, Clubhouse, was much less of a competition as beastcoast showed SiNister why they are a Pro League team, beating them 5-1 in Clubhouse and so advancing themselves to tomorrow’s playoffs and knocking Team SiNister out.
Team Vitality vs beastcoast - (6-4, 5-0)
Team Vitality vs Team SiNister - (5-1, 5-0)
beastcoast vs mousesports - (5-6, 6-4, 6-4)
beastcoast vs Team SiNister - (6-4, 5-1)
Group C
Teams: Millennium, Spacestation Gaming, Noble esports and 12Knights
Millenium started their day playing against 12Knights, a team formed shortly before the event which had qualified through the BYOC bracket. Here, their high level of experience in both regular season Pro League and at LAN events was obvious as they managed to out strat and out gun 12Knights leading to two quick maps of 5-1 in both Kafe Dostoyevsky and Clubhouse.
Group C’s second map of the day had Millenium face a fellow Pro League side of Spacestation Gaming in the winners' bracket. Border started off the series which saw relatively close and long-lasting rounds with many going down to the last few seconds to get down the bomb. This was also shown in the scoreboard and round count as SSG pushed Millenium right to overtime before finishing them off 6 rounds to 4. Map two, however, was less of a show as Clubhouse, despite being SSG’s map pick, was clearly Millenium’s map. Spacestation Gaming managed to take a few rounds thanks to the plays of ThinkingNade and Challa before Millenium closed it out 5-2, winning the game 2-0 and booking themselves a place in the playoffs.
Next came the losers’ bracket which saw Noble eSports, who lost their match yesterday, play against 12Knights who had fallen against Millenium earlier in the day. This game began in a very close fashion as the teams went to overtime on Coastline before the Pro League side of Noble finished it off at 6 rounds to 5. The second map, meanwhile, ended much quicker as Noble eventually dispatched the contenders 5-2 knocking 12Knights out and setting up a rematch against Spacestation for Noble.
Map 1 in the decider match of Noble eSports vs Spacestation Gaming began in great style for Noble as Breezy managed to wrap up the whole team and get the tournament's first ace in the very first round. For the rest of the map, Noble remained consistently a round ahead trading back and forth and so leading to a 5-3 victory for Noble. Map two, Chalet, also started well for Noble as they gaining 3 rounds in a row managing to eventually beat SSG 5-2 knocking them out of the tournament.
Millenium vs 12Knights - (5-1, 5-1)
Millenium vs Spacestation Gaming - (6-4, 5-2)
Noble eSports vs 12Knights - (6-5, 5-2)
Noble eSports vs Spacestation Gaming - (5-3, 5-2)
Group D
Teams: Rogue, Obey Alliance, Chaos and T3H eSports
Rogue, the 1st seed in NA during Season 7 of Pro League, began their tournament by playing the Challenger League team of T3H eSports. While Rogue would usually expect to easily win this, issues with Geoo’s visa meant they had to play with Ranger, their coach, who had limited competitive experience as a player, instead. This, however, did not seem to hurt the team at all with Ranger in fact top fragging in map one managing 11 kills to just 3 deaths leading them to a 5-2 victory on Coastline. The second map went about the same with Rogue comfortably shutting out the German team meaning another 5-2 round and a 2-0 series victory for Rogue.
The winners’ brackets saw Rogue then move on to play against the fragging powerhouse of Obey Alliance with the winners getting a spot in the playoff bracket. This game started on Border, where Rogue showed why they are number 1 in NA finishing off in a quick 5-2 before Obey answered back in an equally impressive 5-2 victory on Oregon. Finally Rogue won yet another one-sided map of Consulate in straight rounds taking the series 2-1 and booking a place in tomorrow’s playoffs.
The losers' bracket matchup of Chaos vs T3H eSports also saw a similar story. Chaos took T3H to Chalet to begin with beating them 5-3 there followed by T3H winning their own pick 6-5 on Consulate. This meant the knockout match came down to map three, Clubhouse, which Chaos managed to swiftly dispatch their European opponents taking it 5-1 and setting themselves up to rematch Obey Alliance in the decider match for the last remaining playoff spot.
This rematch was a lot more important than their first game on Friday as it was a knockout match, the winner goes to playoffs while the loser goes out. This meant that it was a fairly close game throughout with neither team wanting to give up their spot in the tournament. Map one saw Obey Alliance take Consulate 5-3, just barely avoiding overtime before Chaos closed out an 11 round game on Kafe Dostoyevsky to bring the matchup once again to a third map. This time, however, Chaos didn't let the match slide away from them taking the game 5-2 and qualifying themselves for the playoffs in a 2-1 victory.
Rogue vs T3H eSports - (5-2, 5-2)
Rogue vs Obey Alliance - (5-2, 2-5, 5-0)
Chaos vs T3H eSports - (5-3, 5-6, 5-1)
Chaos vs Obey Alliance - (3-5, 6-5, 5-2)
The top 2 teams in each group will now compete tomorrow in the knockout playoffs which begins at 10amCDT with the final scheduled for 5:45pmCDT.