Following their victory against TSM today in the NA Closed Qualifier, Spacestation Gaming have secured qualification to the Six Invitational 2023.
The 2020 world champions thus ensured that TSM will not be able to defend their crown in Montreal, Canada next month after TSM's win in 2022.
Spacestation had similarly fought through the North American qualifier en-route to their title-win in 2020, like how TSM won their title in 2022. The win also marks a record 11th-straight qualifier win for Spacestation's Dylan "Bosco" Bosco.
This year, Spacestation got off to a decent start with a fifth place finish in the NAL, only missing out on the Charlotte Major by narrow margins to eventual champions DarkZero Esports. They then slid to a disappointing ninth place in Stage 2 amidst internal issues and were eliminated in the Lower Bracket Final of the group stage at the Gamers8 while trialing a new player, Lorenzo "Dexter" Albiero.
Things finally began to click for them after a last-minute about-face on the decision to sign Dexter. Instead, Spacestation signed the highly-experienced Alexander "Yeti" Lawson from Soniqs and shot up to third place in the NAL.
Disappointingly, Spacestation were eliminated in the group stage of the Jönköping Major, but have now denied world champions TSM in a bid to secure their own second title in Montreal next month.
They pulled off an impressive lower bracket run through the Closed Qualifier to make it, having first lost 1-2 in the Upper Bracket semi-final to tier-two amateur team Reality TV. Now down in the lower bracket, Spacestation beat Mirage 2-1 and took revenge on Reality TV in 2-0 fashion to set up a grand-final clash with TSM.
Spacesation proved their worth as Bosco won an 11th qualifier to live up to his title as "Qualifier King", beating TSM 2-1 to make it to his seventh Six Invitational.