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At the end of their first day at the Berlin Major, Elevate are well in control of their fate. They secured six points, beating MNM Gaming 7-4 and upsetting Charlotte Major finalists Astralis 7-3.
It’s a huge step forward for the squad from the land of smiles. They struggled on attack in their first game of the day against MNM Gaming, but it all came up Elevate after swapping sides.
“We were just frustrated from the delay and were kinda sleepy during our attacking side,” said Saravut “markshortboyz” Mandee in an interview with SiegeGG.
The Berlin Major had kicked off with a two-hour delay that pushed the 10:30 AM games to 12:40 PM. The issues were apparently with the SSDs of the PCs, as well as the sound card drivers.
It took until round nine for Elevate to take the lead against MNM in what was somewhat of a surprise. It was then that Adithep “DCH” Channuan and Phuriphat “MrPuncH” Kessaneeyabut came in clutch to put Elevate onto match point, as the duo brought home a round that looked won for the marshmallows.
“We know how MNM attacks on this map, so we were quite comfortable playing against them on this map on every side,” he revealed.
And just like that the team secured their first three points, minutes before facing the North American League’s top seed Astralis.
After their Theme Park win, Elevate headed over to Oregon against Astralis. This seemed like an unwise choice -- Oregon is Astralis' best map, with six wins in six games for them so far this year.
But the map also has a special place in Elevate’s map pool, as it was there that Paramin “Onigiri” Suwanwattana got 27 kills in the team’s 8-6 win against Rogue at the Six Invitational 2022.
“I felt like we're good enough to fight Astralis on Oregon,” said Mark, revealing the confidence of the APAC South league leaders.
Elevate absolutely demolished Astralis with an almost perfect defensive half, giving them a 5-1 lead. Jack “J9O” Burkard’s 1v1 clutch with Alibi’s Bailiff kept the Americans alive for another round, but the Thai roster eventually closed the match out to take all three points.
“We feel like the APAC region taught us to defend and attack every play style or strats on Oregon, and we usually win Oregon in APAC,” shared Mark.
Elevate will be back in action tomorrow, as they will play FURIA Esports early in the morning, followed by Astralis.
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