Nothing really shifted in the final group matchups at ESL One Katowice as the three teams with the best records held on to those positions heading into the playoffs.
In Group A, Team Secret distanced themselves from Gambit Esports and took sole control of the top seed.
The two top teams in the group had a pair of close games, but Secret maintained a slight edge throughout the matchup. With the 2-0 sweep, they moved up to an event-best 9-1 record, while Gambit locked in the second seed at 7-3.
OG absolutely killed For The Dream, with one of the matches lasting just 12 minutes as they completed another sweep. Mineski finished the third Group A sweep as they took care of business against Forward Gaming and knocked them out of the tournament.
Group B saw a similar situation as Fnatic split a series against Ninjas in Pyjamas. They finished the group stage with the second-best overall record at 8-2.
That split, along with Chaos Esports Club splitting their own series against Alliance, allowed NiP to slip into the second seed and the upper bracket of the playoffs.
The last series of the group stage was one of the most important of the day as Team Aster and compLexity battled to see who would be the last team eliminated. With their tournament life on the line, Aster completed the only sweep in their group following some incredible play from Chai “Mushi” Yee Fung.
Both matches were extremely close, and even though Aster ended up winning the series, compLexity actually held an advantage at the end of game one. But as Aster clinched their playoff birth, they ensured that not a single North American representative would be moving on to the ESL One Katowice playoffs.
Alliance, compLexity, FTD, and Forward were all officially eliminated from the competition, leaving the top eight teams ready to compete in the main event.
Published: Feb 22, 2019 09:35 am