NRG Esports’ Williams “Zayt” Aubin and “Saf” of SKT won Friday’s $500,000 North American Summer Skirmish Duos competition, defeating top players from Team Liquid and FaZe Clan.
With the tournament win, Zayt and Saf gained $60,000 and became one of the few Summer Skirmish champions. They won two of the 10 matches, including the final game. Heading into the last map, seven teams had a shot at winning the grand prize, but a seven-kill performance by Zayt and Saf secured the map win and the $6,500 bonus for the most combined eliminations.
Sticking to the fluid formatting, this tournament featured a different system than previous ones. The goal of the event was to become the first team to reach 13 points, accumulating points through Victory Royales—worth four points—and hitting five kills in a single game—this feat earned teams two points.
Some of the best players, including those from Ghost Gaming, Liquid, and Cloud9, finished in the top 10 behind Zayt and Saf. Ryan “Chap” Chaplo and Thomas “72hrs” Mulligan of Team Liquid put up an especially strong fight, taking two maps of their own during the 10-game tournament. The team even finished with a game-high seven kills in the fifth match, but it just wasn’t enough to grab first place.
While the professional players filled the top spots in this tournament, popular streamers Ben “DrLupo” Lupo and NoahJ456 snuck into the top 20, grabbing some of the prize pool.
Saturday’s event will be very similar to this iteration, except the top and most popular players in Europe will compete instead. The competition will begin at 12pm CT.
