Selfless Gaming looked flat and overmatched in the grand finals of last week’s Overwatch Monthly Melee when they were swept by Denial Esports’ former roster, now known as Yikes.
Widely considered one of North America’s best teams, Selfless retired any doubt that might have creeped up about the team over the past few days with a strong win in last weekend’s Rivalcade Overwatch Rumble.
Selfless looked like they were playing with a chip on their shoulder in group play on Saturday, as they steamrolled their group with a 3-0 record to earn the first seed in the playoffs bracket on Sunday.
They were pushed to the brink by fellow strong NA team LG Evil in the first round of the playoffs, but Selfless ended up victorious with a 2-1 lead before sweeping Detroit Renegades 2-0 to earn a spot in the grand finals. It was their second grand finals appearance in three days, following their lackluster performance against Yikes in the finals of the Monthly Melee on Thursday.
In the finals Selfless met up with Cloud9, a team that made a strong statement this weekend. After picking up star Korean tank main Ryu “Kaiser” Sang-hoon to be their main tank, C9 flourished as his synergy with fellow Korean tank Koo “Xepher” Jae-mo shined through. The move also allowed Daniel “Gods” Graesser to play more DPS where he put on a show with Genji.
Cloud9 looked poised to take a 1-0 series lead on Hollywood as they needed just 33 percent of the first capture point to win the game in the second round, but Selfless held strong to force a tie. Selfless would then go on to win a best-of-three tiebreaker round on Lijiang Tower to begin the finals ahead 1-0.
In the second game, Selfless imposed their will on Cloud9 on defense as C9 was unable to advance past the second checkpoint on King’s Row, leading to a 2-0 series lead for Selfless. Daniel “Dafran” Francesca wreaked havoc from high ground with Soldier: 76 to prevent C9 from gaining any traction.
The final game of the series went to Nepal and Selfless closed out the series with a hard-fought, closely contested 3-2 win that went the distance. Dafran and Jay “Sinatraa” Won combined Zarya and Tracer ultimates for a big bang that put an exclamation point on the victory, as Michael “Michael3D” Wilbanks held down the backline with strong Ana play.
The win for Selfless is their first of 2017 after a number of second and third-place finishes. Along with their second-place finish in both the May and April Monthly Melee events, they also finished third in the previous Overwatch Rumble in April.
Selfless’s next challenge will be the qualifier for Overwatch Contenders, which will start in the beginning of June. Meanwhile, Cloud9 will now head to Krefeld, Germany to compete in Overwatch TaKeOver 2, along with top NA team Rogue and top EU team Misfits.
Published: May 29, 2017 07:42 am