In another NA VCT open qualifier surprise, NRG Esports were upset by the Resonate roster in the round of 32 of the Stage Three Challengers Two open qualifier. With the loss, NRG’s Stage Three run is over early, and now they are holding onto their spot in the Champions’ NA Last Chance Qualifier by a thread.
Resonate stole away the first map on Haven, winning a 13-11 affair in which both sides looked unstoppable on their attack sides. Despite a rough showing from primary duelist tex, NRG was carried by 20 kill performances by both s0m and eeiu. Their 11-10 lead quickly slipped through their hands as Resonate claimed three straight rounds to take a 1-0 lead, however.
NRG answered back confidently on Breeze, winning 10 straight rounds through halftime to decisively take the second map 13-5. Tex had a much better game, supplemented by a tremendous all-around game from ANDROID on Viper. ANDROID broke out KAY/O again on map three, Ascent, just like he did in map one, but the result was the same as Resonate completed the upset with a 13-8 win on the final map.
While the Resonate squad moves on in the open qualifier for Challengers Two, NRG are done for the remainder of Stage Three, but may not make it to the Last Chance Qualifier. Currently, they’re 9th in NA VCT circuit points, with 30 points from the Stage Two Challengers Finals. They reached those Finals with a third-place finish at Challengers Two, then finished tied for fifth at the Finals with a win over XSET and losses to Cloud9 Blue and Version1.
But if two of the teams currently behind NRG in the NA standings—Luminosity, Andbox, Immortals, TSM, T1, or anyone else who hasn’t earned any points—end up reaching the Stage Three Challengers Playoffs, then they would both earn enough points to knock NRG out of contention for Champions.
That would be a worst-case scenario for an NRG roster that went all in with big changes during this VCT campaign. They acquired two all-star duelists in ANDROID (from Andbox) and tex (from Equinox). Then after daps left to go back and coach Evil Geniuses’ CS:GO roster, NRG snagged controller WeDid off of the XSET bench. But now they can only sit back and watch, and hope that at least three of the four teams that reach Challengers Playoffs are already ahead of them in the standings.
