Swole Patrol stomp cantwinalan; head to ESL Pro League Season 9
The ESEA MDL Season 29 Finals have concluded. The top two teams, Swole Patrol and cantwinalan, faced off in a best-of-three where the winner would head to the ESL Pro League Season 9. The vetoed maps were Overpass, Cache and Dust2. Swole Patrol were going for their second attempt at qualifying at this stage, having missed out last time to eUnited.
Both teams were utilzing stand-ins, with Swole Patrol finally playing Ian "motm" Hardy, after Edgar "MarkE" Jiminez was unable to secure a visa, and cantwinalan bringing in Ryan "GRAMPZ" Baber in place of the LAN-dodging Zack "XotiC" Elshani.
Overpass was a display of relative dominance for Swole Patrol, as they were ahead at all points of the map. They started the map off with the first four rounds, before cantwinalan secured three of their own. The two teams then traded two sets of four rounds, as Swole Patrol went in 8-7 leaders at the break. The second half, however, was a display of brilliance for Swole Patrol as they rinsed rounds out time and time again. Of the nine rounds played in the second half, they lost just one to cantwinalan as stand-in motm proved his worth by claiming a strong 1.38 rating.
Cache was up next, and it was another strong map for Swole Patrol. They opened up the map with five rounds in a row before cantwinalan joined in with one of their own, but it would only be one before Swole Patrol came straight back with another five of their own to take a 10-1 lead, with Ryan "freakzoid" Abadir and loanee Brandon "Ace" Winn linking up perfectly; this 10-1 lead then extended to 14-1 by the end of the half. A successful B-hold from Swole Patrol launched them to 15-1, before they finished it up with a 16-1 domination to cement their position into the ESL Pro League.
Swole Patrolcantwinalan| Swole Patrol |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Ryan 'freakazoid' Abadir |
34 - 24 | +10 | 106.4 | 80.5% | 1.53 |
| Brandon 'Ace' Winn |
34 - 23 | +11 | 78.8 | 78.0% | 1.42 |
| Ian 'motm' Hardy |
36 - 24 | +12 | 84.9 | 80.5% | 1.41 |
| Braxton 'swag' Pierce |
31 - 16 | +15 | 74.7 | 90.2% | 1.39 |
| Jordan 'Zellsis' Montemurro |
31 - 21 | +10 | 80.9 | 85.4% | 1.36 |
| cantwinalan |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jack 'xCeeD' Holiman |
31 - 31 | +0 | 78.8 | 75.6% | 1.07 |
| Mitch 'mitch' Semago |
27 - 37 | -10 | 71.4 | 63.4% | 0.75 |
| Ryan 'GRAMPZ' Baber |
22 - 34 | -12 | 58.4 | 68.3% | 0.74 |
| Sebastian 'seb' Bucki |
14 - 33 | -19 | 50.7 | 53.7% | 0.56 |
 Connor 'CONNOR93' Glover |
14 - 31 | -17 | 42.6 | 48.8% | 0.50 |
This result means Swole Patrol head to the next ESL Pro League season, and cantwinalan get another chance in the Relegation tournament which begins tomorrow. Swole Patrol now looks to that next season, wondering if freakazoid will be continuing with them on that journey.
