NCS Major Chicago heads to playoffs
Two stages and almost two full days of play have narrowed the original field of ten teams to six at NCS Major Chicago, which will now head into the single-elimination playoffs. The initial stage of round-robin play was used to seed a second stage of GSL groups, which then brought us to where the event stands.
In the first stage, Group A saw Singularity and Bronchitis secure the top spots in the three team group. Singularity had a clean 2-0 record, beating Unban Alex Jones 2020 16-3 and Bronchitis 16-12, while Bronchitis cruised past Unban Alex Jones 2020, losing only five rounds.
Group B started with Iniquity winning their match versus Donut Thunder 16-8, and later beating BLINK 16-13 to secure the first seed. The second seed was earned by BLINK who came out on top in their match against Donut Thunder 16-11.
Just Swing and Big Frames are the teams that finished first and second in Group C, respectively. Just Swing's mix team consisting of the likes of Austin "RenZ" Dickman and Danny "cxzi" Strzelczyk dominated their matches against Inferas and Cruel, winning them 16-6 and 16-1, respectively. The mix had a close game versus Big Frames but still managed to secure the win with a 16-14 scoreline. Aside from the aforementioned match, Big Frames also had a pretty dominant performance, beating Inferas 16-5 and Cruel 16-7.
The full results for the first stage of the tournament are available here.
Moving into the second stage of the tournament, three new GSL groups were seeded based on results from the first. The opening matches of these BO3 groups saw BLNK, Big Frames, Just Swing, and Bronchitis all handily move to the winners' matches with 2-0 victories. They were joined there by Singularity and Iniquity, who received free passes due to their seeds.
Singularity had no trouble breezing through BLNK, who dropped to the loser's bracket to play Inferas. Big Frames got the best of Iniquity 0-2, leaving them to play Unban Alex Jones 2020. Just Swing barely squeezed out the victory over Bronchitis, with both maps going into overtime. In the first elimination match of the day, Donut Thunder shook the server and sent Cruel packing.
The rest of the elimination matches were cut and dry across the board, with none going into three maps and with the losers of each map not getting more than 10 rounds. BLNK shut down Inferas 16-5 on both maps, and Iniquity made sure Alex Jones won't be getting unbanned anytime soon. Down in Group C, there was no storm found in the Windy City, and Donut Thunder succumbed to Bronchitis.
The tournament quarterfinals are live now, with the following two matchups:
 Just Swing |
vs. | Iniquity |
| Bronchitis |
vs. | BLNK |
After those two matches are concluded, tomorrow will see the semifinals and grand finals of the event play out, according to the following schedule:
| Singularity |
vs. | Just Swing/Iniquity |
12 PM EDT |
| Big Frames |
vs. | BLNK/Bronchitis |
3 PM EDT |
| TBA |
vs. | TBA |
6 PM EDT |
The full results of the second stage of the event, and the playoff bracket can be found here.
