EG Black eliminated from ESL Challenger Melbourne
Coming into their 0-1 matches in Melbourne, both ECSTATIC and EG Black needed a victory to stay alive and keep their hopes alive for a playoff appearance. With ECSTATIC losing to Complexity in 30 rounds and EG Black losing to hometown heroes Grayhound in the opening matches, it was do or die for both teams in this best-of-three series.
The three maps of choice were Ancient, ECSTATIC's pick, Inferno, EG's pick, and Vertigo, the chosen decider. Analysts gave little stock to EG Black in the first map, and it seemed that they deciphered correctly, as ECSTATIC's T-side quickly opened up to a 7-1 start. Once EG managed to wrangle the economy back in their favor, the almost evened up the scoreline to just 6-7, before losing the final two rounds of the half.
ECSTATIC looked to run away with it by taking the second pistol and conversion, but a flawless third round brought EG Black back into the game. The two sides traded rounds back and forth. Economy breaks went this way and that, eventually culminating in a completely even game after 30, taking us to overtime.
ECSTATIC won one. EG won one. ECSTATIC won another one. EG won another one. ECSTATIC won one more, bringing them just one round away from taking a map advantage! EG won one more, double OT. EG's CT side won the first map of the second OT, making it the first consecutive round past 30! Was this the start of EG domination? No. ECSTATIC won the next one. A miraculous Jadan "HexT" Postma 1v3 ensured the pattern repeated. Wouldn't you know it, ECSTATIC won the next round. Finally, in the 41st round, ECSTATIC won two in a row, giving the Danes their second map point. This time, ECSTATIC converted it, winning Ancient 22-20.
Onto Evil Geniuses' pick of inferno, ECSTATIC chose the luxury of the CT-side first. EG Black took the first three rounds of the map, but good economy management of the T-side brought ECSTATIC right back into it. The rest of the half went back and forth as it ended the same way it started, with EG Black holding a three round advantage. EG Black started their CT-side strong with another pistol victory, but ECSTATIC fired back, stealing the conversion. They went on a run of four in a row, the longest run so far in Inferno. EG Black managed to break and streak as well at the T-side economy, finally bringing the momentum back in their favor as they won the map 16-12, taking the series to map 3.
In the final map of this absolute slugfest, ECSTATIC got to a blazing T-side start. They took 5 rounds before EG Black fought back. While the Americans took rounds here and there, they only managed to scrape together six by the end of the half. Now onto their T-side, EG took the pistol round and the two following, matching up the score at nine apiece. From there though, the Danish defense stood strong, They marched up to 14 before an unreal 3k through smoke from Jeorge "Jeorge" Endicott kept EG Black in the game. EG Black only got a couple more rounds though before ECSTATIC closed out Vertigo 16-11 and the match 2-1.
ECSTATICEG Black| ECSTATIC |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Tobias 'kraghen' Kragh Jensen |
72 - 63 | +9 | 83.2 | 71.1% | 1.12 |
| Marcus 'maNkz' Kjeldsen |
57 - 73 | -16 | 79.8 | 73.2% | 1.02 |
| Magnus 'Nodios' Olsen |
64 - 67 | -3 | 71.5 | 73.2% | 1.00 |
| Jason 'salazar' Salazar |
59 - 55 | +4 | 55.5 | 71.1% | 0.94 |
| Jonas 'Queenix' Dideriksen |
55 - 66 | -11 | 64.2 | 70.1% | 0.92 |
| EG Black |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Paytyn 'junior' Johnson |
74 - 48 | +26 | 76.7 | 74.2% | 1.26 |
| Jeorge 'Jeorge' Endicott |
62 - 61 | +1 | 74.2 | 72.2% | 1.08 |
 Jadan 'HexT' Postma |
69 - 69 | +0 | 75.9 | 64.9% | 1.04 |
| Colby 'Walco' Walsh |
61 - 60 | +1 | 61.7 | 69.1% | 1.00 |
| William 'RUSH' Wierzba |
55 - 69 | -14 | 70.4 | 68.0% | 0.89 |
With this victory, ECSTATIC move one match away from playoffs, taking on Complexity later today at 03:00AM. Evil Geniuses Black are eliminated from ESL Challenger Melbourne after going 0-2.
