Thunderpick Day 5: Playoffs heat up

The playoffs for Thunderpick World Championship 2023 North America Series 2 started two days ago with the invited teams winning most of their matchups and justifying the invite. The only exception was Party Astronauts, who fell to Forsaken and are out of contention for the last spots in the main event of the competition.

The playoffs started with Nouns taking on Badass and not disappointing their fans with two 16-9 map wins. Edgar "MarKE" Maldonado topped the fragging list but the rest of the team was not far off, as everyone was exceptionally good.

The next quarterfinal was between Evil Geniuses and Bad News Bears. BNB's play-in stage exposed some flaws in the team's system, and EG was able to completely turn that in their favor, winning Overpass 16-3 and Ancient 16-7. Jadan "HexT" Postma ended the series with a 1.70 HLTV Rating and 43 kills.

The only upset that happened was with Party Astronauts after Forsaken beat them 2-1. Both teams lost their respective map pick, Forsaken won PA's Ancient 16-6, and PA won Forsaken's Overpass 16-10. The decider was Inferno and Forsaken replicated the score from the first map, 16-6.

The last series of the quarterfinals was a quick one, as Complexity beat the jungle 2-0, with a 16-4 Anubis and a 16-0 Nuke.

With these results, the semifinals are set, with the winners of each of those series booking their trips to Europe, where the main event of Thunderpick World Championship 2023 will happen. The tournament won't end there, though, as there's a $20,000 prize money for the winner of this qualifier.

The semifinals will be:

Complexity vs. Forsaken - Today 08:00PM

Evil Geniuses vs. Nouns - Today 05:00PM