Two horse race in ECL Season 46 NA first weeks

As the new season of ESL Challenger League North America starts picking up some steam, there's a clear line between the top dogs and the rest of the teams.

Although some of the favorites to win are yet to play a single series, such as Nouns and Evil Geniuses, M80 and Wildcard, also two of the strongest teams in the competition, are showing a level of Counter-Strike that is hard to replicate.

Since the last update, M80 have won two more series with a 2-0 result, one against Reason and another against Mythic. Reason lost the first map to M80 16-7, and then almost won the second map, but Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa's 34 kills in Inferno got his team the 16-14 win. Mythic also had a similar first map, where they lost 16-8, but the second one was the complete opposite. M80 got the first 16-0 of the season, with 15 rounds coming from the T-side of Vertigo.

Meanwhile, Wildcard played three series, against Reason and Mythic, coincidentally, and Unjustified, all ended with a 2-0 win for Keller "SLIGHT" Nilan and co. Unjustified didn't have a chance in any of the two maps, losing 16-6 in Ancient and 16-4 in Anubis. Reason also got destroyed in Anubis, 16-4, and in Inferno, 16-5. Mythic almost got 16-0'd again, but managed to lose just 16-1 in their own Overpass, then bounced back and put together a better performance in Nuke, but not enough to stop Wildcard from winning 16-10.

There were two more series played, as FLUFFY AIMERS lost 2-1 to Unjustified, with both teams winning their own pick, but Unjustified winning the Mirage decider 16-10, and the newly-promoted Rocket beat Bad News Bears 2-1 as both teams lost their own pick and Rocket closed the series in Overpass 16-7.

The next scheduled matches are:

• Bad News Bears vs. kariESPORTS - Tuesday 08:00PM

• Bad News Bears vs. FLUFFY AIMERS - Thursday 08:00PM

The list of the top eight players of the Season so far, according to their HLTV Rating, is comprised of almost just M80 and Wildcard players. The only team also represented in the list is Rocket, after Damian "droid" Boulware put up some incredible numbers against BNB. droid got 83 kills throughout the three maps and managed an Average Damage per Round of 104.6, netting him a 1.47 rating.

Topping the list is 18-year-old Matthew "d4rty" Paplawskas, with an average rating of 1.49 after six maps. d4rty has been tearing up recently, but since the start of this ECL season, he's turned it up a notch, being the best player on his team, stats-wise.

The top eight rated players since the start of the season are:

• Matthew "d4rty" Paplawskas (Wildcard) - 1.49 Rating

• Damian "droid" Boulware (Rocket) - 1.47 Rating

• Adam "freshie" Paterson (Wildcard) - 1.40 Rating

• Michael "Swisher" Schmid (M80) - 1.35 Rating

• Keller "SLIGHT" Nilan (Wildcard) - 1.35 Rating

• Adam "WolfY" Andersson (M80) - 1.34 Rating

• Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa (M80) - 1.33 Rating

• Marcus "maNkz" Kjeldsen (M80) - 1.29 Rating