Party Astronauts, Nouns top ACE Masters Group A
Day one of the ACE Masters Blast Fall qualifier concluded in the wee hours of the night yesterday, seeing Party Astronauts and Nouns eke out spots in the playoffs bracket with a few surprises on the way. Of those, the largest was the return of Zack "XotiC" Elshani as a stand-in for Nouns; playing his first maps in nearly a year. The ever-mysterious AWPer hopped on the server first as a stand-in for Brendan "Bwills" Williams and then Christopher "cJ" Jones to close out the night.
Shifting focus to the results, the first two matches went largely as expected, with Party Astronauts besting Reason 16-13 on Ancient and Nouns crushing Hound 16-8 also on Ancient. The next match, in the winners' bracket, saw the only upset of the night as the only recently assembled Party Astronauts roster dominated Nouns 16-7 on Ancient. In spite of Nouns using a stand-in, albeit a top-fragging stand-in, it was a great win for Party Astronauts after a somewhat tumultuous period for the team.
Next up on the docket, in the losers' bracket Hound took an upset 19-17 win over Reason thanks in part to a strong performance from Nikolaos "PoseidoNN" Antoniou.
Unfortunately for Hound, the jubilation of besting Reason was quickly brought back down to Earth as they were utterly smashed by Nouns on Inferno. Nouns won the map 16-2 with absolute ease, even going so far as to buy Negevs in the final rounds to add insult to injury.
NounsHound| Nouns |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Zack 'XotiC' Elshani |
21 - 11 | +10 | 124.3 | 77.8% | 1.76 |
| Carson 'nosraC' O'Reilly |
16 - 10 | +6 | 99.6 | 88.9% | 1.60 |
 Edgar 'MarKE' Maldonado |
13 - 8 | +5 | 85.1 | 94.4% | 1.59 |
| Brendan 'Bwills' Williams |
17 - 6 | +11 | 82.6 | 83.3% | 1.58 |
| David 'cynic' Polster |
9 - 8 | +1 | 55.8 | 77.8% | 1.12 |
| Hound |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brett 'Beastman' Eastman |
13 - 14 | -1 | 91.0 | 61.1% | 1.11 |
| Jake 'zebra' Davis |
10 - 16 | -6 | 46.8 | 61.1% | 0.62 |
| Matthew 'tatm' Munro |
8 - 17 | -9 | 78.1 | 50.0% | 0.60 |
| Nikolaos 'Pose1doNN' Antoniou |
5 - 13 | -8 | 32.1 | 50.0% | 0.47 |
 Daniel 'Reason' Martinez |
6 - 17 | -11 | 49.9 | 38.9% | 0.36 |
With Group A concluded, Group B will start tonight at 06:00PM and will see Bad News Bears, Forsaken, Wildcard, and Zomblers fight for the last two spots in the playoffs.
