Sixth ESEA summer Cash Cup of 2023 reaches semifinals
The first ESEA Cash Cup since the Cash Cup Circuit in June started last night, seeing NA's top teams return to action to chase the $9k first-place prize. This iteration of the standalone event, ESEA Cash Cup 2023 Summer 6, has featured a number of NA's top teams including Nouns, Party Astronauts, and Wildcard, Evil Geniuses, and Forsaken, among other squads.
Miscellaneous highlights from the earlier stages of day one say Peruvian squad CatEvil make their debut, being eliminated by Nouns 16-7 on Mirage. Elsewhere in the bracket, WITHOUTWARNING's new roster with Andrew Burrell lost their debut against Badass in a close 16-14 loss on Ancient. Also of note was FaZe analyst Hunter "Lucid" Tucker playing as a ringer for Tempest, with that being smashed 16-5 by Party Astronauts on Ancient.
Moving into quarterfinals, Nouns made quick work of Badass with a 16-7 win on Mirage while PA dismantled FLUFFY AIMERS 16-8 on Nuke. Continuing through the bracket, Wildcard narrowly scrapped past Limitless 16-13 on Ancient. This match was also noteworthy as it saw former RBG player Josh "pwny" VanGorder stand in for Xavier "Locke" Barth; playing his first matches in CS:GO after 2+ years in VALORANT.
The final quarterfinal match gave quite the exciting result, as Evil Geniuses fresh off of their 0-3 run in Malta absolutely dominated Forsaken 16-5 on Inferno, continuing the unlikely rivalry between the two squads. With this win, it is also EG's first time making day two of a cash cup, having only played in three this year.
With day one completed, the semifinals look as follows:
Nouns vs. 
