Recon 5 and ETHEREAL battle their way to Fragadelphia Online: Social Distancing grand finals
Fragadelphia Online: Social Distancing has reached the grand finals, seeing Recon 5 continue their near-perfect run through the upper bracket while ETHEREAL battled through five Advanced squads after being sent into the lower bracket last week by Clip Demons.
Starting in upper bracket round five, Recon 5 ended Clip Demons' reign of terror by taking a close 16-13 game on Inferno before claiming Vertigo 16-8 after a strong 10-5 CT-side performance. Meanwhile, RBG claimed a labored 2-0 win over Kinship Black, taking the two maps 16-12 and 16-13.
Recon 5 started their winners' final series against RBG in the lead, mounting a strong performance on their CT-side to take Mirage 16-11. The Advanced squad replied on their pick of Nuke, winning their T-side 9-6 before forcing the series onto Inferno with a 16-10 victory.
With the series tied up, a massive performance from Dominick "JazzPimp" Dimpfel saw Recon 5 in the driver's seat for the entirety of the map as they claimed their spot in the grand finals with a 16-9 finish.
Moving into the lower bracket, results came fast and thick as Rebirth, ImPerium, Ativa, and DEXA all made their ways into round five after 2-0 victories over Kinship, Orion, Dignitas fe, and OG plays, respectively.
From there, every single team that made it out of round four were all bested in quick succession, with Grazur, Third Impact, and ETHEREAL putting on one-sided showings in dispatching of their opposition.
In round six, ETHEREAL bested Grazur by the thinnest of margins, taking both maps 16-14 to send the recently signed lineup packing. As for the series between Third Impact and Able2Mutate, Third Impact dispatched the Main team 2-0 but not before Able2Mutate managed to take both maps to double digits.
The seventh round saw ETHEREAL survive elimination at the hands of Kinship Black, managing to pull off a 2-1 comeback after dropping the first map 22-20. Third Impact also struggled in their bout against Clip Demons, with the Main team continuing their string of impressive performances as they forced both maps to overtime before being taken down 2-0.
The next series saw Third Impact eliminated in fourth place at the hands of ETHEREAL. After ETHEREAL claimed map one 16-6, Third Impact answered back with a 16-10 win of their own. The third and final map went the distance as ETHEREAL ultimately overpowered Third Impact to claim a 19-16 overtime victory.
ETHEREAL started their losers' final series against RBG on Inferno. After narrowly winning their T-side 8-7, a standout performance from Dennison "fdeN" Fong helped ETHEREAL keep RBG at bay to narrowly take the map 16-14.
On Overpass, ETHEREAL ended the first half in the lead once again, with a solid defense netting them a 10-5 scoreline heading onto their T-side. ETHEREAL stumbled a fair bit following the side swap, allowing RBG to climb all the way up to thirteen rounds before a triple kill from Shawn "Magowi" O'Malley gave ETHEREAL the boost they needed to take the map 16-13.
With only two teams left standing, ETHEREAL will be facing off against Recon 5 in a best-of-five series at 9PM EDT to see who takes home the $1,500 top prize.
