No surprises from Ace NA Masters Spring Open Qualifier #1

The first of two North American open qualifiers for the BLAST Premier Showdown qualifier concluded yesterday evening with two favourites, NRG and Wildcard, easily stepping through to the Closed Qualifier.

As a reminder, there is no more regional Showdown and the winner of the Closed Qualifier will head to Europe where they will face the teams that placed 7th-16th in the BLAST Spring Groups (i.e. Complexity and OG), along with the winners from regional qualifiers like the ACE NA Masters from around the world.

The first open qualifier was filled with teams that became familiar to the North American scene during the Americas RMR qualifiers, including The Nomads and my life be like in addition to some of the ESL Challenger League teams that were not directly invited to the Closed Qualifier like Limitless, recent ESEA Advanced champions Spectre, and Relegation promotees MIGHT. NRG also found themselves in this open qualifier as they continue to prove themselves as a top branded roster with significant potential.

The round of 16 was relatively uneventful, as most games went decisively to the victor and were not particularly close. The exceptions were Lampa upsetting Carpe Diem and LAG falling in the final round to Limitless. Other matches saw Wildcard top The Nomads, MIGHT best LOS, Spectre defeat Datejust, my life be like handling WICKED, NRG beating CatEvil, and Mythic winning over Legacy.

The quarterfinals were much closer and were the final leg of the qualifier decided by best-of-one series. NRG clobbered Limitless 13-3, but the remaining three games went all 24 rounds or further. Wildcard and Spectre found themselves on the right side of these 13-11 scorelines against MIGHT and my life be like, respectively. However, it took Mythic two overtimes to finally secure the best-of-three series, with a win over Lampa.

In the qualifying round, Wildcard left Spectre spinning with a decisive 13-5 win on Vertigo before torching them 13-4 on Inferno for a clean 2-0 series sweep and a spot in the Closed Qualifier. NRG's sweep of Mythic was notably less clean, requiring overtime to defeat the stream team 16-14 (ah, MR15 nostalgia...) on Anubis before closing the series on Overpass with a much more emphatic 13-4 scoreline to advance to the Closed Qualifier.

The second open qualifier begins tomorrow, interested teams can register here.