paiN to face GGPR in ESEA Autumn Cash Cup 3 grand final
ESEA's Autumn Cash Cup 3 is down to the final two teams and will pit one of Brazil's best against one of ESEA Advanced's best. GGPR emerged victorious over Rebirth in the first semifinal, while paiN bested Yeah in the second semifinal's Brazilian derby.
Chase "lowrider" Releford came out swinging with 30 kills on the opening map, but Rebirth were able to work around him as everyone but Sebastian "retchy" Tropiano managed to outperform every other player on GGPR in the fragging department. Ali "phantom" Sachs and Zack "XotiC" Elshani combined for 50 frags as Rebirth seized a 1-0 series lead.
The rest of GGPR came alive for the rest of the series, starting with big performances from Jeorge "jeorgesnorts" Endicott and Victor "v1c" T on Nuke. The duo would post 25 and 26 kills respectively as the MDL hopefuls leveled out the series at one map apiece.
In the decider on Vertigo things looked well-primed for a decisive Rebirth victory after they jumped out to a 11-4 halftime lead, but GGPR won ten of eleven rounds after switching to T-side to jump out to a 14-12 lead. Rebirth evened the score, but GGPR secured the final two rounds to take the map and the series. This time it was Israel "LEARSI" Vargas that led the way with 27 kills for the victors.
paiN made things look easy in their opening map against Yeah, running the score up to 14-1 on their opening T-side and swiftly wrapped up the map as soon as they secured a full buy in the second half. Rafael "saffee" Costa's 27 kills were equivalent to Yeah's two best fraggers combined as paiN jumped out to a 1-0 lead.
saffee continued to bring the pain on Train as he led the server once again with 37 frags. This time however, Yeah stood tall and battled back by fighting off ten consecutive match points to take paiN to overtime. Once there, the Brazilian American roster dropped just one round and succesfully forced a third map. Rodrigo "RCF" Figueiredo and Eduardo "dumau" Wolkmer contributed 30 and 26 kills, respectively, for Yeah in the overtime victory.
On Dust2 it was Rodrigo "biguzera" Bittencourt that came up big for paiN with 24 kills, while Yeah's Brazilian contingent of RCF, dumau, and Arthur "f4stzin" Schmitt each tallied 18 frags in the decider. paiN carried a slim 9-6 lead into the half after their CT-side, but 11-12 was as close as Yeah could get before paiN rattled off four rounds in a row to take the map, the series, and the grand final berth.
The current results for ESEA Autumn Cash Cup 3 are:
1st - TBD - $3,000
2nd - TBD - $1,000
3-4th - Yeah (RCF, dumau, Swisher, bew, f4stzin)
3-4th - Rebirth (phantom, XotiC, retchy, curry, nosraC)
The grand final, once rescheduled, will determine who takes the larger sum of the guaranteed prize money.