Yeah sweep GGPR for ESEA MDL Season 36 berth
The ESEA Advanced Season 35 postseason has officially come to a close following a pair of series sweeps. GGPR put up a respectable fight in the grand final but couldn't keep Yeah from closing out their season with an emphatic 3-0 win to advance to MDL. The fifth-place decider that occurred in lieu of an invite to relegation this season has also concluded, with SKDC securing the final spot in next week's event with a 2-0 sweep of ex-Thunder Logic.
Yeah were given a 1-0 series lead in the best-of-five after coming from the upper bracket and they made sure that it didn't go to waste. Eduardo "dumau" Wolkmer popped off on Overpass with 34 kills, but to their credit GGPR kept things close and stole a few rounds that were Yeah's for the taking, including a cheeky defuse out in the open on the A site. But in the end 11-11 was as close as GGPR would get to putting Yeah away, as their opponents won five of the last seven rounds and converted their first match point to take a 2-0 series lead. GGPR were led by their teenage talent as well, Victor "v1c" T. finished with 23 frags in the opening map loss.
The fragging power of the young guns continued to be a theme on Inferno, as dumau and v1c led the way again, with 24 and 22 kills, respectively. This time Yeah were able to assert themselves a bit more in the second half, allowing GGPR just three offensive rounds after sneaking away with the same 8-7 halftime lead. Brandon "bew" Roberts finished with a 1.41 rating, good for the best in the server as the Brazilian-American hybrid roster locked down the sole automatic berth to ESEA MDL Season 36.
In the 5th-place tiebreaker things started out close on Inferno, with SKDC scraping out a 8-7 lead on their CT-side. After the switch their offense proved to be much more effective than their defense and ex-Thunder Logic just simply couldn't get their retakes going and win their duels. SKDC won just one round by detonating the bomb, while their other seven victories came via elimination. Dylan "Hiki" O'Kane was the highest rated player in the server for SKDC, but David "sensu" Oliver led the way in kills with 25 in the victory. Brandon "Sharkie" Ly was ex-Thunder Logic's top performer in the loss.
SKDC closed out the series with an even more dominant win on Nuke. They jumped out to a 10-5 lead on T-side and then allowed ex-Thunder Logic just one round on their attacking side to close out the series and keep their MDL dreams alive. Derek "desi" Branchen led all players with 27 frags in the series-clinching win, while Brandon "YuZ" Cyr led ex-Thunder Logic with 16 eliminations in the loss.
ESEA MDL Season 35 Relegation will feature the following opening-round matchups:
Vireo.pro | vs. SKDC |
ex-Recon 5 | vs. GSG9 |
ex-ImPerium | vs. Rise |
Kinship | vs. GGPR |
The first round of the event is slated to begin Monday at 9:30PM EST.