paiN trade maps with Mythic to win first ESEA Winter Cash Cup
paiN defeated RBG in the semifinal and Mythic in the grand final en route to pocketing ESEA Cash Cup prize money for the fourth time. Sunday's victory in ESEA Winter Cash Cup 1 marks their third payout in a row from the series and second victory in the last three iterations of the 5v5 events.
RBG may have been the team that enjoyed a direct invited berth in the semifinals, but paiN came to play and showed us why they've been one of the most successful teams in the ESEA Cash Cup era. RBG managed to pull together seven rounds on their opening CT-side, but couldn't crack paiN's second-half defense. paiN conceded just two rounds while they closed out the opening map, led by Gabriel "NEKIZ" Schenato's 24 kills. Wesley "viz" Harris led all players in the server with 27 eliminations in the loss.
paiN didn't loosen their grip on CT-side on map two. If allowing just two rounds was dominant on Nuke, they managed to one up themselves on Inferno by conceding just the final round of the opening half. They won the second half pistol as well and found themselves up 15-1 before RBG strung together three rounds in a row to stem the bleeding just a bit while paiN completed the sweep. Rafael "saffee" Costa led the server with 28 kills, while it was a very different story for Austin "gmanchew" Vieira, who had just a pair of frags in the twenty-round loss.
RBGpaiN| RBG |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Wesley 'viz' Harris |
42 - 36 | +6 | 96.6 | 77.8% | 1.23 |
 Jadan 'HexT' Postma |
27 - 34 | -7 | 70.2 | 60.0% | 0.91 |
| Jerric 'wiz' Jiang |
25 - 35 | -10 | 60.5 | 62.2% | 0.84 |
| Colby 'Walco' Walsh |
12 - 39 | -27 | 38.1 | 42.2% | 0.40 |
| Austin 'gmanchew' Vieira |
11 - 39 | -28 | 30.9 | 37.8% | 0.29 |
| paiN |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Gabriel 'NEKIZ' Schenato |
45 - 26 | +19 | 109.6 | 84.4% | 1.67 |
| Rafael 'saffee' Costa |
49 - 24 | +25 | 103.5 | 84.4% | 1.62 |
| Wesley 'hardzao' Lopes |
35 - 22 | +13 | 80.1 | 82.2% | 1.35 |
| Rodrigo 'biguzera' Bittencourt |
30 - 23 | +7 | 68.2 | 71.1% | 1.10 |
| Vinicios 'PKL' Coelho |
24 - 24 | +0 | 68.3 | 68.9% | 1.00 |
The invited side fared much better in the other semifinal, though GGPR certainly made Mythic work for the 2-0 series sweep. After jumping out to a 9-6 and then 14-9 lead, GGPR conceded six of the last seven rounds to Mythic as the stream team forced overtime. The teams split the first set of six extra rounds evenly, but Mythic conceded just one round in the second overtime to seize the opening map victory. Kaitlin "Keiti" Boop led all players with 36 kills, while Victor "v1c" T. was GGPR's top fragger with 30 eliminations.
Things just got better for Keiti and Mythic on Overpass as the stream team's leading lady's 35 frag outburst nearly equalled her 41 round kill total from Mirage within regulation. GGPR simply couldn't match her production and fell to a 10-5 deficit at halftime and didn't manage double digits before the match had ended. Chase "lowrider" Releford led GGPR with 23 kills in the loss.
MythicGGPR| Mythic |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kaitlin 'Keiti' Boop |
71 - 50 | +21 | 107.4 | 80.3% | 1.54 |
| Erik 'fl0m' Flom |
48 - 45 | +3 | 77.3 | 69.7% | 1.19 |
| Austin 'Cooper' Abadir |
56 - 45 | +11 | 89.6 | 71.2% | 1.18 |
| David 'DAVEY' Stafford |
43 - 39 | +4 | 72.3 | 72.7% | 1.08 |
| Eric 'adreN' Hoag |
38 - 40 | -2 | 68.7 | 69.7% | 0.99 |
| GGPR |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chase 'lowrider' Releford |
49 - 53 | -4 | 86.9 | 63.6% | 1.10 |
| Victor 'v1c' T. |
49 - 50 | -1 | 72.1 | 60.6% | 0.98 |
| Evan 'Creed' Dao |
42 - 50 | -8 | 75.2 | 68.2% | 0.95 |
| Jeorge 'Jeorge' Endicott |
42 - 52 | -10 | 67.7 | 65.2% | 0.87 |
| Israel 'LEARSI' Vargas |
37 - 52 | -15 | 60.6 | 66.7% | 0.83 |
Mythic managed to do what RBG couldn't against paiN's defense and secured themselves a 9-6 halftime lead on T-side in their opening map of the grand final. But once they switched to defense the stream team only managed to win their force buy after the pistol and a round 24 eco as paiN steamrolled their way to a 10-2 half and 1-0 series lead. NEKIZ led the way for the South American side with 23 kills, while Keiti (surprise, surprise) led all players with 25 frags in the loss.
Mythic were able to bounce back on their map pick of Overpass with the help of another regulation thirty bomb from Keiti. This time she tallied 34 kills as Mythic jumped out to a 12-3 halftime lead and were able to close the map at their leisure and even the series at a map apiece. saffee topped paiN with 21 eliminations in the loss.
paiN were able to outlast Mythic in the end, as the stream team seemed to use up all of the fuel that they had in the tank prior to the decider. The Brazilians jumped out to a 10-5 halftime lead with more strong defense and never allowed Mythic more than one round at a time after their initial 2-0 first half lead. saffee had nearly double the kill count of anyone on Mythic, he finished with 29 frags to Austin "Cooper-" Abadir's team-best 16 frags for the stream team.
paiNMythic| paiN |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rafael 'saffee' Costa |
70 - 35 | +35 | 92.8 | 77.3% | 1.49 |
| Gabriel 'NEKIZ' Schenato |
60 - 50 | +10 | 84.7 | 80.0% | 1.22 |
| Vinicios 'PKL' Coelho |
55 - 49 | +6 | 84.4 | 72.0% | 1.22 |
| Rodrigo 'biguzera' Bittencourt |
49 - 52 | -3 | 71.6 | 78.7% | 1.04 |
| Wesley 'hardzao' Lopes |
38 - 51 | -13 | 69.4 | 70.7% | 0.89 |
| Mythic |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kaitlin 'Keiti' Boop |
69 - 56 | +13 | 93.8 | 73.3% | 1.29 |
| Austin 'Cooper' Abadir |
48 - 51 | -3 | 61.5 | 70.7% | 0.95 |
| David 'DAVEY' Stafford |
46 - 58 | -12 | 75.1 | 65.3% | 0.92 |
| Eric 'adreN' Hoag |
37 - 48 | -11 | 61.3 | 64.0% | 0.90 |
| Erik 'fl0m' Flom |
37 - 60 | -23 | 67.3 | 64.0% | 0.83 |
The final standings of ESEA Winter Cash Cup 1 are:
1st - paiN (PKL, NEKIZ, hardzao, biguzera, saffee) -$3,000
2nd - Mythic (fl0m, adreN, Keiti, DAVEY, Cooper-) -$1,000
3-4th - RBG (gmanchew, Walco, HexT, wiz, viz)
3-4th - GGPR (lowrider, jeorgesnorts, v1c, Creed, LEARSI)
The top performers from the event's playoff stage were:
1st - Rafael "saffee" Costa - 1.54 rating (5 maps)
2nd - Kaitlin "Keiti" Boop - 1.40 rating (5 maps)
3rd - Gabriel "NEKIZ" Schenato - 1.39 rating (5 maps)
4th - Wesley "viz" Harris - 1.23 rating (2 maps)
5th - Vinicios "PKL" Coelho - 1.13 rating (5 maps)
ESEA Winter Cash Cup 2 will begin on December 19th and registration is live now. Teams can register here.
