Premier Recap Week 2 - Extra Salt, Bad News Bears, Mythic, Rebirth, and Secret Club start 2-0
The second week of matches in ESEA Premier Season 36 is in the books, with a host of the preseason division favorites winning their initial matches while other recently promoted sides continued to struggle.
Extra Salt came out swinging in their league debut, allowing Eclipse just ten rounds in the two map series. The American duo of Ian "motm" Hardy and Josh "oSee" Ohm each broke the forty kill mark in the series, with 46 and 40 eliminations respectively. Nick "zeptic" Kaoud led Eclipse with 27 frags in the series loss.
Secret Club found a second emphatic victory to continue their season on the right foot, their opponents are still yet to manage more than eight rounds against them on any given map. Anthony "CLASIA" Kearney and Jordan "jitter" Ruggiero finished with 44 and 42 kills, respectively, but since then the roster's makeup has become uncertain as CLASIA announced that he was looking for a new team.
Adam "WolfY" Andersson told Dust2.us that the team were exploring options as a result of CLASIA's in-game behavior, as opposed to issues with performance, but he refused to rule out the possibility that CLASIA would return to the team if he got his attitude in check.
Bad News Bears continued their dominant start to the season as well, allowing even fewer rounds against Oceanus than they did in their opener against Watch This. Peter "ptr" Gurney dropped fifty kills in two maps as Bad News Bears allowed just a pair of second half rounds on each map. Ezekiel "KmZ" Hughes was the only player on Oceanus to finish with a positive KD, he had 39 frags in the series.
The only series of week two to go to three maps pitted GGPR against Rise. GGPR convincingly took map one, but the latter two maps in the series were closely contested and saw the two recently promoted sides trade back and forth. GGPR had a trio of players finish with over sixty kills: Jeorge "jeorgesnorts" Endicott, Omar "3ARK00Z" Elyyan, and Brandon "YuZ" Cyr. Rise only had one such player, Kevin "consti" Yi.
Mythic also found their second win against Watch This as Felix-Antoine "daf" D'Avignon posted a solid 50 kill performance after dropping 20 eliminations on Dust2 and 30 frags on Vertigo. Daryl "DARYL" Wang led Watch This with 30 total kills in the 0-2 loss.
SKDC debuted their new look lineup with William "rin" McGraw and John "yohan" Lee against Extra Salt and Aran "Sonic" Groesbeek had a field day, finishing with a 1.75 rating and 52 frags. SKDC didn't manage a single second half round in the opener and managed just three in the second map. Derek "desi" Branchen led SKDC with 39 eliminations in the loss.
Rebirth featured Maxim "wippie" Shepelev in place of Rahul "curry" Nemani in their 2-0 sweep over ImPerium. The Russian ringer dropped a fifty bomb throughout the series to power Rebirth to a 2-0 start to Season 36.
Shortly after this series two more Premier players found themselves without a home, Eric "Ryze" Brown, who matched wippie's 50 kills in this tilt, and Dave "seziwana" Schrage. Dust2.us has confirmed with ImPerium's manager that the team was in search of players that offered more firepower and fit their system better.
Finally, Third Impact edged out Recon 5 in the closest 2-0 series sweep possible without overtime, following a pair of 16-14 victories on Inferno and Overpass. David "cynic" Polster played like a man possessed for Recon 5, leading all players with 63 kills, but it was Third Impact who got the result they were searching for, led by 52 frags from Walker "walker" Harris.
Some noteworthy matches scheduled for week three are:
Matchup | Date | Time |
Rebirth vs. Triumph | Feb. 9th | 9PM EST |
Mythic vs. Depth | Feb. 9th | 9PM EST |
GGPR vs. SKDC | Feb. 9th | 9PM EST |
Secret Club vs. Triumph | Feb. 10th | 9PM EST |
High Coast vs. RBG | Feb. 10th | 9PM EST |
The standings following week two are: