Premier Recap Week 3 - Extra Salt, High Coast pick up FFWs; join Bad News Bears at 3-0
The landscape of ESEA Premier has continued to change throughout the past week, with a number of teams making changes, forfeiting matches, or being banned from league play altogether. The cream of the crop continued to rise to the top, though this week they didn't have to work quite as hard for it.
Starting with the forfeits for the week, High Coast picked up a free win against Big Chillin, while Extra Salt were the beneficiaries of a forfeit by Watch This. Additionally, following the recent outcry regarding their personal conduct, timbermen were banned from ESEA league play, their win against SKDC was reversed, and the remainder of their matches will be forfeited.
Bad News Bears cruised to an opening map win and then squeezed out a thirty-round sweep against Rise on Overpass to climb to 3-0 on the season. Jonathan "Jonji" Carey led all players with 51 kills in the series and Filip 'Feedalee' Mitevski led Rise with 42 eliminations in the loss.
SKDC's rough start to the season continued, this time they dropped a pair of thirty-round maps to GGPR on Inferno and Mirage. Kyle "OCEAN" O'Brien's side squandered a 10-5 lead on the first map and an 8-7 lead on the second, dropping them to an 0-4 record for the season. Omar "3ARK00Z" Elyyan led the server with 52 frags in the series, while William "rin" McGraw led the struggling SKDC side with 45 kills.
RBG were the only team to play two matches this week and split them with one win and one loss. First they picked up a sweep against ImPerium in which Jadan "HexT" Postma dropped 56 kills, but then were swept themselves by High Coast thanks largely in part to the duo of Brandon "bew" Roberts and Josh "PwnAlone" Pigue, who each contributed 47 frags to their side's cause.
Oceanus opened against Mythic with a thirty-round win on Nuke and then swept the series by way of a strong T-side on Overpass. Eric "adreN" Hoag and David "J0LZ" Jolin went blow for blow with 51 frags apiece, but the former Liquid coach's contribution wasn't enough to keep the stream team from being swept out of the server and being dealt their first loss of the season.
The first few games of week four were played earlier this evening, leaving these remaining noteworthy matches scheduled for tomorrow:
| Matchup | Date | Time |
 Rebirth vs.  RBG |
Feb. 17th | 9PM EST |
| Watch This vs. GGPR |
Feb. 17th | 9PM EST |
The standings at the conclusion of week three look as follows:
Please note that the preceding standings do not reflect timbermen's disqualification or the matches played earlier tonight.
