paiN, HeadShotKings, Big Chillin, Recon 5 Black advance to S36 Advanced upper bracket semifinals
The first two rounds of the ESEA Advanced Season 36 playoffs upper bracket has concluded, seeing paiN, HeadShotKings, Big Chillin, and Recon B Black advance into the upper bracket semifinals. Meanwhile in the lower bracket, eighth-seed Able, fourth-seed Pryde, eleventh-seed Eros, and fifteenth-seed Flash Point have been eliminated.
Starting off with the favorites to win the division outright, paiN blew through their opening two matches against Cyberstorm Black and Villainous, only giving up ten rounds in both series.
Continuing down the list, HeadShotKings started their upper bracket run off by claiming a hard fought 2-0 victory over Pryde, winning both Vertigo and Train 16-13. Their next series against X13 proved to be a test of patience for both teams as HeadShotKings were DDoS'd according to the players throughout the series, having to field seven players over three maps.
Despite the unfortunate circumstances for HeadShotKings, the series was incredibly close, with X13 starting the series off by winning Vertigo 19-16 before HeadShotKings evened up the series in triple overtime with a 25-23 win on Dust2. With the series tied up, strong performances from Brennan "Lemonz" Lentz and Max "Makzwell" Sparrey helped HeadShotkings take Inferno 16-11 and advance after playing 110 rounds.
The next team to make their way through the upper bracket, Big Chillin, also played a number of close games, starting off with a reverse sweep 2-1 victory over Eros. Eros started the series off by winning Inferno 16-12 before Big Chillin clinched Vertigo 19-17 and finished the series off with a 16-4 win on Train. Big Chillin's next series against Veloz saw another case of DDoSing in Advanced playoffs as the latter team had to field their coach in a close 16-13 loss on Vertigo. The next map, Dust2, ended up having to be postponed after the first half due to continued connection issues for Veloz.
Unfortunately for them, when the action continued on March 26th, Paul "aris" Wilson continued to have connection issues, forcing coach Michael "Millz" Millsaps to stand-in. Despite this, Veloz powered ahead to win the map 16-7. Moving onto Overpass, while still fielding their coach, Veloz fell to Big Chillin 16-5, paving the way for the latter team to advance into the upper bracket semifinals.
Number two seed Recon 5 Black luckily had no connection problems in either of their matches, winning their opening series against Flash Point with close 16-13 and 16-10 wins on Mirage and Inferno. Their second series against South American squad Infinity was equally close, with Recon 5 Black moving ahead after winning Train 16-12 and Vertigo 16-10.
Looking towards the lower bracket, 16th seed Cyberstorm Black managed to stay alive with a 2-1 win over eighth seed Able, while fifth seed Verum dispatched fourth seed Pryde 2-1. The final series of round one resulted in Eros being sent packing 2-0 by UYU and PDHM eliminating Flash Point 2-0.
The upper bracket semifinals looks as follows:
| Matchup | Date | Time |
 paiN vs.  HeadShotKings |
Mar. 30th | 9:30PM EDT |
| Big Chillin vs. Recon 5 Black |
Mar. 30th | 9:30PM EDT |
Meanwhile, lower bracket round two will look as follows:
| Matchup | Date | Time |
| [sam] Infinity vs. Cyberstorm Black |
Mar. 28th | 9:30PM EDT |
| X13 vs. UYU |
Mar. 28th | 9:30PM EDT |
| Villainous vs. PDHM |
Mar. 28th | 9:30PM EDT |
| Veloz vs. Verum |
Mar. 28th | 9:30PM EDT |
The full bracket can be found here.
