GGPR and Recon 5 replace Extra Salt and OCG in Premier Playoffs; bracket reseeded
ESEA have published an updated bracket for ESEA Premier Season 36 Playoffs, seeing the bracket get reseeded and Extra Salt and OCG replaced by GGPR and Recon 5.
Extra Salt dropped out of Premier Playoffs due to traveling to Europe to play a number of high profile events including BLAST Premier Spring Showdown and DreamHack Masters Spring 2021.
The downside of this decision is that Extra Salt will be unable to directly qualify to ESL Pro League Season 14 this season, although they will still have a chance in Season 37. Additionally, should they perform well enough on their European adventure, they may possibly receive a world ranking invite to the event.
OCG meanwhile pulled out due to not having a full lineup as Alex "vek" Voynov and David "J0LZ" Jolin are currently suspended on ESEA pending the conclusion of ESIC's investigation into their ties to the leaked recording of ChocoCheck/Rebirth members discussing fixing a match against Russian Canadians.
Importantly, despite Sebastian "retchy" Tropiano and Carson "nosraC" O’Reilly also being suspended, ChocoCheck do not have the same problem as their ESEA roster has a number of substitutes and ringers while OCG only has their starting five.
Danny "cxzi" Strzelczyk told Dust2.us that ChocoCheck are set to field Daniel "tropiiical" Elshani for sure while the team are still deciding between Ali "phantom" Sachs, Spenser "shrek" Adams, and ogre — a friend of the team with no competitive history. Additionally cxzi said phantom may have intermittent availability due to classes.
As previously mentioned, as a result of these changes the Playoffs bracket has been completely reseeded, with Bad News Bears set to play Recon 5 in their new opening match while Triumph will play GGPR.
The complete list of reseeded opening matchups is as follows:
 Bad News Bears |
vs. | Recon 5 |
| High Coast |
vs. | Mythic |
| ChocoCheck |
vs. | RBG |
| Triumph |
vs. | GGPR |
ESEA Premier Season 36 Playoffs is set to start on April 13th at 9PM EDT.
