ESEA Advanced playoffs narrow down to final three

It was a tale of two series in the ESEA Advanced Lower Bracket Quarterfinals, with E-Xolos brushing away Strife without much trouble for a sweep on Friday night, while straykids traded maps with Villainous in a much more contested series last night. E-Xolos then swept straykids to reassert themselves after beating straykids earlier this postseason in the Upper Bracket Quarterfinals and will now meet OMiT in the Lower Bracket Final.

E-Xolos allowed five rounds on their defensive half on Nuke, but then smashed through the Strife defenses in the second half and throughout their offensive half on the next map, Dust2. Strife mustered just 3 defensive victories in 19 rounds combined across their CT halves. Matheus "mawth" Gonçalves had 35 kills and a 1.65 rating to carry his side to the Lower Bracket Semifinal.

On the other side straykids started their series with a solid 13-7 win on Nuke, only to fall 13-9 on Ancient, and then prevail in a max-round affair on Vertigo. straykids saw success with the balanced production from their five-man unit, with just one player falling below a 1.00 HLTV 2.0 rating, while Villainous had three players fall below that mark as Ty "TyRa" Aron and Jérémy "BiNoX" Chiasson carried with 62 and 63 frags, respectively.

In the final series of last night straykids hung close on Ancient, finishing even with E-Xolos at the half, but then only managed to find five more rounds for the whole remainder of the series as the Brazilian side closed out map one 13-9 and then bodied straykids on Anubis 13-2. mawth was the star of the show once again, one upping his previous performance with 53 kills and a 2.35 HLTV 2.0 rating.

With these results, the ESEA Challenger League Season 47 Relegation field in North America has taken shape as all three remaining teams are locked into Relegation at a minimum with the champion of course securing an automatic berth to ECL. Prior to this postseason, Revenge Nation, Strife, Final Form, Akimbo, CarbonX, and Zomblers were the teams with ESEA League Points in hand to attempt to qualify for Relegation. Revenge Nation are automatically through to ESL Challenger League as the ESEA Advanced regular season champions from Season 48, which left Strife, Final Form, and Akimbo in position to qualify based on their previous point totals of 70, 40, and 20, respectively.

However, there are points to be had for this postseason, specifically 85 for second place, and 45 for third. straykids have been awarded 25 points for their fourth place finish, which places them ahead of Akimbo, who were eliminated following losses to straykids and Strife. Despite securing points and overtaking Akimbo, straykids will likely need some outside help for that to be enough to get to Relegation.

If we operate under the assumption that Legacy will become champions and automatically secure promotion that way from Season 49, the second place team in ESEA Advanced (OMiT/E-Xolos) will secure the #1 Advanced spot at Relegation with 85 points, Strife will secure the #2 Advanced spot with 70 points from their second place finish in Season 48, and the third place team (OMiT/E-Xolos) will leapfrog Final Form for the #3 Advanced spot with 45 points. Since there is still an invitation slot up for grabs, Final Form may find themselves in the fray, as could straykids if any roster implosions from the ECL side of the Relegation pool, or any of the higher ranked Advanced sides, come to fruition.

The ESEA Challenger League Season 47 Relegation Field will be:

• One More (ECL #13)**

• Limitless (ECL #14)

• ESEA Advanced #1 (Legacy/OMiT/E-Xolos)**

• Strife (ESEA Advanced #2)

• ESEA Advanced #3 (Legacy/OMiT/E-Xolos)

• ESL World Ranking Invite

** These teams will progress automatically to Stage 2 while the other four compete for two spots in Stage 2 through double elimination in Stage 1.