One More and E-Xolos LAZER top Relegation to claim final ECL S48 spots
On Sunday, ESL Challenger League Season 47 Relegation concluded, with One More retaining their spot in ESL Challenger League while recent Brazilian imports E-Xolos LAZER also found their way into North America's top domestic league.
While the two squads are likely jubilant to make their way into ECL, they had to quash the dreams of multiple others squads on their way to the top, with Limitless, OMiT, regain, and Strife all being knocked down into ESEA Advanced where they will have to try and climb back up to ECL in Season 50.
Before getting into matches, it is worth noting that ESL Challenger League Season 47 Relegation had something of a unique format with two stages of play. In this format, Stage One was made to whittle the team list from six teams to four teams while Stage Two was where the two teams would actually qualify to Stage Two. The four teams in Stage One included Limitless, E-Xolos LAZER, regain, and Strife, while OMiT and One More were seeded straight into Stage Two due to their finishes in ESEA Advanced Season 49 and ECL S47, respectively. The full bracket can be found here.
Day one of relegation was set to begin on June 11th, with the effort being somewhat abortive as a game update brought FACEIT's servers down, leading to a four-hour tech pause that ultimately led to ESL scrapping day one of the bracket and pushing matches back to June 12th.
When everyone returned to the server on June 12th, most teams were able to compete without trouble with the exception of Limitless. Due to the update applying a trade hold/ban from 2019 for some reason, Muhammad "Mellow" Ali was unable to play for his team, requiring coach Sean "Coastal" Thompson to play his first-ever matches on HLTV.
This had the somewhat predictable result of Limitless losing their opening match in Stage One against E-Xolos LAZER before being eliminated outright by regain in the lower bracket. The other matches in Stage One went largely as expected, with E-Xolos LAZER ultimately claiming the first spot into Stage Two via a close 2-1 win over Strife in the upper bracket. Down in the lower bracket, Stage One came to an end with Strife recovering from their loss against the Brazilians to take down regain 2-1 to find their way into Stage Two alongside the Mexican organization.
With Stage One done and dusted, Stage Two began on June 14th with OMiT winning their opening series 2-1 against E-Xolos LAZER while the Mongolian-Asian OMiT squad pushed past the French Canadians of Strife in a 2-1 series of their own. With this, the first spot in ECL via Relegation came down to a series between OMiT and One More. Despite OMiT performing so well in recent months, One More came through with a surprise 2-1 victory against the Asian squad, making their way back into ECL for a second go after their underwhelming performance in Season 47.
One MoreOMiT| One More |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Caleb 'jchancE' Davis |
58 - 43 | +15 | 82.8 | 76.9% | 1.24 |
| Grant 'serv0' Medina |
47 - 45 | +2 | 77.9 | 80.0% | 1.18 |
| Noah 'z0mb1e' Velez |
41 - 38 | +3 | 72.5 | 78.5% | 1.09 |
| Kevin 'Grave' Le |
48 - 46 | +2 | 80.0 | 69.2% | 1.08 |
 Sebastian 'cbass' Bentancor |
42 - 44 | -2 | 81.7 | 69.2% | 1.08 |
| OMiT |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Andrey 'Laxiee' Maks |
50 - 51 | -1 | 83.9 | 73.8% | 1.15 |
| Ochirbileg 'obi' Shinebaatar |
49 - 46 | +3 | 77.2 | 70.8% | 1.09 |
 Yizhi 'kralz ' Zhou |
41 - 44 | -3 | 73.2 | 72.3% | 0.97 |
| Bishrel 'N20AmZ' Tamir |
43 - 51 | -8 | 74.0 | 60.0% | 0.97 |
 Stanley 'calamity' Chiu |
33 - 46 | -13 | 64.3 | 72.3% | 0.90 |
The second and final spot in ECL via relegation came down to a showdown between OMiT and E-Xolos LAZER after the latter team eliminated Strife 2-0 in the lower bracket, beating the team for a second time in the tournament. The bout between OMiT and E-Xolos LAZER ended up being a shockingly one-sided affair E-Xolos LAZER as the Brazilians completely outclassed OMiT, winning Dust2 13-6 before taking Ancient 13-1 without breaking a sweat.
E-Xolos LAZEROMiT| E-Xolos LAZER |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Matheus 'mawth' Gonçalves |
42 - 12 | +30 | 115.4 | 93.9% | 1.96 |
| William 'w1' Almasan |
30 - 18 | +12 | 108.9 | 84.8% | 1.58 |
| Paulo 'land1n' Felipe |
25 - 15 | +10 | 78.4 | 87.9% | 1.41 |
| Renan 'RenanZin' Henrique |
24 - 15 | +9 | 76.2 | 75.8% | 1.25 |
| Alef 'tatazin' Pereira |
19 - 15 | +4 | 63.3 | 78.8% | 1.08 |
| OMiT |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bishrel 'N20AmZ' Tamir |
26 - 26 | +0 | 72.2 | 57.6% | 1.01 |
| Ochirbileg 'obi' Shinebaatar |
14 - 26 | -12 | 53.6 | 54.5% | 0.67 |
| Yizhi 'kralz ' Zhou |
12 - 27 | -15 | 55.2 | 60.6% | 0.60 |
| Andrey 'Laxiee' Maks |
15 - 30 | -15 | 55.8 | 54.5% | 0.60 |
| Stanley 'calamity' Chiu |
7 - 31 | -24 | 48.9 | 30.3% | 0.32 |
As a result of E-Xolos LAZER's win, NA ECL will see the most foreign squads in the league in some time, with Legacy, E-Xolos LAZER, Revenge Nation, and LAG all boasting a large number of foreign players. Additionally, with Wildcard pursuing their Swedish additions and M80 now need to find a replacement for Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa, NA ESL Challenger League Season 48 is shaping up to be quite cosmopolitan.
Overall, with One More and E-Xolos LAZER claiming their spots, ESL Challenger League Season 48 will consist of:
• 
M80
• Wildcard
• Nouns
• Party Astronauts
• NRG
• Elevate
• 
LAG
• Mythic
• Carpe Diem
• BOSS
• Take Flyte
• FLUFFY AIMERS
• 
Revenge Nation
• Legacy
• One More
• E-Xolos LAZER
ESL Challenger League Season 48 is set to begin on July 15th.
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