Northern Forces and Synthetic earn promotion to Premier at the expense of Mythic and Big Chillin
ESEA Premier Season 38 Relegation has concluded and marks the end of an era for North American CS:GO. Mythic dropped their qualification match against Synthetic, ending their Premier streak at fourteen straight seasons. Northern Forces dispatched Big Chillin in the other qualification match to secure the final Premier slot from the tournament.
Northern Forces and Big Chillin went the distance but it was the ESEA Advanced side that outlasted their opposition in the end, where they won seven of the final nine rounds of the Overpass decider to claim the series and berth in ESEA Premier. Four players on Northern Forces finished with more than sixty kills in the series, but Devin "Xzen" Barber was the top fragger on the server for Big Chillin in the loss, finishing with 73 frags in the series.
Northern ForcesBig Chillin| Northern Forces |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 James 'JAM' H. |
68 - 57 | +11 | 80.2 | 75.3% | 1.23 |
| Sam 'sam' Donaldson |
64 - 53 | +11 | 81.2 | 77.6% | 1.15 |
| James 'EllisoN' Ellison |
64 - 59 | +5 | 74.8 | 72.9% | 1.13 |
| Reece 'Wilky' Wilkerson |
64 - 61 | +3 | 80.8 | 76.5% | 1.06 |
| Matthew 'd4rty' Paplawskas |
51 - 58 | -7 | 74.3 | 71.8% | 1.00 |
| Big Chillin |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Devin 'Xzen' Barber |
73 - 59 | +14 | 78.5 | 69.4% | 1.19 |
| Damian 'EMIYA' Boulware |
67 - 57 | +10 | 78.2 | 76.5% | 1.12 |
| Alex 'heaty' G |
52 - 67 | -15 | 81.8 | 69.4% | 1.00 |
| Brendan 'Melloh' Mello |
51 - 60 | -9 | 68.2 | 68.2% | 0.97 |
| Matt 'dvl' Buechel |
42 - 68 | -26 | 68.2 | 58.8% | 0.79 |
Mythic snagged an emphatic 1-0 lead in their elimination match with a win on Inferno, but fell just short of the comeback on Vertigo after fending off eight match points in a row. Synthetic battered the stream team defense on Mirage and sprinted out to a 13-2 lead that allowed them to close out the map, series, and promotion at their leisure. Johnny "JDubs" Wu and Garret "garret" Henry led their sides with 63 and 67 kills, respectively, as Premier/MDL bid farewell to one of it's longest-standing brands.
MythicSynthetic| Mythic |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Johnny 'JDubs' Wu |
63 - 52 | +11 | 92.0 | 78.1% | 1.27 |
| Josiah 'JoJo' Jimenez |
52 - 55 | -3 | 85.5 | 68.5% | 1.13 |
| Bradley 'Slugy' Kohler |
52 - 47 | +5 | 78.4 | 72.6% | 1.06 |
| Erik 'fl0m' Flom |
51 - 53 | -2 | 72.4 | 74.0% | 1.05 |
| Alexander 'LeX' Deily |
41 - 50 | -9 | 64.9 | 61.6% | 0.82 |
| Synthetic |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Garret 'garret' Henry |
67 - 46 | +21 | 89.2 | 78.1% | 1.34 |
| Jeremy 'taiwi' Wang |
55 - 53 | +2 | 83.4 | 79.5% | 1.18 |
| Andrew 'Tender' Cote |
51 - 60 | -9 | 81.6 | 69.9% | 1.07 |
| Cameron 'legacy' Parkhurst |
45 - 47 | -2 | 61.8 | 63.0% | 0.96 |
| Graham 'GRAHAM' Smith |
39 - 54 | -15 | 63.2 | 63.0% | 0.86 |
Mythic first ascended to ESEA's top flight for Season 25 after going 15-1 in ESEA Open Season 23 and 12-4 in ESEA Main Season 24. The stream team finished with a winning record in Premier/MDL in ten of their fourteen seasons.
At this time, both Bradley "Slugy" Kohler and Johnny "JDubs" Wu have created "looking for team" posts and Erik "fl0m" Flom has indicated that he may be taking a step back and "running it back" in ESEA Open once again.
Perhaps the hardest hit former member of the team, however, is Josiah "JoJo" Jimenez, who in addition to being relegated has also lost his much-loved and oft-mentioned Verified status on Twitter.
The nearly-finalized list of teams for ESEA Premier Season 39 is:
 Extra Salt |
RBG |
| Strife |
ChocoCheck |
| Verum |
ONET4P |
| Triumph |
 paiN |
| ex-GGPR |
 ATK |
| Detonate |
ex-Eros |
| Northern Forces |
Synthetic |
Two ESL Pro League "movedown" teams will join these fourteen rosters to round out the competitors for ESEA Premier Season 39. The season is slated to begin on November 2nd.
