Party Astronauts win iBUYPOWER Mythic Masters over Extra Salt
Mythic and iBUYPOWER joined forces to put forth a $50,000 prize pool for the North American scene with iBUYPOWER Mythic Masters, a hefty amount that certainly drew the attention of the region's biggest names. Party Astronauts navigated the group stage and the playoffs to seize a victory so notable that it warranted a bimonthly tweet from David "cynic" Polster.
Group A featured some early surprises as MIBR dropped their opening match to Tarik "tarik" Celik's content team "Kings of Content". The result wasn't a complete surprise given that all four former Major winners in the event (tarik, Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo, William "RUSH" Wierzba, and Jake "Stewie2K" Yip) were on the impromptu team, but MIBR were certainly humbled out of the gate nonetheless. Party Astronauts' recent form made their 2-0 victory over RBG less surprising, but many North American fans were likely surprised that RBG failed to take a map off of MIBR in the subsequent losers' match. Party Astronauts needed all three maps to fend off the Kings of Content, resulting in a rematch in the group decider between MIBR and tarik's side, which the Brazilians prevailed in the second time around.
Group B played out a bit more as expected, with Extra Salt comfortably dispatching ATK and Bad News Bears claiming a closely contested win over oNe in the opening round. oNe managed to climb back into the decider match with another sweep of ATK and were joined by Bad News Bears after Extra Salt claimed a three-map win in the winners' match. Unlike the rematch in Group A, the match between Bad News Bears and oNe produced the same result, though this time in more convincing fashion for Bad News Bears.
In the first semifinal Bad News Bears jumped out to a 1-0 series lead after scratching out a close win on Dust2. Paytyn "junior" Johnson and Michael "Swisher" Schmid each posted 23 kills for Bad News Bears, while Gage "Infinite" Green managed the same for Party Astronauts in the opening loss.
But in the latter two maps of the series the attention shifted to the CT-sides of Party Astronauts. On both Inferno and Mirage Bad News Bears held the lead at halftime, but Ben "ben1337" Smith's troops allowed just two rounds in the second half of Inferno and converted eleven of eleven defensive rounds on Mirage to reverse sweep Bad News Bears in convincing fashion. Infinite finished atop the victor's side of the scoreboard with 62 frags in the series, while junior led Bad News Bears with 51 kills in the series loss.
Party AstronautsBad News Bears| Party Astronauts |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Gage 'Infinite' Green |
62 - 45 | +17 | 79.0 | 75.3% | 1.26 |
| Josh 'PwnAlone' Pigue |
51 - 44 | +7 | 76.8 | 77.8% | 1.16 |
| David 'cynic' Polster |
57 - 47 | +10 | 71.6 | 64.2% | 1.08 |
 Jonathan 'djay' Dallal |
52 - 44 | +8 | 65.3 | 72.8% | 1.06 |
| Ben 'ben1337' Smith |
38 - 54 | -16 | 57.8 | 61.7% | 0.81 |
| Bad News Bears |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paytyn 'junior' Johnson |
51 - 47 | +4 | 65.1 | 66.7% | 1.02 |
| Brendan 'Bwills' Williams |
48 - 46 | +2 | 66.2 | 65.4% | 1.00 |
| Gabe 'Spongey' Greiner |
47 - 51 | -4 | 67.3 | 65.4% | 0.88 |
| Michael 'Swisher' Schmid |
49 - 67 | -18 | 72.2 | 55.6% | 0.84 |
| Alan 'Shakezullah' Hardeman |
37 - 50 | -13 | 53.6 | 61.7% | 0.75 |
The other semifinal wasn't as closely contested as Extra Salt readily handled whatever MIBR threw at them from start to finish. This demoralizing 1v4 clutch from Josh "oSee" Ohm was a microcosm of bigger problems for MIBR in the series. Simple mistakes like that CT lineup gifted Extra Salt rounds that faciliated an early exit for their South American foes.
A bright spot for the Brazilians continues to be Jhonatan "JOTA" Willian, who is consistently a source of fragging power for MIBR when they are enjoying success since coming to compete in North America. He led all players with 42 kills in the series loss, while oSee led Extra Salt with 38 frags in the series victory to set up the next chapter in their growing rivalry with Party Astronauts.
Extra SaltMIBR| Extra Salt |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ricky 'floppy' Kemery |
36 - 29 | +7 | 80.6 | 82.0% | 1.33 |
| Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
38 - 28 | +10 | 74.0 | 74.0% | 1.17 |
 Edgar 'MarKE' Maldonado |
36 - 28 | +8 | 82.0 | 72.0% | 1.11 |
| Justin 'FaNg' Coakley |
37 - 28 | +9 | 69.8 | 74.0% | 1.10 |
 Johnny 'JT' Theodosiou |
33 - 35 | -2 | 77.9 | 74.0% | 1.06 |
| MIBR |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Jhonatan 'JOTA' Willian |
42 - 38 | +4 | 85.3 | 62.0% | 1.13 |
| Matheus 'Tuurtle' Anhaia |
30 - 39 | -9 | 75.0 | 68.0% | 0.99 |
| Ricardo 'boltz' Prass |
30 - 35 | -5 | 76.9 | 72.0% | 0.96 |
| Raphael 'exit' Lacerda |
27 - 31 | -4 | 57.1 | 68.0% | 0.86 |
| Adriano 'WOOD7' Cerato |
19 - 37 | -18 | 55.6 | 64.0% | 0.77 |
Party Astronauts found themselves down quickly in the grand final after Extra Salt built a 11-4 lead on their CT-side of Mirage, but Party Astronauts continued their dominant form from the semifinal on their own CT-side, allowing Extra Salt just a single round on the attack before they closed things out to take a 1-0 series lead. Josh "PwnAlone" Pigue finished with 23 kills on CT-side and led the server with 28 total for the map.
The stalwart defense continued for the Party Astronauts on Overpass where they continued to deny Extra Salt any control of the flow of play. PwnAlone and co. seized a 13-2 halftime lead, but Extra Salt wasn't ready to give up an extra $15,000 without a fight. The hybrid roster clawed all the way back to an 11-13 deficit before they conceded three rounds in a row to the Party Astronauts offense to lose the map and the series. Once again, PwnAlone led the way for the Party Astronauts, this time with 26 frags to outduel oSee's 24, the best tally on Extra Salt's side of the scoreboard.
Party AstronautsExtra Salt| Party Astronauts |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Josh 'PwnAlone' Pigue |
54 - 34 | +20 | 85.9 | 80.0% | 1.48 |
| Gage 'Infinite' Green |
45 - 29 | +16 | 81.1 | 78.2% | 1.30 |
| David 'cynic' Polster |
48 - 36 | +12 | 89.6 | 76.4% | 1.27 |
| Ben 'ben1337' Smith |
30 - 40 | -10 | 73.0 | 67.3% | 0.92 |
| Jonathan 'djay' Dallal |
22 - 35 | -13 | 53.5 | 63.6% | 0.75 |
| Extra Salt |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edgar 'MarKE' Maldonado |
35 - 38 | -3 | 65.5 | 69.1% | 0.98 |
| Johnny 'JT' Theodosiou |
35 - 37 | -2 | 74.2 | 61.8% | 0.97 |
| Ricky 'floppy' Kemery |
33 - 40 | -7 | 69.7 | 76.4% | 0.96 |
| Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
37 - 44 | -7 | 75.2 | 61.8% | 0.93 |
| Justin 'FaNg' Coakley |
34 - 40 | -6 | 74.9 | 61.8% | 0.91 |
The final standings for iBUYPOWER Mythic Masters are:
1. Party Astronauts - $25,000
2. 
Extra Salt - $10,000
3-4. Bad News Bears - $5,000
3-4. MIBR - $5,000
5-6. oNe - $1,500
5-6. Kings of Content (tarik, Stewie2K, RUSH, Brehze, FalleN) - $1,500
7-8. RBG - $1,000
7-8. ATK - $1,000
Credit is due to Erik "fl0m" Flom, the admin team at Mythic, and iBUYPOWER for putting together an amazing event for the North American community.
