Legacy dethrone M80 to secure #1 seed for ECL playoffs
Another season of ECL is in the book with a Brazilian team claiming the top seed after a thrilling final night of matches. Legacy, the newest promoted squad from Advanced, has secured the first overall seed at ESL Challenger League S48 and officially prevented M80 from going back-to-back-to-back on the top of the standings leaderboards.
Legacy finished first in the league, and M80 filled in shortly after. The team secured second but will look back at losses to Party Astronauts and BOSS as potential hiccups in their quest for the title.
Nouns, NRG, Party Astronauts, and Wildcard finished from third through sixth, in that order. Wildcard will likely be the team experiencing the most regret from the way their season ended having spent so many weeks comfortably in the driver's seat of the league. They competed with NRG as one of the best teams in the domestic region time after time, only to see their finish so low due to four forfeits just at the end of the season. Those losses, combined with other wins, saw them slide down the standings and finish below Party Astronauts on the tiebreaker at 60 points each.
Another Advanced move up and fellow Brazilian squad, E-Xolos LAZER, supported by Mexican soccer club Tijuana, highlights another team that has qualified for playoffs in 7th place. They lead the pack of BOSS, timbermen, and FLUFFY AIMERS to round out the Top 10 and the qualified playoffs teams that will begin action next week. FLUFFY AIMERS flirted with relegation once or twice this season while timbermen and BOSS had to fight their own roster issues. However, it appears that everyone is charged and ready to win.
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The teams that missed out on the playoffs and successfully avoided relegation are Revenge Nation and Limitless. Revenge Nation's 11th-place finish means that each Advanced move-up has successfully defended its place in the ESL Challenger League. It's a daunting feat, and for each team to do so is pretty incredible. At the same time, Limitless has had roster instabilities, role changes, and general issues that plagued the roster for so long. For them to be able to now refocus and shift to the next season might be a blessing.
Unfortunately, there are three teams that we might be saying goodbye to. LAG and Take Flyte have entered relegation, with LAG being the more surprising team to potentially drop down. The team broke into the league last season with spectacular performances but has since struggled and failed to replicate its earlier form. They now have the difficult task of staying up. While they have the skills, the question of whether they have the mental fortitude remains.
Finally, we bid goodbye to Mythic's stream team. What can't be said about the entertaining group of guys who stream all of their matches with three former professionals on their lineup? The team struggled repeatedly to find its form and only won two maps from August 8th through the end of the season. With results like that, staying up in this league is hard.
The opening matchups are not yet confirmed, but we should see playoffs kick on next week.
