Alter Iron claim upset to top Off Season Shenanigans Season 5

This weekend saw two grassroots NA tournaments conclude, with Off Season Shenanigans Season 5 hosting its finals on October 12th while Nouns.fe's Hol1day Cash Cup came to a close on October 13th. The first of the two tournaments, Off Season Shenanigans Season 5, featured 30 teams competing over the course of the last month for a $1,400 prizepool, with a number of ESEA Advanced teams and the recently promoted Akimbo competing in the league.

Akimbo, with Dans "danss" Sils standing in for Maks "laxiee" Andryei, sailed through the majority of the competition, taking down the likes of MCS and the recently-signed Redacted Society without too much trouble on route to the finals. On the other side of the bracket, Alter Iron, who recently competed at Fraicago 2024, were also confident in their run, taking down moggers, OutGoing, and an ESEA Advanced mixteam called misha 1v9 to set up a confrontation with Akimbo.

Keeping in mind that Akimbo were heavy favorites on account of winning ESEA Advanced Season 50, the best of three finals were expected to be a one-sided affair for Akimbo even as Taggert "taggy" Baker had to stand-in for Kamron "kmrn" Manii due to work commitments. To that end, the first map in the series, Dust2, played out largely as expected, with Akimbo claiming a 9-3 T-side before closing out the map 13-3.

However, once the series moved onto Mirage Alter Iron began to put up serious resistance, with Talen "Talen" M. leading the charge as his team won their CT-side 8-4 before forcing a third map with a 13-8 win on the iconic map.

With the series now tied up, Ancient began with Alter Iron in the driver's seat, taking the opening half 8-4 on their CT-side before Akimbo answered back with a mirrored half to force overtime.

In overtime Alter Iron proved utterly dominant against Akimbo as they won three rounds in a row on their T-side before closing the series with one more round on their CT-side to take Ancient 16-12. For their efforts, Alter Iron claimed the top prize of $800 while Akimbo took home $400.

The top four from Off Season Shenanigans Season 5 consists of:

1st - Alter Iron - (misha, arias, clipzera, Talen, Lambchoppington, flow) - $800
2nd - Akimbo - (N2o, obi, kmrn, zy, danss, taggy) - $400
3rd/4th - misha 1v9 - (xsany, kouhai, graphX, chante, Beast) - $100
3rd/4th - Redacted Society - (dirtydan, Ravenzs, Huntxr, Tr1ck, Xirt) - $100

The full playoffs bracket can be found here.