Alter Iron claim final NA ECL spot via Relegation
Last night Alter Iron locked in the final spot in ESL Challenger League Season 49 by securing a second-place finish in ESL Challenger League Season 48 over Take Flyte. With this win, Alter Iron join Undone in having claimed spots in ECL alongside NA's top teams while in a rare turn of events, both Take Flyte and LAG have been demoted down to ESEA Advanced Season 52.
Alter Iron's road to ECL began on December 13th in Stage Two of Relegation owing to the team having the most ECL points from ESEA Advanced. With this, their opening series was against the top seed from Stage One, Undone, who managed to take down Alter Iron in a close 2-1 series while also finding revenge for an earlier loss in Advanced playoffs.
Alter IronUndone| Alter Iron |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Misha 'Misha' Ivanov |
46 - 42 | +4 | 89.0 | 69.8% | 1.12 |
 Kaitlin 'Keiti' Boop |
40 - 37 | +3 | 77.4 | 69.8% | 1.09 |
| Caden 'arias' Allison |
43 - 39 | +4 | 75.0 | 71.7% | 1.06 |
 'clipzera' |
28 - 38 | -10 | 70.6 | 79.2% | 0.93 |
| Talen 'Talen' M. |
22 - 38 | -16 | 56.8 | 56.6% | 0.67 |
| Undone |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Danny 'cxzi' Strzelczyk |
43 - 41 | +2 | 101.5 | 75.5% | 1.36 |
| Joshua 'steel' Nissan |
46 - 36 | +10 | 87.1 | 71.7% | 1.30 |
| Connor 'chop' Sullivan |
36 - 32 | +4 | 68.5 | 71.7% | 1.07 |
| Tyler 'Skadoodle' Latham |
33 - 31 | +2 | 71.5 | 67.9% | 1.05 |
| Ian 'motm' Hardy |
35 - 39 | -4 | 68.3 | 73.6% | 0.96 |
As a result of this loss, Alter Iron were cast into the lower bracket and had to square off against LAG for survival. The series began with a decisive win for Alter Iron on Anubis, with Misha "Misha" Ivanov leading the charge as Alter Iron secured the map 13-6. The next map, Ancient, saw LAG start in a dominant fashion, converting an 8-4 T-side to a 12-7 lead on their CT-side. Unfortunately for LAG, they were unable to convert five match points, allowing Alter Iron to battle back and force overtime where they would secure Ancient 16-14 to close out the series 2-0.
LAGAlter Iron| LAG |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quinn 'Nyyx' Knott |
42 - 34 | +8 | 88.1 | 73.5% | 1.20 |
| Raymon 'rayxts' Mando |
33 - 37 | -4 | 82.4 | 67.3% | 1.07 |
| Wyatt 'Weeza' Sahrmann |
28 - 42 | -14 | 71.3 | 71.4% | 0.96 |
 Alperen 'TR0JN' Kilic |
28 - 32 | -4 | 56.9 | 65.3% | 0.82 |
| Deniz 'Experative' Mutlum |
22 - 36 | -14 | 45.8 | 57.1% | 0.67 |
| Alter Iron |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Caden 'arias' Allison |
43 - 28 | +15 | 79.9 | 71.4% | 1.26 |
| Misha 'Misha' Ivanov |
39 - 34 | +5 | 87.9 | 73.5% | 1.22 |
| 'clipzera' |
34 - 29 | +5 | 80.8 | 69.4% | 1.20 |
| Kaitlin 'Keiti' Boop |
35 - 35 | +0 | 86.2 | 63.3% | 1.05 |
| Talen 'Talen' M. |
29 - 29 | +0 | 67.8 | 77.6% | 0.94 |
With one series separating Alter Iron from a spot in ECL S49, they went into the qualification series against Take Flyte with the veto seeing Inferno, Dust2, and Anubis selected. The series itself ended up being a fairly one-sided affair for Alter Iron, with Take Flyte looking far out of their element as they started off by conceding Inferno to Alter Iron 13-5 before dropping their own map pick, Dust2, 13-5 as well.
Take FlyteAlter Iron| Take Flyte |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kevin 'Grave' Le |
32 - 31 | +1 | 87.3 | 75.0% | 1.09 |
| Frankie 'Champ' Miranda |
23 - 29 | -6 | 74.4 | 75.0% | 0.90 |
| Noah 'z0mb1e' Velez |
18 - 27 | -9 | 57.2 | 61.1% | 0.67 |
| Caleb 'jchancE' Davis |
16 - 31 | -15 | 56.5 | 61.1% | 0.66 |
 Sebastian 'cbass' Bentancor |
18 - 30 | -12 | 63.1 | 61.1% | 0.65 |
| Alter Iron |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kaitlin 'Keiti' Boop |
36 - 19 | +17 | 101.6 | 77.8% | 1.71 |
| Caden 'arias' Allison |
30 - 20 | +10 | 95.5 | 86.1% | 1.52 |
| Misha 'Misha' Ivanov |
32 - 20 | +12 | 89.9 | 86.1% | 1.39 |
| 'clipzera' |
27 - 26 | +1 | 81.8 | 83.3% | 1.25 |
| Talen 'Talen' M. |
23 - 22 | +1 | 67.5 | 80.6% | 1.11 |
By beating Take Flyte, Alter Iron have locked in the final spot in the sixteen-team ESL Challenger League Season 49, which is set to start sometime in early 2025.
