We’re finally here, the epic26 Grand Final. On one side of the bracket are The LDN Slayers, who are yet to lose a series this tournament. The other side are London Esports, whose only loss so far came against their opponents in the Upper Bracket Final.
Due to coming through from the upper bracket, THE LDN SLAYERS come into the best-of-three final with a veto advantage. This advantage allows them to pick a map before any bans went through, and they used this opportunity to straight-out pick Train, which London opted to start on CT.
London Esports’ lower bracket one was a short one, having only needed to face an extra match against reflex.EU in the consolidation final. This match went to all three maps in the early morning, with London mounting a comeback after a dominant loss in thee first map.
After LDN SLAYERS picked Train, the two went into a traditional ban phase. London Esports banned Cache first, before the SLAYERS took out Mirage. London then picked Inferno, which the SLAYERS chose to start on the CT side there. The two then banned Dust2 and Nuke, leaving Overpass as the decided, where a knife round will be required to determine sides.
Grand Final
THE LDN SLAYERS -vs- London Esports
LIVE
Map 1 – Train: After a short delay we had the opening map begin. It was the SLAYERS who came in first, taking the pistol round and anti-ecos before London picked up the first buy round. After some ping-pong between the two, they were barely separable throughout the half. The break came, and it would be London narrowly 8-7 ahead against the SLAYERS. The second half began with London extending their lead, but after the opening three rounds the SLAYERS barrelled in and took all of the next nine rounds to cruise to a 16-11 victory on their map pick. It was r0m leading the table for his team with 97.1 ADR.
Map 2 – Inferno: We’re all even. After the SLAYERS picked up the pistol and anti-eco on their CT-side, London opened up with the fury of a team not wanting to lose a payday. Taking nine of the following ten rounds, they created a lead that would be unassailable that half. After a late rally from the SLAYERS, the half would go in as 10-5 in favour of London. The second half went from that score to map point in favour of London in, er, five rounds. A three round block from the SLAYERS, after forcing a couple of ecos from London would be the only break from a lead they could find. London evened the series with a 16-8 score, with frei and ec1s leading the show, with the latter reaching a solid 101.5 ADR.
Map 3 – Overpass; The game commenced, once again, with the SLAYERS in control, taking the first two rounds. But it wouldn’t be long as London returned fire with three of their own, before the SLAYERS one-upped that with four rounds. The two would then trade some rounds, with the Slayers going in 9-6 up, but only after London’s frei got the last word in the half winning a 1vs3. The second half started off similar to the first, with the SLAYERS taking the pistol and anti-eco before London then secured four in a row after the third round. London got close to evening the score, but were prevented at 10-11 as the SLAYERS went on to slay and secured the win, taking the 16-11 win. Once again, it was r0m the strongest performer for his team, with 29 kills and 94.2 ADR but Thomas wasn’t too far behind on 91.5 ADR.
The winner of this match will head home with £2700 (and tickets to the next epicLAN), and the runners up will go with £1450. All the action can be found on the epicLAN Twitch channel and full updates will come from us, here on UKCSGO.com.
