So after another two nights filled with excitement and drama, United Estonia are now the final team to claim a spot in the UK Premiership Promotions tournament.
The Last Chance qualifier kicked off on Monday evening with a grand total of 55 teams, all competing for one final spot in the Promotions Tournament (prior to the group stages). There were quite a few teams involved including the recently dubbed “UK super team”, Reason Gaming UK, United Estonia, 2seXeh, Simplexity.Aurora, uFrag and one team nicknamed Commando featuring a certain Finnish player named jOELZ.
With most of the bigger teams receiving byes in the first round, it wasn’t until 8pm on the Monday that we saw anything truly happen as most of the smaller fish in the pond had to fight their way through the first round. TBA.uk managed to sweep aside wave 16:3 on de_dust2, whilst Reason.UK had to struggle their way past icebears in a mammoth 21:16 slugging fest on de_train. United Estonia also struggled in the second round as they only managed to see off IGI.eSports 16:13 on de_cache. Both 2seXeh & Simplexity had smooth opening rounds with 16:8 on de_inferno & 16:4 on de_mirage against Crimson & Dribbling Banter respectively. uFrag managed to overcome gamevibe in Round 2 with a convincing 16:6 win on de_cache.
Round 3 saw the biggest upset in the cup, which saw Reason.UK being ditched out of the cup despite being seeded second, once again big claims made by some of the players on being a team who should be in UK Premiership, but once again those same claims see them miss out with all their various troubles. They made a swift exit after Natum made a big entrance to our eyes with a 16:6 drubbing on de_dust2. Reason were left to lick their wounds, and now wait for the opportunity to re-qualify for Winter Season come November.
All the other notable teams managed to win through their third round matches with TBA.uk seeing off Yeti.UK 16:3 on de_dust2. United Estonia had another tricky game this time against team2 where they managed to squeeze the win at 16:9 on de_cache.
With previous cups, we always see big shocks followed by big shocks and TBA.uk finally showed their real cracks in their team when they had to square up to jOELZ mix team Commando and were put to the sword when the impossible was made possible by RattlesnK and co in the final game on the Monday night. What both these teams managed to do was make de_dust2 look incredibly T sided. Commando managed to win the first half in very dominating form with 13:2 at HT. When Commando won the pistol round to make it 14:2 it looked like that Commando would run away with it (especially after this outburst) and finish off the apparent Super Team off. However fearLess and co managed to just play with absolute authority, they elevated their level and executed strats with flawless perfection. It was an incredible fightback from the super team, and they eventually won every round after that in a massive 16:14 win.
We won’t be seeing RattlesnK & co back in to defend their title. (Credit Photo: ESL)
One would have expected the super team to cement their place and kick on after that intriguing match up, but of course their path was incredibly difficult with a bunch of pesky Estonians that don’t like keeping away from UK tournaments. The Estonians booked their Semi-Final place by beating a side who have been on the quiet, called SHOGUN ESPORTS 16:10 on de_inferno. Natum kept pushing aside opposition like no tomorrow when they absolutely demolished adam5 & co (uFrag) 16:1 on de_inferno, fueling more cry’s of knowing who these guys actually are. Simplexity were steadily building to something impressive when they actually saw off a rather resisilent challenge in the form of 2seXeh who made it tough for Simplexity at map point 15:9 eventually being seen off at 16:13 on de_cache.
The Semi-Finals came along and boy did we not see the end results coming. We’ll start with the Natum & Simplexity game, it was a tough ask for ashhh and co who had to overcome a side who simply had knocked out the best side in that half of the bracket and were full on confidence after dismantling uFrag. Natum were the unknowns, the joker in the pack who had written their own story. Supported by two Swedish players who looked to have some form of raw talent, Aaron & co just let rip on Simplexity with just magical displays on de_cache. They eventually saw out Simplexity 16:6 on said map.
The second Semi-Final was also incredibly one sided, with RattlesnK & co (fielding two subs in the match) struggled once again on de_dust2 being torn apart by the Estonians with what was a 13:2 first half once again. The comeback was put on once again, and everyone thought that fearLess would go on a rampage, but once again the Estonians showed some class in containing the team and eventually won out 16:6 on the map knocking out the favourites and the core winning team from Spring Season. This now means that the dubbed super team will have to re-qualify for Winter Season in November through the unannounced Major Ladder. That will be some culture shock in the lower part of the scene.
In the Final which was best of three, United Estonia squared up to the unlikely heroes of Natum, with the maps as follows de_dust2, de_inferno & de_cache. However United Estonia needed only two maps to round up a convincing win with 16:7 & 16:12 respectively. Which means that despite missing out on the deadline, United Estonia will be able to compete in the Promotions Tournament.
Promotions Tournament Teams:
Choke Gaming
Good Looking Gamers
Perilous Rage
CAZ eSports
fish123
Xpra
Molotovs & Marshmallows
United Estonia
The Promotions tournament will take place on July 11th/12th & August 8th/9th and will be streamed live from ESL UK TV Studio. The tournament will be a double elimination bracket with four spots up for grabs to join fm-eSports, XENEX, CeX & Team Infused in UK Premiership Group Stage.
