Lamp over Team Titan; playoff bracket drawn
As BESL Pro Season 3 competition reaches the end of its fifth week, the newly introduced Swiss group stage is now officially over and we can move onto the spicy part - the playoffs!
The final week of Swiss was do or die time for six teams that after four weeks of play held a win-loss record of 2-2. While the importance of these last matches was undeniable and suffering another defeat here was just not an option for any of the teams, someone had to lose in order for someone else to win.
Three teams had their dreams crushed as they took another L this week and are now eliminated from the competition. On the contrary, the remaining three teams performed when it was needed the most and they’re now joining the likes of 1337HUANIA, alltheRAGE, wolsung, MAKONGA and FiGURE05 in the BESL Pro Season 3 playoffs.
One of the teams that ended this week on a positive note was Lamp who managed to edge out Team Titan in a very tight 2-1 series in our Match of the week game on Saturday.
Swiss round 5 recap
First of all - are you still wondering what is this Swiss format they keep talking about? Don’t worry, we got you covered! In case this is your first time hearing about Swiss format, feel free to check out our Season 3 announcement article’s FORMAT section as it breaks down this mysterious beast in the easiest way possible.
Now that we’re all on the same page, let’s jump right into it and check out this week’s results:
2-2 pool (winner advances to playoffs; loser is eliminated)
Match of the Week -
*substitute players used in this series
Team Titan chose nuke to kick off the match of the week series and while an early T side pistol round loss gave Lamp the initial 2:0 lead, Latvian side did not let the game out of their hands. Once both sides had access to full weaponry, Team Titan started to punch back eventually finishing the half with a tiny one round deficit (8:7). Now playing on the Counter-Terrorist side, Latvians tied things up to (8:8) only to give away the following six round (14:8). Lamp were on the verge of taking nuke, but Team Titan weren’t done yet! A strong defence by the Latvian side led to seven of the following eight rounds won and a game that had to be decide via overtime play (15:15). In the overtime, Team Titan finally pulled ahead closing out their own map pick with a W (17:19).
Mirage followed, once again witnessing Estonian side taking the early lead, but unlike nuke, this time around shokz and his men held onto it for much longer than just two rounds. Led by an army of two (shokz 24 kills & Dex 23 kills), Lamp finished the first half with eleven rounds in their pocket (11:4). Upon the side switch, Team Titan tried their best to muster a comeback, but after the initial pistol round and anti-eco round victories (11:6), Estonians gave the final blow by taking the five rounds needed to tie up the series 1:1 with a 16:6 victory on mirage.
The final map of the series, overpass, saw Latvians taking away the momentum from Lamp as they opened up with an early 0:4 lead. However, the success was short-lived and from that point onwards Estonian defence was close to unbreakable. With Lamp taking nine of the remaining eleven rounds of the first half (9:6), both teams were seemingly happy with the result. As teams changed sides, it was Team Titan who came out with a strong defence of their own as not only did they tie the game at 9:9, they also took the lead at 12:11. At the crunchtime, though, Latvian side started to crumble and Lamp were ready to take advantage of that. With five of the following six round going Estonian way, Lamp closed out the third map of the series with a 16:13 victory, thus earning the final playoff spot at the BESL Pro Season 3 competition.
Playoff bracket
Now for the part that everyone is probably here for - the playoff bracket!
As the swiss group stage is no done and dusted, we have drawn the BESL Pro Season 3 playoff bracket. The ¼ final games are going to be played out in the time period of next two weeks with the top half of the bracket scheduled for next week, while the bottom half is going to be played out the week after.
Respectively, the first two ¼ final series happening next week are:
Remember that a spot in the LAN finals is at stake here as the winner of both game series listed above will book themselves a trip to Riga, while losers are going to be eliminated.
As per usual - this is where You guys come into the picture! This season we’ve given you the chance to cast your vote, alongside with our casters and head admin, on which match (from the list above) you want to see being broadcast on our next stream on Saturday.
The poll can be found down below:
BESL Pro Season 3 is a 7 week battle between the sixteen best Baltic state CS:GO teams for their share of the €9,000 prize pool and the chance to acquire themselves one of the four spots at this season’s LAN finals held in Riga, Latvia at Kipsala exhibition center with the event itself taking place on 1st of June.
Want to attend the LAN finals? Grab yourself a ticket HERE!
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News by: Bruno ‘Gekons’ Gailītis
