Gfinity

This week's Gfinity tournament was filled with surprises. A few scrapes in the first two rounds hinted that we might have a good tournament on our hands. Round one saw Dot Dot Dot drop two games to NotracK eSport, and then in round 2 Noble eSports lost two games against Nightmare Surf.

Round three gave us the biggest surprise, though. Flipsid3 Tactics, the dominant force of Rocket League, were taken to five games by Gold Rush (AKA Smokin Rockets, #10 in the EU power rankings). Following a lengthy overtime in the fifth game, Flipsid3 were eliminated. Flipsid3 often don't perform at their best in Gfinity, but to go out in round three to a team at the other end of the power rankings was a big shock regardless.

Two teams were definitely on form, though. myXMG stormed to the final, eliminating Noble eSports in the quarter finals and then destroying SK Gaming in an incredibly impressive three games in the semi finals. Supersonic Avengers were playing well too. They made their way to the final by eliminating Gold Rush 3-0 (impressive, given their victory over Flipsid3 in the previous round) and then YouMyZero in the semi's three games to one.

The final was surprisingly clear-cut given both team's performances. Supersonic Avengers stormed into the lead despite the individual games being relatively close, and although myXMG put up some resistance, the Avengers ran out 4-1 champions to take home their first major title and re-establish themselves as a team to be reckoned with.

ESL NA Monthly Final - November 2015

A lot of good teams went in to the final, but given Nexus and iBUYPOWER Cosmic's performances in the previous week's weekly cup, most expected to see them meet in the final. Most were right on one count - Cosmic struggled against Mad Magic 2.0 and Jorellis Goodies, but came through both matches with 3-2 victories to reach the final.

Nexus weren't quite as successful. A 3-1 victory over Orange Creamsicle got them into the semi finals, but there they had to play NOT. NOT had just beaten SnK Apollo 3-2 in a very close match, and their match against Nexus was much the same. After five games, NOT just about edged past Nexus, and set up a clash with iBP Cosmic for the title.

We definitely didn't expect what came next. Cosmic certainly weren't on top form, but they usually come good when necessary. That wasn't the case this time, game one went to overtime, which NOT eventually won. Game two was another overtime and another eventual win for NOT. Cosmic pulled a game back in normal time in the third, but NOT went on to win the following two despite strong pressure from Cosmic. Ultimately, NOT pulled off a spectacular win that few people would have expected at the start of the tournament. The big question now is how will that affect the power rankings? Will iBP Cosmic finally be relegated to 2nd in NA? We'll have to wait and see.

ESL EU Cup #19

PeaceHater made a strong charge to the final, taking down Torched quarter finals and the previous week's finalists myXMG RL in the semi finals. The 3 Musketeers also reached the final and got one step closer to winning a title, having lost in the semi finals the week before.

Elsewhere, we once again we saw a rematch between power ranking teams Dot Dot Dot and Spectral, albeit a round later this time. Spectral came out on top to progress to the semi finals, but in turn the 3 Musketeers were too strong for them. myXMG (formarly Ka-Pow) had another good run and took out Gold Rush (Smokin' Rockets) and Teamus Weamus, but they weren't quite a match for the ESL power house that is Peace Hater in the semi final.

The final was a close, but PeaceHater proved once again that they can win the important matches with a 4-3 victory. The first game was a commanding 4-1 win for PeaceHater, followed by a safe 1-0. The 3 Musketeers turned the tables on PeaceHater in the third with a 1-0 win of their own, but game four went to PeaceHater in overtime to take the match to 3-1. T3M won game six to force a 7th, but PeaceHater broke their momentum to win the all important seventh game and the title.

ESL NA Cup #19

Unlike the previous week, we didn't really see many of the very top teams in this week's NA ESL tournament. iBUYPOWER were not there, Nexus were not there, NOT were not there (or should that be NOT were not NOT there?). In fact, of the top ten only KOU, Jorellis Goodies, Moon Men and Mad Magic 2.0 were present, most of whom are the lower end.

With little in the way of EU action this weekend, M1k3Rules decided to become an honorary NA player this week for 'Gird Your Loins,' and made an instant impact by making it all the way to the final, taking out teams like Jorellis Goodies and BK Randys on the way.

Two of the power ranking teams mentioned above had to face each other in the round of 16. Moon Men beat Mad Magic 2.0, but then were eliminated in the quarter finals by The Flying Kappas. The Flying Kappa's run ended shortly afterwards when they faced Kings of Urban for a spot in the finals. KoU were, perhaps expectedly, too strong for them and won to move into the final.

 

Gird Your Loins put up a good fight in the final. After four games the final was tied at 2-2, but Kings of Urban took the games five and six to win the tournament with a 4-2 scoreline in the end.