ESL IEM AC finals are Over!

The ESL Intel Extreme Master American Championship finals are now over. EG hit the jackpot taking the 1st and the 3rd places in Quake Live, the 1st spot in Counter-Strike and placing 4th in World of Warcraft, and we will see all those players in the World Championship finals in CeBIT 2010 in Germany. Before that, however we need to get them some decent competitors and that means the IEM European Championship finals need to be played, and that is not far away at all. The European Championship finals are played in 14.-17. January for CS and WoW and a week later for Quake Live. I personally would like thank the ESL crew in Edmonton, especially Carmac, the guys from iD Software for giving the LAN support and last but not least the awesome people at ESL Studios and the great casters TosspoT, 2GD and Joe. See you in January!

»Quake Live Final Standings«

EG.DaHanG $3,500 + Ticket to World Championship Finals
SK-rapha $1,500 + Ticket to World Championship Finals
EG.Chance $1,000 + Ticket to World Championship Finals
4th col'Vo0 $700 + Ticket to World Championship Finals
5-6. griffin - $400
5-6. gellehsak - $400
7-8. dkt - $250
7-8. sparks - $250

»World of Warcraft Final Standings«

CheckSix - $7,500 + Ticket to World Championship Finals
SK Gaming - $3,500 + Ticket to World Championship Finals
fnatic - $1,500 + Ticket to World Championship Finals
4th Team EG - $800 + Ticket to World Championship Finals
5-6. Loaded - $500
5-6. compLexity - $500
7. From Quitters... - $350

»Counter-Strike Final Standings«

Team EG - $15,000 + Ticket to World Championship Finals
compLexity - $7,000 + Ticket to World Championship Finals
Blight Gaming - $3,000
4th Sway Gaming - $1,500
5-6. Berserk - $1,000
5-6. Team Exigent - $1,000
7-8. Kindred - $750
7-8. Facepalm - $750

[b»Quake Live Finals«[/b]]
The Grand Final: SK-rapha 2 : 3 EG.DaHanG
3rd Place: col'Vo0 0 : 3 EG.Chance

[b»Quake Live Semifinals«[/b]]
EG.Chance 2 : 3 SK-Rapha
coL'Vo0 0: 3 EG.DaHanG

[b»Quake Live Groups«[/b]]
Group A:

Player
EG.Chance
coL'Vo0
EG.griffin
coL'dkt
Points
6
6
6
0
Wins
2
2
2
0
Losses
1
1
1
3


Summary of the Events

Before the event Group A was considered a battle of three, with EG.griffin being the definite 4th place finisher. coL'dkt was supposed to be the winner of the Group but that image was pretty much destroyed in the very first match when he went head-to-head with his new compLexity teammate Vo0. The result of the match was a total surprise to many, Vo0 beat dkt straight in two maps. In the meantime EG.Chance beat his teammate griffin in two maps as well, which was to be expected.

The following match between Chance and Vo0 was a real thriller. In the first map, which was tourney9 (aka House of Decay) it seemed Chance was punishing Vo0 quite convincingly before the Dutchman started his furious comeback with five frags or so to catchup. The game was 7-6 in favor of Chance who tried his best to hide from his opponent and it seemed he had the game in his pocket with seconds to go. However, the nerves of the American failed him and he moved out from his hiding spot, which resulted in Vo0 tieing the game in the very last second and the game went on to overtime. Chance had already given to mapcontrol to Vo0 who kept it the entire overtime, fiinally beating Chance 13 to 7. The American found his way out of the misery in the second map (ztntourney1 aka Blood Run) and gave Vo0 the beating he wasn't expecting, with the result being 10 to 2 in favor of Chance. Even if Chance dominated in ztn, Vo0 had some aces in the sleeve in the deciding map (dm13 aka Lost World). Vo0 didn't give up even one frag, and took his second win with 6 frags to 0.

At the same time griffin showed he is no pushover when he beat dkt 2:1, meaning the final round could possibly result in a three-way tie. And that's exactly what happened. Griffin vs Vo0, dkt vs Chance. As impressive as Vo0 had been, griffin certainly didn't let that bother him as the Canadian picked up the pace with the help of his unreal rockets, the result being a close mapwin in ztn, the score being 4 to 3. The following maps were dominance from both players, Vo0 took 9-1 victory in dm13 and griffin somewhat suprisingly win dm6 (aka Campgrounds Redux) with the score of 10 to 2, causing Vo0 to lose his first game in the event. At the same time Chance beat dkt in two maps, meaning the favorite of the Group, dkt had lost all his games and was left on the 4th place instead. In a three-way tie between Chance, Vo0 and griffin map wins/losses had to be inspected resulting in, despite giving a good performance, griffin is left out from the playoffs with Chance and Vo0 going through.


Group B:

Player
EG.DaHanG
SK-rapha
EG.gellehsak
sparks
Points
9
6
3
0
Wins
3
2
1
0
Losses
0
1
2
3


Summary of the Events

Group B on the other hand was a lot clearer prior to event, with SK-rapha and EG.DaHanG going to the playoffs, in that order. Everything was going just as planned, rapha and DaHanG both beat gellehsak and sparks 2 to 0 respectively, although for a moment it seemed gellehsak could cause a huge upset versus rapha. In tourney7 (aka Furious Heights), gellehsak was only one frag away from rapha with 3 minutes left. He had all the chances to tie the game and even possibly take a mapwin but for some reason he threw that all away by first giving up both Megahealth and the Red Armor without challenging rapha and then picking a fight by the Yellow Armor by the railgun for no apparent reason. Truthfully I can't remember if rapha extended his lead in that situation but atleast he had a total mapcontrol now and gellehsak's hopes for a miracle faded away.

Now the plans were re-written in the final and the most anticipated match of the night when rapha and DaHanG faced each other in a match that'd determine the final Group order. Rapha was a clear favorite but as gellehsak has hinted, DaHanG has improved a lot and according to the Canadian, DaHanG would eventually be the American to beat. DaHanG showed some of his potential in this very match when he beat rapha straight in two maps, meaning DaHanG would be winner of the Group B without losing a map and rapha would be the second.

[b»World of Warcraft Finals«[/b]]
The Grand Final: SK.USA 3 : 4 CheckSix
3rd Place: Fnatic 4 : 3 Team EG

[b»World of Warcraft Semifinals«[/b]]
SK.USA 4 : 1 Fnatic
CheckSix 4 : 1 Team EG

[b»World of Warcraft Groups«[/b]]
Group A:

Team
CheckSix Gaming
SK-Gaming USA
Loaded.Wow
From Quitters To Winners
Points
6
6
6
0
Wins
2
2
2
0
Losses
1
1
1
3

Group A:

Team
Evil Geniuses
Fnatic.Wow
compLexity
Points
6
3
0
Wins
2
1
0
Losses
0
1
2


[b»Counter-Strike Finals«[/b]]
The Grand Final: Team EG 2 : 0 compLexity
3rd Place: Blight 2 : 1 Sway
[b»Counter-Strike Semifinals«[/b]]
Team EG 2 : 0 Sway
Blight 0 : 2 compLexity

[b»Counter-Strike Groups«[/b]]
Group A:

Team
Team EG
Blight Gaming
Berserk
Kindred
Points
9
6
3
0
Wins
3
2
1
0
Losses
0
1
2
3

Group B:

Team
compLexity Syndicate
Sway
Team Exigent
NERDSMASHERS
Points
9
6
3
0
Wins
3
2
1
0
Losses
0
1
2
3




VODs
ESL IEM American Championship
Interview with gellehsak
Interview with Vo0
Interview with DaHanG
Interview with rapha
Interview with dkt