NA Season 12 Week 2 Recap

Jump to a game

• Group A: BBQ vs N9 · HADES vs BEARD · HADES vs ALI · ECHO vs ALI
• Group B: PRC vs MIHIR · D2C vs πCF · GCA vs FF5
• Group C: CRIPS vs BD · CT vs TL · MIKE vs GRŰ
• Group D: JOE vs JPORK · LRG vs CF

Group A

BBQ got burnt on Sunset, then slow-cooked N9 for two maps

BBQ 2-1 N9 | Thursday, August 27

The week opened with half an hour that belonged entirely to Narc9 (N9), who took their own Sunset pick 13-2 with v3d at the front of it, playing for them a week after he played for Ali Daycare. Then lays brabeqyue™ (BBQ) got to their own Ascent pick, Toast and iMaxx found their shots, and the next two maps went 16-14 and 13-11 the other way. Somewhere in the middle of all that Penguin, on his third team in two weeks, pulled off an ace in a 1v2 at 13-13 and still ended up on the losing side.

Sunset

Sunset lasted about as long as it takes to read this. Genex opened the map by killing all five of BBQ with a Ghost in A Lobby before the round was thirty seconds old, and N9 kept doing versions of that for the next six rounds. v3d's Phoenix was the one BBQ could not deal with, already there every time they got a look at a site, two kills inside a second at A Elbow in round nine. When they did get past him, jackb's Odin was waiting at A Main. BBQ won one round in the half and needed Bob to win a 1v3 at B Boba to get it. 1-11 at the switch, 13-2 at the end. v3d's 17 kills were three more than Bluez, subbing in from Joe Biden, managed as BBQ's top fragger, and the whole BBQ team finished with 41 kills in 15 rounds.

Ascent

BBQ picked Ascent and N9 were in trouble from the first gunfight, because Toast's Jett went looking for the opening kill every round and kept finding it, nine of them by the end of the map. iMaxx made a habit of cleaning up whatever he left standing, and that is how BBQ turned 0-2 into 3-2, Toast with a Blade Storm double through A Tree and Garden and iMaxx finishing the last two in B Main. The half stayed tight the whole way and N9 edged it 7-5, one of their rounds coming on the clock. BBQ then won five of the first six on defense to lead 10-8, before N9 won four straight of their own to reach map point at 12-10, v3d doing most of the damage with three at A Rafters. BBQ needed both of the next two and got both, neither of them cleanly. Bluez shot two with Hunter's Fury in the first six seconds of round twenty-three and N9 ran the clock out without a plant. Toast beat jackb in a 1v1 at A Window the round after for 12-12, on a map BBQ had led by two and trailed by two.

Overtime gave Penguin his round. At 13-13 with N9 attacking, Toast picked Genex and v3d with the Operator in the first four seconds and iMaxx got tiasun, which left Penguin's Reyna and jackb as the only N9 players standing. jackb died at B Main, and Penguin was on his own. He killed iMaxx and Bob on B Site and 31Raven at Mid Market, walked to A and planted with two BBQ players still alive, then killed Bluez and Toast as they came to defuse. A 1v2 ace to keep N9 in the map.

It bought them one round, and from there the map belonged to the two players who had been carrying BBQ all night. Toast killed four in round twenty-seven and tiasun dragged N9 level one more time, before iMaxx killed four in twenty-nine and Toast killed four in thirty, the last of them Genex in N9's own spawn with a knife. 16-14, with Toast finishing 38/18 with nine first kills and iMaxx on 32, which between them was more than the whole N9 team.

Haven

With the series level, N9 attacked first on Haven and ran into the same problem they had all night, in that they could win the first fight and not the round. BBQ built an 8-4 half almost entirely out of clutches. 31Raven won a 1v2 defuse in round eight, and iMaxx won a 1v3 in the very next one, killing Genex, Penguin and jackb around C and defusing with the spike ticking. Five in a row from 3-4 to 8-4, every one of them a round N9 had started well.

N9 got back into it on defense and for a while it had the shape of Sunset again. v3d's Odin cut down three on A Site, tiasun picked up the Operator, and four straight from 12-7 down got them within one at 12-11. That brought up round twenty-four, and for most of it Penguin was the man again. BBQ hit C and killed three inside twenty seconds, Penguin killed four on his own around C Site and Cubby to leave himself 1v1 against Toast, and Toast shot him. 13-11, and BBQ had lost the opener 2-13 and won the series, with iMaxx finishing the decider 29/18 and Penguin, for the second time that night, losing a round he had four kills in.

Fear the Beard: jaebal steps back in, and Hades and Friends go under

HADES 0-2 BEARD | Friday, August 28

The biggest surprise of the week came from Beard 13 (BEARD), who came in off the 0-2 to kleeism's echodolls and beat Hades and Friends (HADES) in two maps, both of them close and both of them won late. jaebal, out last week for scheduling, put up 37 kills on Abyss, while Elysium, who carried HADES through Week 1, went 16/23 and 20/19. Fancypancy had 44 kills across the series, killed all five in a round, and still walked off 0-2.

Abyss

HADES picked Abyss and attacked first, and for a half it went the way the seedings said it would, Accolade's Neon taking the opening kill eight times on the map and HADES building a 7-5 lead on the back of him. jaebal was already the problem, though. He killed three in round three, ended round five with a Sheriff and took the last round of the half with a Blade Storm triple, every one of them a round HADES had been in.

Then BEARD attacked and jaebal won it for them, opening the half with three straight and finishing two of them himself. HADES spent the rest of the map chasing, catching up through winter's Sheriff for 8-8 and Accolade's Operator for 9-9 while BEARD kept having one more. Accolade killed three with Overdrive at 9-11 to keep HADES in it, and Fancypancy, who had been quiet all map, killed four in round twenty-four and defused for 12-12. That was the last time HADES were level.

Overtime lasted two rounds. jaebal and kamui killed three HADES players in A Lobby in the first seven seconds of the first, and jhotheweirdtrex killed Elysium and winter on the retake in the second for 14-12. jaebal's Jett finished 37/18 on a 380 ACS and jhotheweirdtrex had 29 on Astra, while Protogen, subbing in from LETHARGY, lost all three of the rounds he was last alive in and BEARD did not need him to win one.

Lotus

A map down, HADES went to BEARD's Lotus pick and led that one 7-5 at the half too. Fancypancy was the reason, though winter got there first with three at C Bend in three seconds in round six, in a half where HADES won six of seven. Fancypancy's Raze then put up four kills and a defuse in round eleven, three of them with an Operator and one with a Showstopper. Elysium opened the second half with three Sheriff kills in C Main for 8-5, and HADES had a defensive half in front of them and every reason to think the series was going three.

BEARD won the next four instead and HADES could not get a plant down. crepe's Outlaw shut B Main, kamui and Protogen held B the round after, and Protogen's Chamber killed the last two on A for a defuse in seventeen. BEARD had pushed it to 9-11 by the time Fancypancy went and killed all five, crepe at A Main, jaebal and jhotheweirdtrex together in A Lobby with the Showstopper, kamui at B, and Protogen in C Hall after the plant. 10-11, and a series that was still alive.

It stayed alive for exactly one round. kamui beat Accolade in a 1v1 defuse the next round and Hades pulled it back to 11-12, before BEARD ran the retake through A Stairs and Hut in round twenty-four and crepe shot winter with a Judge to finish it 13-11. Fancypancy's 26 on Lotus and 44 for the series were the best numbers on the losing side by a distance, and Elysium's two maps were the kind HADES cannot afford from him. A week after giving a 12-9 lead to kleeism, BEARD had won two maps from behind against the team that was supposed to be too good for them.

Hades, who took the series and not a shower

HADES 2-1 ALI | Saturday, August 29

Two teams named after their worst player, with Hades and Friends (HADES) named for Hades, who once said he stank in voice and then did not shower, and Ali Daycare (ALI) named for ali, three months into Valorant with his whole future ahead of him. HADES came in off the 0-2 to BEARD with the rumor going around that the vibes were not great, and on Summit they played like it.

Summit

HADES picked Summit, defended first, and lost the first seven rounds on it. tom's Neon and Average's Chamber splatted them in the opening seconds nearly every round, tom's Frenzy taking Accolade at A Link nineteen seconds into the pistol and a double at Mid Fountain inside nine seconds in round three. Average's Operator took three through B in round five and two more at B Main and B Lobby in six. HADES kept fighting for mid and never for a site, Elysium trading at Mid Bend and Mid Tiles and winter at Mid Bend, and every one of those fights ended with ALI planting behind them. 7-0, and Average had four opening kills without an opening death.

For three rounds HADES seemed to be stringing something together. winter and Accolade wiped ALI on an A retake in round eight, Elysium won a 1v1 against Reimsy at A Hall in nine, and Accolade's Operator picked tom at B Main one second into round ten for 3-7. Then came round twelve and the choke of the week. Accolade opened it with two Operator kills through Mid Tiles and Mid Fountain and Hades picked Reimsy at A Main, which left HADES five against two, with tom tethered by winter's Fade and sitting in Fancypancy's Phoenix molly. ALI planted anyway. revoke killed Elysium at A Cave and winter in A Garden, tom got Fancypancy with Overdrive, and Accolade finally killed tom, before revoke shot Accolade and then Hades on the site to finish with four. A 5v2 gone, and 3-9 instead of 4-8.

ALI won the next four as well, Reimsy's Spectre taking four on B Site in round fourteen, and closed it 13-5 with a defuse. Reimsy finished 21/10 on a 305 ACS and Average 19/12 with an 89% KAST, while Hades and Fancypancy shared eleven kills between them.

Ascent

Ascent was a lot closer, and for a while ALI seemed set to run the Summit script again, up 4-2 after revoke killed four around B after the plant in round six. Then HADES called a timeout and came out of it a different team. Accolade's Blade Storm opened round seven, Hades killed two through mid in eight, Accolade's Operator killed four in nine, and Fancypancy's three on A in round eleven set up an Accolade 1v1 defuse for a 7-5 half. Accolade's three Sheriff kills then won the pistol, Fancypancy's Ghost held A Tree on the anti-eco, and HADES led 9-5.

Then ALI won three in a row and HADES helped them do it. revoke killed three in Mid Courtyard in round fifteen, and Average shut A Main in sixteen while the clock ran out. In seventeen HADES planted A with a 3v2, only for revoke to kill Hades and Accolade on the retake for the defuse and 9-8. HADES answered the way they should have all night, Accolade's Blade Storm killing four in round eighteen, and then handed one straight back in the nineteenth, a 4v3 plant on A undone by three revoke kills. A detonate and an Elysium triple on A carried them to 12-9 and map point, and that set up round twenty-two. Elysium killed Reimsy, ali and Average, HADES planted A with four alive, and Hades shot revoke at A Rafters. That left tom alone against four with the spike down, and he killed Elysium with a Judge at A Tree, winter with Overdrive on the site and Fancypancy at A Window, then defused with Hades still alive for 12-10.

That was the third man-up post-plant HADES had lost on the map, and it was not the last. They planted 2v1 in twenty-three and tom killed Hades twice, the second time through a Clove revive, and revoke beat Fancypancy in a 1v1 on B Site for 12-12. Only in overtime did HADES stop giving rounds away, winter killing three on A Site in four seconds in the first and Elysium finishing the second with a Shorty on Reimsy at A Site for 14-12. In the second half HADES planted with the numbers seven times and lost four of them, revoke had 28 on Sova with eight clutch attempts, tom won two of his three, and Elysium's 29 led the map.

And then there is ali, who went 6/23 on Ascent and 23/55 for the series. Nine of those 23 kills came on Accolade, the best player on the other side, two of them opening rounds on Ascent and one a Bucky at A Tree to finish round two. The one that mattered came in round twenty-three with HADES on map point at 12-10, when a Guardian shot through Mid Courtyard took Accolade out of the round before the plant, HADES went in 2v1 without him, and tom did the rest. Accolade killed him fourteen times back, which is about how the series went for ali, except in the rounds where it counted.

Sunset

Sunset was a different map, and with tom off Neon and Reimsy off Omen, ALI did not have the same players in it, so revoke killed six in round eleven and it was 13-8 HADES anyway.

kleeism shoots up daycare, staff puts a stop to it

ECHO 1-2 ALI | Sunday, August 30

kleeism had already killed all five in a round earlier that afternoon, in a different match for a different team, and on Lotus he did it again and then went one better with six. He finished the map with 38 kills and dragged echodolls (ECHO) back from 6-12 down to win it in overtime, which is the second week running he has taken a team out of a hole that size. Ali Daycare (ALI) then won the next two maps, and neither of them was close at the end.

Lotus

ALI attacked first and the map spent an hour refusing to settle. ECHO took the pistol on a defuse with oesune's Bandit killing three of them around C, and kleeism's Stinger made it 2-0 the round after. Reimsy pulled one back at C before kleeism answered with three more around C Bend for 3-1. ALI won the next three and were suddenly in front, and then the eighth round got silly. oesune opened it with three kills in three seconds around A Rubble, which should have been the end of it, and instead revoke killed all five of them back. Three of them went down before ALI ran out of players, and he took the last two on his own, planting at C and then killing saberMH at the site a minute later. ALI led 5-3.

kleeism answered in the round straight after, and he needed fifteen seconds for the first three of it, all of them on ALI players walking into C. The other two took longer, Reimsy at C Lobby and then winter at the far end of the round, and two aces in two rounds had the map back to 4-5.

ECHO kept pulling it back and went to the switch level at 6-6, which made the half that followed harder to explain, because attacking they won one round in six. Average and Reimsy took most of the openings between them, ALI defused five times, and at 6-12 ECHO were a round from losing the map.

The nineteenth is where it started to go back the other way, and it started quietly, kleeism killing two at C for the detonate that made it 7-12. saberMH took the next two rounds close to single-handed, three kills in the twentieth for 8-12 and then the round that turned the map. ECHO were attacking A in the twenty-first, and he teleported onto an empty site and waited for the spike to go down. From the drop above it he held the entire retake, shooting revoke and Reimsy at A Top inside a second, killing Average at A Hut as he came through on Neon's ultimate, and finishing winter in A Drop for the fourth. Seven of his twelve kills on the map came in those two rounds, and at 9-12 the map ECHO had given up on was in front of them again.

Two rounds after that kleeism ended the argument in C Hall, killing six ALI players in about seven seconds, winter twice because ali's Sage had brought him back in between. 11-12, and ECHO had a map point of their own to play for.

kleeism took three more in the twenty-fourth to level it at 12-12, and in overtime he and Accolade shared the first round two kills apiece before kleeism closed Lotus 14-12 with three in the last. Eight rounds in a row from 6-12, and revoke's ace was still the only one ALI got all night.

Summit

Summit is where ali stopped being the player who had gone 7/19 on Lotus. ALI attacked again and took the pistol on B behind two ali kills at B Tower, and revoke and Reimsy traded Spectres through B Site for 2-0 the round after. ECHO got one back on an A defuse with Accolade killing three. Average then killed four in the fourth round, three of them inside ten seconds, and revoke took three more in the fifth for 4-1, and the two rounds that made it 6-1 were both ali's. In the sixth, BunBun came onto the plant at B and killed two, and ali answered with both of them, the second on Accolade at B Tower with the spike already ticking.

The round after that he did it alone. oesune had killed two at Mid Top and BunBun took winter down with an Annihilation, which left ali the last ALI player alive against two, and he killed saberMH and then BunBun at Mid Bend to make it 6-1.

ECHO did climb back into it, taking three straight to reach 4-6 with kleeism finding an Operator and oesune hitting seven two-kill rounds across the map, but ALI still went to the half 8-4 up. The second half followed the same shape, with ECHO getting to 8-11 on a detonate and a round from kleeism before revoke's Cypher closed it out. 9-13, and the series went to a decider.

Sunset

gabe came in for Accolade and spent the first half being the reason ECHO were ahead. ALI could not finish a post-plant to save themselves, and the opening round set the pattern, ali getting three kills with a Bandit and still watching ECHO walk onto the spike and defuse it. They lost it twice more in the next six rounds.

The third of those was gabe's round entirely. ALI had planted B and were two players up when he killed Reimsy and winter at B Boba, and after revoke took kleeism he was alone against two, killed revoke where the other two had died, then found ali coming through B Main and defused. Four kills, a 1v2 and 5-2.

ali got him back in the round straight after. ALI planted B again, gabe killed Average and revoke to drag it down to a 1v1, and this time ali won it, catching him at B Market with the spike ticking. 5-3, and that was the last round ECHO were comfortable in.

ALI won six in a row from there. Average took eight opening kills across the map and had six separate three-kill rounds, revoke finished 27/12 and Reimsy 23/11 on Omen, and the half that had belonged to ECHO ended 7-5 the other way.

ECHO got back to 8-9 and could not get closer. gabe took three at B Market in the eighteenth and revoke still killed him and defused, and the round after that Average and Reimsy killed all five ECHO players in sixteen seconds. ALI closed Sunset 13-8 on another defuse, and kleeism, who had 38 kills on Lotus and two rounds where he killed everyone, finished the last two maps with 21 and 19.

Group B

Gamrs Wet Dream leave the People's Republic bone dry

PRC 0-2 MIHIR | Thursday, August 27

Expectations were high for this one, both teams coming in off clean 2-0s and the question being whether Cataboo, two-time consecutive winner and MVP, could get People's Republic of Cataboo (PRC) past zombzino and seji on Gamrs Wet Dream (MIHIR). It was not close. MIHIR won 13-8 and 13-7, zombzino put up 57 kills in 41 rounds, and Cataboo never got past 18 on a map.

Split

MIHIR picked Split and attacked first, and PRC actually won the pistol, yukky finishing a 1v1 against c4rrotstix on A Site for a defuse. That was the last good thing to happen to them for a while. seji had a slow start, two kills in the first eight rounds, and it did not matter, because zombzino and c4rrotstix decimated the A site. MIHIR attacked A eight times in the half and won six of them. zombzino killed four on A in round two, c4rrotstix killed three in round three, and MIHIR had run it to 8-2 by round ten. A new face showed up too. Lqwnmower, back from a VCC season older than the site's records, took over on Chamber and had four kills in round seven, three of them in the space of five seconds at B Tower. kamui, subbing in from BEARD, got PRC back to 4-8 with three kills at A Main in round eleven and a defuse in twelve, so at least the half was not a wipe.

The second half was Lqwnmower's A site. MIHIR held the first two on the switch, and when PRC finally went to A in round fifteen smiy killed the last three of the retake for 5-10. Round sixteen answered that, Lqwnmower shooting Sellow, Cataboo and yukky at A Rafters and A Main inside three seconds before seji finished kamui for 5-11. PRC put three together late through Sellow and yukky to reach 8-12, and then c4rrotstix won a 1v1 against smiy on B Site and defused for 8-13. zombzino finished 25/11 and c4rrotstix 20/13 with two clutches, while seji ended his slow night 16/16 with six first kills.

Haven

Haven was closer for five rounds. PRC picked it, took the pistol and the anti-eco behind two from Sellow and a Cataboo Sheriff, and led 3-2 after Cataboo's Sheriff killed Lqwnmower on A Site in round five. That was the last time they led. seji went through C Link with four kills in round seven, MIHIR won five of the last seven to close the half 7-5, and zombzino, already on 12 kills, then went to defense.

zombzino's second half was 20 kills in 8 rounds, two Ghost kills in C Garage on the pistol, two through Mid Window in sixteen, and four in twenty-four seconds through Mid Window and Courtyard in round eighteen. PRC won two rounds after the switch, one of them on a Guber 1v1, and lost the map 7-13. zombzino's Phoenix line was 32/11 on a 468 ACS and a 309 ADR with six first kills and one first death, seji had 24 on Neon with seven opening kills, and Cataboo had 18.

Both teams lost the map they picked, and Down to Clown took the leftover

D2C 2-1 πCF | Sunday, August 30

πCIFIC (πCF) picked Haven and lost it, Down to Clown (D2C) picked Lotus and lost it, and the series came down to Ascent, the map neither of them chose. D2C took that one 13-10 behind 27 kills from Asimov. Accolade, subbing in from Hades and Friends, had 26 on Haven and a 1v3 defuse to go with them.

Haven

πCF picked Haven and led it 3-1, with 7ungsten doing nearly all of it. He killed four in the opening round and three more in the second, and by the fourth D2C had one round on the board.

Accolade took it back on his own. He killed three around A Garden and A Long in the fifth, and in the seventh, with D2C down to him alone against three and the spike on C, he killed happycookie in C Cubby, 7ungsten on the site and tmid behind him before defusing. Asimov added four in the eighth and Accolade's Operator ended the next two, and six straight rounds had D2C 7-3 up.

πCF answered with four in a row to level it at 7-7, ghastlies taking three with a Spectre in the fourteenth, and then did not win another round. Accolade killed four in the fifteenth and Asimov four in the sixteenth, and D2C closed the map 13-7. Accolade finished 26/9 on a 362 ACS with six opening kills.

Lotus

D2C picked Lotus and spent most of it behind. πCF won seven in a row from 3-2 down to lead 9-3, 7ungsten and happycookie sharing most of the damage between them, and D2C went to the half with three rounds.

WILL brought it back. He killed four around B in the sixteenth. In the seventeenth, alone against three again, he killed andwier at A Root and 7ungsten in their own spawn, walked the spike to C and planted it, then shot ghastlies on the site with the round nearly gone. Six straight, 9-9, and D2C had turned their own map around.

πCF would not let it get away from there. They won three of the last four, 7ungsten killing three with the Operator in the twenty-second as the clock ran out and taking another in the last round, and happycookie and andwier finished the map off. 13-10, and both teams had now lost the map they chose.

Ascent

Neither team had picked Ascent, and πCF took the first half of it anyway. They won four straight to close it 8-4, tmid's Operator taking Accolade three times through Mid on the way.

D2C won the first four of the second half to level it, Accolade killing tmid and ghastlies at Mid Top in the same second in the fourteenth. The two teams traded from 8-8 to 10-10, and then Asimov ended it. He killed ghastlies and happycookie on A Site in the nineteenth, Accolade took tmid with the Operator and Gemiknight finished 7ungsten, a five-man wipe in twenty-two seconds, and D2C took the last three rounds after that.

Asimov finished the decider 27/18 on a 337 ACS, and 7ungsten's 59 kills across the three maps made him πCF's best player by a distance. Every πCF player ended the decider between 15 and 17 kills, which is a strange way to lose one by three.

Gated Community Antics let FF at 5 in, then changed the locks

GCA 2-0 FF5 | Tuesday, September 1

FF at 5 (FF5) are five Diamond players who queue together, and for most of a half on Lotus they were taking apart a team that is already on the records page. They led it 9-2, and Gated Community Antics (GCA) went to the switch 3-9 down. GCA spent Week 1 coming back from 1-11 against πCIFIC, so a seven-round hole was familiar ground, and they took ten of the last twelve to win Lotus 13-11 before closing the series on FF5's own Ascent pick.

Lotus

GCA defended first and could not hold anything. Lejigglevon's Cypher and Glazinator's Tejo carried FF5 through the first eleven rounds for the loss of two. Both of the rounds GCA did win came from one player having a moment, CoalBlack1 killing three in four seconds at C Main and C Site in the third and suns taking three around C in the fifth for a defuse. Lejigglevon closed the half out with four kills in the eighth, a round that ran nearly two minutes, and FF5 led 9-2.

itsunFer won GCA their third round in the twelfth with a 1v1 against Glazinator at A Main, which mattered more than it looked at the time. GCA then went to attack and took the first three. Nuke killed three around A Door and A Drop in the thirteenth, CoalBlack1 shot fast trax 3 and Glazinator in the same second at B Main in the fourteenth for a detonate, and two Sheriff kills from him in the fifteenth made it 6-9.

realMrTacocat stopped the run once, opening the sixteenth with two Sheriff kills in A Lobby inside eight seconds, and then GCA won six straight. Nuke ended two of them in 1v1s against Glazinator at C Site, and suns took three through C Mound and C Door in the twenty-first. itsunFer finished the run with four in the twenty-second, Lejigglevon on the site and then realMrTacocat, taztm and fast trax 3 as they came through C Hall, for the detonate and 12-10.

FF5 got one back on an A defuse, and suns closed the map in the twenty-fourth, two kills at C Mound and C Main to open it and then fast trax 3 and Glazinator with Neon's ultimate once the spike was down. 13-11. Lejigglevon finished with 24 kills and Glazinator 22, both more than anyone on GCA managed, which is the sort of line that comes with losing a map you led by seven.

Ascent

FF5 picked Ascent and never led on it. GCA turned the first four rounds into three defuses and a 3-1 lead, and suns picked up the Operator from there. He killed three with it in the seventh, Lejigglevon at B Main, taztm in Mid Cubby and Glazinator on A Site. CoalBlack1's Odin then took two at B Main in the same second in the eleventh and two more at Mid Market in the twelfth for an 8-4 half.

FF5 did win three in a row on the switch, one of them on the clock, and suns answered with the round that ended the series. GCA planted A in the nineteenth, realMrTacocat's Blade Storm cut them down to one, and suns killed fast trax 3 and then realMrTacocat on the site to take it 1v2 for 12-7. Nuke's Cypher finished 18/10 without a single first death, and suns ended the map 24/10 on a 319 ACS.

realMrTacocat took five opening kills on Ascent and Glazinator did not drop below 17 kills on either map, so FF5 had the players for it. Lejigglevon was the difference, going from 24 kills on Lotus to 9/17 on Ascent with eight first deaths.

Group C

The Marshal king returns, and wised is wide enough to cover the whole map

CRIPS 2-0 BD | Friday, August 28

Belle's Daycare (BD) brought a new name to this one in StealthDrifter, an Iron 1 with a Marshal, playing for them in place of a full roster, and it did not work. wised was wide and wised enough to cover his whole team on Lotus, 29 kills and a 278 ADR, and ANS did his best on map one with 27. Map two was 12-0 at the half.

Lotus

Crippled Avengers (CRIPS) picked Lotus, attacked first and took the first three, and then BD had the best four rounds of their night. rayz killed three with a Stinger around C Mound, Kaitou won a 1v1 defuse at C Bend, and ANS held B Main with the Operator to put them 4-3 up. That is also where the Marshal made its first appearance, StealthDrifter shooting Penguin at C Mound, and for four rounds the plan was working.

wised stopped it there. A Guardian kill on Kaitou set up a detonate, two more followed on C Site the round after, and CRIPS won five straight to 8-4. ANS pulled BD back once with four Bandit kills through A Rubble in round thirteen, and wised answered in the very next round with four Sheriff kills across three parts of the map and a defuse. BD did not lead again. WorseSquash9 won a 1v3 at B, StealthDrifter got his round with three Marshal kills, the last two on wised and Penguin, and CRIPS closed it 13-8. wised finished 29/14 on a 399 ACS and a 278 ADR, while ANS had 27 on Yoru with five first kills and no first deaths, the best line on a losing team all week.

Abyss

Abyss was BD's pick, and they did not win a round on it until the thirteenth. CRIPS attacked first and won all twelve rounds of the half, five of them on a detonate. Penguin planted seven times and finished 21/17 on Clove, his second map for a second team in two nights, both of them wins. BD got four in a row when they finally attacked, ANS and rayz doing the work, and then CRIPS closed it 13-4 in the seventeenth round. StealthDrifter went 3/16 on Jett and died first seven times, and rayz was the last BD player alive seven times on the map and won one of them.

Tilted Llamas spit on Content Team

CT 0-2 TL | Saturday, August 29

Neither team came into this one with a full roster. Content Team (CT) were missing Aayan and borrowed belle from BD, while Tilted Llamas (TL) were without Konzera and valkyrie14571 and brought in v3d, now on his third team in two weeks, along with jambo from MOMMY. In the end it was the holes on the CT side that showed, as Mintmeister put up 51 kills across the 33 rounds and notapanda managed to die in every single one of them.

Lotus

CT picked Lotus and started on defense, and for the first five rounds they had a game on their hands. notapanda's Chamber picked off v3d and Cread in the pistol before belle cleaned up the last two at C Door with a Classic for the defuse. TL ran out of time in round two with Mintmeister and Kirya the last two standing at C Bend, and Kirya's Sheriff took out Mintmeister and Mirage in round five to put CT up 3-2. That turned out to be the last round they would win for the next ten. Mintmeister's Outlaw caught notapanda at A Main five seconds into round eight and followed it with four kills in round nine, and TL closed the half 9-3 without CT ever getting a spike down. belle was doing her best to keep them in it through all of that, three kills through A Hut and A Site in round six before v3d finally got her at A Drop, then two more at C Hall the round after. CT lost both of those rounds anyway.

The second half did not go much better. TL took the first three on defense before a Zwyxc Odin double at A Drop and A Tree finally got CT their fourth round in sixteen, and the round after that was the closest CT came to a moment on the map. Mintmeister's Operator took twig at A Root and notapanda at C Main inside the first thirty seconds of round seventeen, which left belle alone against four. She killed jambo at A Link, Mintmeister on B Site, Mirage at A Link and Cread at B Upper, then got the spike down on A. v3d found her at A Top just before it would have gone off. It was her seventh clutch attempt of the map and the closest she came to winning a second, and TL took the map 4-13 with Mintmeister finishing 26/11 on a 429 ACS.

Sunset

Moving on to Sunset, TL's pick, things only got worse for CT, and notapanda was a big reason why, dying first in seven of the sixteen rounds, four seconds into rounds three and seven and seven seconds into round eight. CT were a man down before most fights had even started, and Mintmeister, v3d and Cread went 62/24 between them. CT found themselves 1-8 down before they finally won a round, and even that one came with Cread killing four of them and then standing on the spike as it went off. belle followed it up with two at B Boba for 3-8, and TL won the last five without CT getting another plant down to finish it 3-13.

notapanda ended the series 10/34 with seventeen deaths on each map, eleven of them at the hands of Mintmeister, and twig went 12/32. belle's 29 kills across the two maps, for a team she does not even play for, were the best CT had to offer, and Zwyxc's ten on Sunset was the only other double digit line on their side.

The Revenge Tour rolls on, and GRŰ picked the map it started on

MIKE 2-1 GRŰ | Monday, August 31

Revenge Tour (MIKE) came out of Week 1 having lost both maps to wised, and they answered it by taking GRŰ's own Lotus pick 13-1. GRŰ got a map back on MIKE's pick, where uwu put up 32 kills, and then played the decider without him. The two best players on the winning side were both borrowed, Reimsy from Ali Daycare and ANS from Belle's Daycare.

Lotus

GRŰ picked Lotus and won one round on it. MIKE attacked first and wiped them inside ten seconds on the pistol, Reimsy and Weagle taking two apiece with Ghosts once the spike was down at C Link, and the next five rounds went the same way. GRŰ did not get on the board until the seventh, when Ultia killed three and they defused at C, and by then they were 6-1 down.

ANS had the round of the map in the tenth. MIKE had the spike down at B and ANS killed Camel on the site, and when uwu shot Reimsy a second later he was alone against three. He killed uwu as he came through, then gibbon with a Showstopper and Fal with Paint Shells. 9-1.

Weagle and Reimsy both finished 16/5, Reimsy on a 100% KAST, and MIKE closed it 13-1. Fal and Camel ended the map with four kills between them and twenty-eight deaths. uwu's 12 came on a 295 ACS, which is a strange way to lose a map by twelve rounds.

Split

MIKE picked Split and lost it, and the two pistols set the terms. Camel killed four with a Ghost in the first round, uwu answered with four Outlaw kills in the second, and GRŰ were 6-1 up before MIKE found anything at all.

They did find it. MIKE took four of the last five in the half to reach 5-7, then three straight after the switch to level at 8-8, bchron finishing that run with four in the sixteenth and three of them in A Lobby. uwu would not let it go further than that. GRŰ won the last five rounds without giving one back, and he ended the map 32/15 on a 414 ACS and a 258 ADR. 13-8.

Ascent

GRŰ went to the decider without uwu, awawa coming in on Jett in his place, and MIKE won the first five rounds anyway. The second of them took fifteen seconds, Weagle killing awawa and Camel with Headhunters through Mid before Reimsy and bchron cleared the rest.

ANS took it from there. He killed four in the eighth, awawa with Blade Storm at Mid Market and then Fal, Camel and Ultia with the Operator, and MIKE led 8-3 before GRŰ strung anything together. awawa and Camel did get them three in a row from 11-4, which was as close as the decider came to turning.

Weagle ended it in the nineteenth, killing Ultia, gibbon and Fal at B Main inside two seconds before ANS found awawa in Mid Market for 12-7. Reimsy's Hot Hands and two more from ANS closed Ascent 13-7 the round after.

ANS finished the decider 24/8 on a 316 ACS and Weagle took five opening kills, which is a lot of Revenge Tour's night coming from a player each of Ali Daycare and Belle's Daycare lent them. gibbon was the one GRŰ player who turned up on all three maps, 46 kills across them, and uwu's Split is still the best individual map anyone played this week.

Group D

Aether Ends Gamr

JOE 2-1 JPORK | Sunday, August 30

Four different players killed all five in a round on Sunday afternoon, which is more than most best of threes manage, and two of them landed on the decider two rounds apart. kleeism opened Abyss with five Marshal kills to put Avengers End Gamr (JPORK) on their way to 3-0. By the fourth round Aether was the last Joe Biden (JOE) player alive, on a site JPORK had already planted on, with three of them still standing. He killed all three, and JPORK won two more rounds in the map after it.

Ascent

JPORK picked Ascent and attacked into it, and the half belonged to ANS, whose Jett finished the map with 33 kills. JOE were not being outplayed everywhere, and at 2-3 in the sixth round Aether killed three of them in the first fourteen seconds, two of those in A Main. That left JPORK two players and an ultimate, and ANS took out the knives and killed all five, running JOE down from one end of the map to the other and finishing on Aether on the site.

That was 2-4, and JOE got one more round in the half. JPORK took the last four, the tenth the clearest of them, with kleeism killing two in A Rafters half a second apart while ANS took the third, the spike down at twenty-five seconds and the round over at twenty-six. JPORK went to the switch 9-3 up and then won the second-half pistol on Sheriffs without needing to plant, which put them three rounds from the map.

They got seven of the next nine. Turtle opened the fourteenth with a Sheriff and Aether cleared A Rafters with a Stinger, then JOE detonated twice in a row on A, and in the seventeenth iqsi killed three inside four seconds to make it 7-10. Aether's four in the nineteenth were better still, because the last two he got on his own. ItsJump had killed three JOE players in B Main inside two seconds, and once the spike was down kleeism took iqsi to leave Aether alone against two, which he won by killing askrial on the site and then waiting out kleeism for another eleven seconds.

kleeism closed it himself, killing four of them in a slow round through Mid to finish Ascent 13-10, which left the map JOE had picked as the only thing standing between JPORK and a 2-0.

Haven

Haven was that pick, and JOE attacked it the way a team down a map should, taking C on the pistol behind three kills from Bluez. They went 2-0 when Aether ended up alone against two, killed kleeism in reply, and stayed alive long enough for the spike to go off. JPORK leveled it at 2-2, the second of those a round iqsi almost stole on his own from a 1v3. JOE then won four in a row to lead 6-2, the best of them Turtle's eighth, where his Outlaw killed three JPORK players in A Sewer over thirty seconds.

kleeism spent the rest of the half with an Operator and made the score respectable with it, taking four in the ninth from C Cubby and eight Operator kills on the map in total. ANS got four of his own in the tenth to force the defuse that made it 6-4, but JOE still went to the switch 7-5 in front with a defensive half to come.

That half was 6-1. Goonster's Odin was doing most of the ugly work, twelve kills on the map and seven plants, and in the fifteenth he killed three on the retake at A for the defuse and 10-5, and then iqsi had his round. JPORK came to B in the seventeenth with the map on the line at 11-5. He killed kleeism and ANS before the spike went down, two more on the site as it did, and caught ItsJump out in Mid Courtyard on his way back to defuse it.

ANS and kleeism took one back, and Turtle finished Haven 13-6, ItsJump the last JPORK player alive and up against three. iqsi ended the map 21/10 and the series went to a decider neither team had picked.

Abyss

JOE attacked first on Abyss, got the spike down at B in the opening round and watched JPORK defuse it, and the second round is where the map should have been decided. kleeism bought a Marshal and killed all five with it, the first two inside a second, the last of them Bluez followed all the way back to attacker spawn. Seventeen seconds, five bolt-action kills, and JPORK did not lose a player in the round.

askrial's Guardian took three more on A the round after for 0-3, so when JOE finally got a plant down in the fourth it was already a map they could not afford to lose another round of, and JPORK killed four of them defending it. Aether had two of his own before that, and from there he was alone against three with the spike ticking on A. He killed two on the site three seconds apart, then found kleeism at A Bridge.

JOE won the next four as well. The eighth was Aether again, alone this time against two after JOE had planted on A, killing ANS on the site and then waiting ten seconds for ItsJump to come to him, and at 5-3 the map had turned completely around. JPORK pulled two of the last four back to leave it 7-5 at the switch, ANS's knives taking the last round of the half, which on the run of play was closer to a rescue than a comeback.

JOE did not lose another round. Aether opened the second-half pistol with a Sheriff and iqsi took the other four with a Classic, three of them inside two seconds. From there Aether took over with the Vandal, two on A for the defuse in the fifteenth and three more in the sixteenth, before Goonster's Odin cleaned up B for the defuse that made it 12-5. iqsi ended the map the way he had started the half, and Abyss finished 13-5 with JOE taking the second half 6-0.

ANS finished with 69 kills across the sixty rounds, one more than Aether and the most on either side, and kleeism took the opening kill fourteen times, three more than anyone else in the series. Aether won four of the nine rounds he finished as the last JOE player alive, one on every map and two on the decider. The matchup those two aces came out of went his way as well, killing kleeism nineteen times over the three maps to kleeism's ten.

Chud Factory pick Abyss, fall in, and climb back out

LRG 1-2 CF | Tuesday, September 1

Chud Factory (CF) lost the map they picked and won the series anyway. LETHARGY (LRG) took Abyss 13-7 behind a four-kill round and an ace from nightwinter, back to back, and then did not win another map. Atom answered on Lotus with the round of the night, left alone against three and killing all five LRG players to win it.

Abyss

LRG defended the first six rounds of a map they had not picked. Doofy won the pistol on his own, alone against three with the spike down at A, killing Asteria, Camel and Brickcrusher73 before defusing it. nightwinter took the next two, four kills on A Site in the fourth and then all five in the fifth, working B from Mid Bottom through Danger, Main and Nest as CF arrived one at a time. 6-0.

Aero opened the seventh with two Stinger kills on A to get CF on the board, and Atom's Operator ended three of the next four rounds to bring them to 6-4. LRG shut it down from there. Doofy took two with a Headhunter at B Main and B Nest in the thirteenth, and after CF got within two at 9-7, LRG won the last four rounds without giving one back.

Protogen finished the map off with four kills in the twentieth, two at A Main and two more with Neon's ultimate. nightwinter ended it 24/11 on Omen with a 230 ADR, and Atom's 15 kills were the most CF could show for their own map pick.

Sunset

LRG picked Sunset and went 3-6 down before they found anything. Kryptical and Doofy dragged them level by the switch, three straight rounds in which the two of them traded two kills apiece and CF could not finish a post-plant, and at 6-6 LRG still had the better of it.

CF then won the first four of the second half and the map with them. Brickcrusher73 opened the thirteenth by killing four in nine seconds with a Sheriff, all of them at A Elbow, and Atom followed it with three Bulldog kills through B. Brickcrusher73 took three more at A Elbow in the fifteenth, and LRG had gone from level to 6-10 in four rounds.

Doofy kept producing to the end, 24 kills and a 213 ADR on Chamber, and Kryptical added 20. Aero's 26 and Atom's 23 were more than LRG had between their top two, though, and Protogen went 3/19 on Neon. CF closed it 13-8.

Lotus

CF attacked first on the decider and won the first four rounds, Brickcrusher73 and Aero taking C apart in the first two. Protogen's Operator got LRG on the board in the fifth with two kills and a defuse at C Bend, and Doofy's Blade Storm won the eighth, but CF kept coming back to the same sites and LRG kept losing the same fights. 2-10 at the half.

The tenth is the round people will remember. Kryptical killed Brickcrusher73, Asteria and Aero inside seventeen seconds around A, and when he added Camel a few seconds later CF were down to Atom against three. Atom had already taken Clucker at A Stairs and Doofy at A Hut on the way in, and he finished with Kryptical at A Top, Protogen behind him and nightwinter back at A Hut. Five kills, a 1v3, and a plant afterwards for 2-8.

LRG did take three in a row after the switch, Protogen killing three at B Main in the thirteenth and Kryptical three more around B in the fourteenth, and Clucker's detonate two rounds later made it 6-11. CF ended it in the nineteenth, Aero killing Kryptical and Protogen at A Root in the space of a second. Brickcrusher73 finished 24/17 on a 372 ACS, Atom 22/9 with three clutches from five, and Aero 22/9, while Camel, subbing in from GRŰ, went 4/16 and won the series anyway.