TenZ a bright spot in what wasn't ATK's Finest hour
Tyson "TenZ" Ngo and his South African teammates on ATK were eliminated earlier today by Finest in a best-of-three series that went all the way to the final round.
ATK's campaign for Rio de Janeiro started with a very narrow 2-1 series loss to Yalla, a team made up of players from four different African countries. ATK rolled their northern opposition 16-6 on Inferno, largely thanks to a 12-3 opening CT-side. It looked like an easy 2-0 sweep in the making, but then Yalla stole back Overpass from ATK with a comfortable 16-9 win of their own.
The decider on Nuke went all thirty rounds. Like the series, things started out looking very favorable for ATK, but then took a turn for the worse. After winning the first seven rounds of their CT-side to go up 13-9, they lost six rounds in a row, allowing Yalla to find match and series point, 15-13. The South African side fought off the first series point, but lost the final round and was sent to the lower bracket. TenZ was the opening series' top player with a 1.33 rating and 73 kills.
YallaATK| Yalla |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Adel 'Remind' Guermassi |
69 - 50 | +19 | 87.6 | 72.7% | 1.29 |
 Bilal-Walid 'DEAD' Oubari |
61 - 55 | +6 | 76.8 | 70.1% | 1.11 |
 Mokrani 'Kheops' Anis |
47 - 48 | -1 | 63.9 | 72.7% | 1.00 |
| Belal 'Senpai' Chehab |
44 - 54 | -10 | 70.8 | 67.5% | 0.97 |
 Karel 'fredi' Královec |
44 - 53 | -9 | 71.2 | 67.5% | 0.94 |
| ATK |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Tyson 'TenZ' Ngo |
73 - 54 | +19 | 89.1 | 72.7% | 1.33 |
 Rieghardt 'flexeeee' Romatzki |
53 - 51 | +2 | 82.1 | 74.0% | 1.10 |
| Gareth 'MisteM' Ries |
52 - 53 | -1 | 76.5 | 70.1% | 1.04 |
| Rhys 'Fadey' Armstrong |
46 - 53 | -7 | 72.6 | 66.2% | 0.95 |
| Josh 'bLazE' Saunders |
34 - 54 | -20 | 53.6 | 59.7% | 0.73 |
ATK's first round opponent in the lower bracket was NASR from Jordan. Once again, they got off to a fast start by winning their opponent's map pick of Inferno, this time 16-10 on the back of a strong T-sided performance in the second half, where they were only pushed back by the defense three times. NASR continued ATK's second map woes, completely pummeling them 16-4 on Train. Khaled "alvar" Abdullah Mahmoud racked up 25 kills in just twenty rounds to bring the series back to even for the Jordanians.
TenZ didn't even have to be the catalyst on Mirage, though he did contribute 17 frags. His teammates Rieghardt "flexeeee" Romatzki and Gareth "MisteM" Ries combined for 46 kills in the 16-6 thrashing. All five ATK players were rated higher than alvar, who was the top player for NASR on map three and the best rated player between both teams in the series overall.
ATKNASR| ATK |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rieghardt 'flexeeee' Romatzki |
56 - 40 | +16 | 81.9 | 77.9% | 1.23 |
| Gareth 'MisteM' Ries |
53 - 45 | +8 | 89.7 | 73.5% | 1.21 |
| Tyson 'TenZ' Ngo |
49 - 42 | +7 | 81.1 | 67.6% | 1.19 |
| Rhys 'Fadey' Armstrong |
41 - 43 | -2 | 68.2 | 64.7% | 0.94 |
| Josh 'bLazE' Saunders |
36 - 45 | -9 | 55.5 | 66.2% | 0.82 |
| NASR |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Khaled 'alvar' Abdullah Mahmoud |
62 - 48 | +14 | 94.0 | 70.6% | 1.30 |
| Abd-Alrahman 'REAL1ZE' Arabiat |
47 - 51 | -4 | 81.0 | 64.7% | 1.04 |
| Hisham 'proxyb' Ajlouni |
31 - 43 | -12 | 54.7 | 70.6% | 0.85 |
 Arbnor 'Dementor' Pacolli |
40 - 50 | -10 | 67.4 | 61.8% | 0.83 |
| Abdelnaser 'Just1ce' AbuLaban |
35 - 43 | -8 | 48.0 | 60.3% | 0.83 |
Next up for ATK was the lesser known of the two Israeli teams in the qualifier, Finest. The pattern held for the South Africans, as they stole away Finest's map pick of Dust2 in overtime. The Israelis found themselves on the losing end of a map where they clutched three rounds to ATK's zero and got 20 of 35 opening kills. That's largely attributable to TenZ's impact, with the Canadian young gun found 35 kills for a 1.51 rating while no one else in the server managed thirty.
Then Tal "meztal" Hahiashvili popped off for Finest, going 29-9 and boasting a 2.19 rating on Inferno. ATK had successfully stolen this very map twice earlier in the qualifier, but the hero performance kept them from securing it when they picked it themselves. A resounding 16-4 win for the Israelis.
On the final map of the series, ATK were unable to gain effective entries to the bombsites on their T-side as they watched their 12-3 first half lead crumble. The South African side were simply outgunned in a match where 26 of 30 rounds were decided solely with eliminations and the bomb was not detonated even once. The closest that ATK got to closing the match was a 14-12 lead that evaporated in the final four rounds to see them eliminated in regulation, 16-14. When all was said and done, TenZ and MisteM combined for over 50 kills, but it was all in vain.
FinestATK| Finest |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Lidor 'LaNrefNi' Almasi |
72 - 62 | +10 | 88.7 | 75.3% | 1.20 |
| David 'kenzo' Ben Yona |
68 - 53 | +15 | 73.1 | 71.8% | 1.17 |
| Tal 'meztal' Hahiashvili |
65 - 59 | +6 | 77.0 | 67.1% | 1.12 |
| Guy 'NertZ' Iluz |
55 - 59 | -4 | 74.9 | 68.2% | 1.07 |
| Noah 'buue' Nethanel Türnpu |
48 - 52 | -4 | 68.9 | 69.4% | 0.93 |
| ATK |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tyson 'TenZ' Ngo |
74 - 60 | +14 | 88.3 | 75.3% | 1.32 |
| Gareth 'MisteM' Ries |
61 - 62 | -1 | 78.6 | 62.4% | 1.00 |
| Rieghardt 'flexeeee' Romatzki |
54 - 60 | -6 | 71.9 | 65.9% | 0.93 |
| Josh 'bLazE' Saunders |
46 - 58 | -12 | 59.7 | 64.7% | 0.82 |
| Rhys 'Fadey' Armstrong |
50 - 69 | -19 | 66.8 | 62.4% | 0.81 |
With ATK eliminated in 5-6th place, Finest will face Aequus in an all-Israeli battle for the right to move on to the lower-bracket final against Yalla.
