Levitate upset Secret Club to top second VENN Invitational qualifier
Levitate have won the second VENN Invitational qualifier, coming out ahead of Secret Club in the finals. Notably however, Secret Club played the event with numerous stand-ins, with Ethan "reck" Serrano, Israel "LEARSI" Vargas, and Franklin "FIN" Ascencio all standing in for Jordan "jitter" Ruggiero and Keller "SLIGHT" Nilan over the course of the event.
The second qualifier featured a much diminished field compared to the first, with only 20 teams checking in. Day one went largely as expected, with a number of Premier and Advanced sides cruising through to the top eight. The only notable upset saw Third Impact claim a narrow 2-1 victory over Oceanus, although the latter squad was fielding Omar "3ARK00Z" Elyyan in place of Brandon "YuZ" Cyr.
Moving into day two, the Premier lineups in the event continued to dominate, with Third Impact winning 2-0 over Floraisan, Third Impact taking down Unwilling Ordinary 2-0, and Secret Club receiving a forfeit win against Davenport Panthers. The final match of the quarterfinals saw HeadShotKings almost take down ImPerium before losing the third map 16-10.
In the semifinals, Levitate made quick work of ImPerium, winning Nuke 16-2 before claiming Inferno 10-16. On the other side of the bracket, Secret Club claimed a 2-0 victory over Third Impact, winning Vertigo 16-10, and Nuke 16-7. For this series, they fielded LEARSI in place of SLIGHT on Inferno.
The final series of the qualifier started off with Levitate winning their opponent's map pick of Inferno 16-11, in part due to Secret Club having to field coach FIN as a stand-in for SLIGHT. Luckily for Secret Club, SLIGHT was able to join the server for map two, Nuke, with the Adam "WolfY" Andersson-led lineup narrowly taking the map 19-17 to keep their qualifier dreams alive and force the series onto Overpass.
Secret Club's hopes of easily winning the map were quickly dashed as Levitate, bolstered by a massive performance from Nicholas "hate" Young, won their T-side 12-3. After switching sides, Secret Club was able to stay in the running long enough to climb up to double digits however the nine-round deficit was too big a gap to cross as Levitate won Overpass 16-10.
Secret ClubLevitate| Secret Club |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Adam 'WolfY' Andersson |
65 - 60 | +5 | 77.8 | 73.0% | 1.12 |
| Ethan 'reck' Serrano |
44 - 44 | +0 | 74.2 | 71.0% | 1.01 |
| Collin 'wrath' McSweegan |
57 - 63 | -6 | 70.1 | 68.5% | 0.97 |
| Victor 'v1c' T. |
51 - 61 | -10 | 69.1 | 65.2% | 0.91 |
| Keller 'SLIGHT' Nilan |
48 - 69 | -21 | 66.3 | 61.8% | 0.81 |
| Franklin 'FIN' Ascencio |
12 - 22 | -10 | 41.1 | 44.4% | 0.60 |
| Levitate |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nicholas 'hate' Young |
96 - 59 | +37 | 109.7 | 70.8% | 1.53 |
| Christopher 'Swahn' Swahn |
64 - 41 | +23 | 78.7 | 80.9% | 1.30 |
 Andrew 'Ghostii' Kehler |
64 - 60 | +4 | 79.9 | 76.4% | 1.14 |
| David 'Delta9' Shafer |
51 - 58 | -7 | 64.2 | 69.7% | 0.95 |
| Sam 'Noxio' Goodwin |
43 - 59 | -16 | 60.9 | 62.9% | 0.84 |
The top four for the qualifier looks as follows:
1. Levitate (hate, Noxio, Delta9, Swahn, Ghostii) - Closed Qualifier
2. Secret Club (WolfY, v1c, wrath, reck, SLIGHT, Coach: FIN)
3-4. ImPerium (sherps, valens, Wilky, AtomiK, EllisoN, Coach: Noot)
3-4. Third Impact (DaneJoris, insane, brett, walker, grape, Coach: Lucid)
The team list for VENN Invitational currently looks as follows:
| RBG |
Levitate |
 Invited |
Invited |
| Invited |
Invited |
| Open Qualifier #2 |
Open Qualifier #3 |
The third and final open qualifier is set to begin on March 18th, with Oceanus, Rebirth, and HeadShotKings being some of the notable lineups currently signed up.
