Wildcard best M80 en route to Thunderpick Series 1 title
After both teams secured their place in the Thunderpick World Championship 2023, with Wildcard beating Nouns and M80 taking down Party Astronauts, all that was left was for the teams to fight over the lion share of the $25,000 on offer. Wildcard would come out on top with a 2-1 victory over the stacked M80 team, signs that the latter still has some growing pains to go through despite a good first outing for the roster.
The final would first go to Vertigo, a hotly contested map that would go back and forth all the way to the end with the teams needing overtime to decide the victor. Despite Adam "freshie" Paterson dropping a 30 bomb for Wildcard it would be M80 who took their opponent's map pick with a 19-17 win.
After map one Kellar "SLIGHT" Nilan would turn it up a gear and the AWPer dominated the server for the rest of the match, a 1.39 rating on Inferno the second map and a mammoth 2.02 rating on the deciding map Anubis. SLIGHT also found 19 first kills across the BO3 showing that not only was he racking up the kills but was key to giving Wildcard early advantages, with their AWPer in perilous form Wildcard took Inferno 16-9 and Anubis 16-4.
Wildcard take home $20,000 for their trouble alongside their spot at the Thunderpick World Championship. Meanwhile, M80 are left the remaining $5,000 and will take heart from the result due to the lack of reps the team has had and the fact that Marcus "maNkz" Kjeldsen is still playing from the EU.
M80Wildcard| M80 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Mario 'malbsMd' Samayoa |
56 - 63 | -7 | 76.0 | 66.7% | 0.95 |
 Ethan 'reck' Serrano |
55 - 56 | -1 | 71.5 | 67.9% | 0.95 |
 Marcus 'maNkz' Kjeldsen |
44 - 61 | -17 | 72.0 | 65.4% | 0.86 |
| Adam 'WolfY' Andersson |
45 - 55 | -10 | 58.6 | 61.7% | 0.84 |
| Michael 'Swisher' Schmid |
50 - 66 | -16 | 68.6 | 60.5% | 0.81 |
| Wildcard |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keller 'SLIGHT' Nilan |
75 - 52 | +23 | 90.2 | 76.5% | 1.42 |
 Adam 'freshie' Paterson |
61 - 46 | +15 | 79.2 | 80.2% | 1.23 |
| Matthew 'd4rty' Paplawskas |
57 - 49 | +8 | 75.3 | 79.0% | 1.16 |
| Brett 'brett' Rhein |
54 - 53 | +1 | 79.4 | 75.3% | 1.13 |
| Matthew 'Cryptic' Whitmore |
51 - 51 | +0 | 72.4 | 81.5% | 1.10 |
