Nouns and MIBR stay undefeated after first round of ECL S45 NA Playoffs

The final stretch of ESL Challenger League Season 45 has begun, seeing top teams Nouns and MIBR continue their undefeated streaks in Season 45 while Evil Geniuses Black and paiN also picked up wins last night.

Nouns' opening match set them up with a confrontation against Party Astronauts, who have been looking to make a name for themselves in the upper echelon of ECL. Unfortunately for PA, Edgar "MarKE" Maldonado continued his strong form and was the main catalyst for Nouns picking up a 2-0 win over PA. However, despite being a 2-0 win for MarKE and co., Party Astronauts gave a strong showing, with Ancient seeing all 30 rounds played and Inferno going to 29 rounds.

Meanwhile, the series between EG Black and Wildcard saw the former team pick up a fairly close 2-0 win after claiming their own map pick, Inferno, 16-11 and Nuke 16-12. During the series, Paytyn "junior" Johnson and Colby "Walco" Walsh were the main playmakers as they combined for 88 kills on the two maps.

paiN and ATK also had a very close series, with the Brazilians barely stealing ATK's map, Mirage, pick 16-14, before taking their map pick, Anubis, 16-11. On Anubis, Felipe "skullz" Medeiros had a star performance, posting a 1.50 HLTV rating and a +12 kill differential.

MIBR and FLUFFY AIMERS had the most unbalanced series. of night. The Brazilians completely decimated the NA side on their own pick, Overpass, with a 16-4 win after a dominant 13-2 half. Then, on MIBR's map pick, Ancient, Deni "dea" Ediev and the boys managed to go into Ancient T-side down 7-8, but couldn't stay within striking distance for long, as MIBR ran away with the score to end the map with a 16-10 scoreline.

After the opening round concluded, the next round of matches will begin today at 08:00PM: