Triumph upset Extra Salt en route to ESEA Summer Cash Cup 6 victory
This weekend's Cash Cup is in the books, this time with a new champion emerging over RBG in the grand final, Triumph. Technically, the Triumph organization has won one Cash Cup previously, ESEA Summer 2020 Cash Cup 4, but not a single player from that roster remains on the funny deer team. Extra Salt rebounded from their semifinal loss to Triumph to beat Recon 5 in the consolation match and round out the podium with a cash prize for their trouble.
Just a few ESEA Premier teams bowed out in the initial rounds of action this week. Mythic dropped their second-round match to a Devin "AtomiK" Ferrell-led Levitate 16-11 on Overpass. The only other ESEA Premier team to fall before the quarterfinals was Coldest Riding, who forfeited their opening match.
Levitate were the lone ESEA Advanced side to make the quarterfinals, where they were eventually knocked out in a close 16-13 affair with Triumph. Extra Salt doubled up Big Chillin on Overpass with Ricky "floppy" Kemery playing for Justin "FaNg" Coakley, RBG won a close game over Verum on Nuke, and Recon 5 added to Party Astronauts' recent woes with a 16-12 victory on Mirage.
The story of this series was the Triumph defense. With David "cynic" Polster calling the shots the stags conceded a total of just ten rounds across the three map series to their terrorist opposition to reach the grand final. Brendan "Bwills" Williams led the victors with 70 kills in the series, but was outgunned by both Josh "oSee" Ohm and FaNg in their losing effort. The pair finished with 75 and 74 frags, respectively.
Extra SaltTriumph| Extra Salt |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
75 - 57 | +18 | 91.4 | 72.6% | 1.24 |
 Justin 'FaNg' Coakley |
74 - 64 | +10 | 87.9 | 75.0% | 1.23 |
 Edgar 'MarKE' Maldonado |
51 - 60 | -9 | 75.2 | 71.4% | 0.97 |
 Aran 'Sonic' Groesbeek |
48 - 65 | -17 | 65.8 | 71.4% | 0.89 |
| Johnny 'JT' Theodosiou |
45 - 63 | -18 | 62.7 | 65.5% | 0.80 |
| Triumph |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brendan 'Bwills' Williams |
70 - 61 | +9 | 86.5 | 81.0% | 1.25 |
| David 'cynic' Polster |
63 - 55 | +8 | 85.6 | 77.4% | 1.22 |
| Jeorge 'Jeorge' Endicott |
61 - 54 | +7 | 79.0 | 73.8% | 1.13 |
| Danny 'cxzi' Strzelczyk |
59 - 68 | -9 | 81.1 | 69.0% | 0.99 |
| Jeff 'RZU' Ngo |
54 - 58 | -4 | 68.1 | 69.0% | 0.98 |
Over in the other semifinal RBG decisively knocked Recon 5 down to the third-place match with a pair of 16-11 wins on the back of 9-3 and 8-4 second halves on Mirage and Overpass, respectively. Jerric "wiz" Jiang led all players with 52 kills with his teammate Anthony "CLASIA" Kearney not far behind with 51 kills of his own. Bobby "stamina" Eitrem was a cut above the rest of his Recon 5 teammates in the frag column, he finished with 49, 17 more than his next closest teammate.
RBGRecon 5| RBG |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthony 'CLASIA' Kearney |
51 - 32 | +19 | 109.7 | 87.0% | 1.57 |
| Jerric 'wiz' Jiang |
52 - 26 | +26 | 84.8 | 83.3% | 1.48 |
| Jadan 'HexT' Postma |
36 - 31 | +5 | 72.6 | 81.5% | 1.24 |
| Connor 'chop' Sullivan |
29 - 31 | -2 | 64.2 | 75.9% | 1.03 |
| Colby 'Walco' Walsh |
33 - 36 | -3 | 70.5 | 68.5% | 0.96 |
| Recon 5 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bobby 'stamina' Eitrem |
49 - 37 | +12 | 87.0 | 68.5% | 1.28 |
| David 'J0LZ' Jolin |
32 - 44 | -12 | 71.4 | 63.0% | 0.82 |
| Dylan 'SATURN' Finch |
26 - 42 | -16 | 66.7 | 59.3% | 0.76 |
| Keller 'SLIGHT' Nilan |
25 - 38 | -13 | 53.2 | 57.4% | 0.72 |
| Austin 'AAustiN' Urb |
24 - 41 | -17 | 53.8 | 53.7% | 0.64 |
Extra Salt wailed on Recon 5 in the third-place match to bounce back from their earlier loss to Triumph. Recon 5 could only manage half of what they needed to win a map at best in their final series, they settled for fourth place in the weekend's event. The South African duo of Aran "Sonic" Groesbeek and Johnny "JT" Theodosiou led the way for the salters in the sweep with 48 and 41 frags, respectively. Keller "SLIGHT" Nilan led Recon 5 with 31 kills in the series loss.
Recon 5Extra Salt| Recon 5 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keller 'SLIGHT' Nilan |
31 - 33 | -2 | 71.9 | 63.8% | 0.97 |
| David 'J0LZ' Jolin |
26 - 39 | -13 | 77.0 | 59.6% | 0.82 |
| Dylan 'SATURN' Finch |
24 - 36 | -12 | 55.3 | 55.3% | 0.73 |
| Bobby 'stamina' Eitrem |
22 - 37 | -15 | 59.3 | 53.2% | 0.63 |
| Austin 'AAustiN' Urb |
22 - 38 | -16 | 52.4 | 48.9% | 0.62 |
| Extra Salt |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aran 'Sonic' Groesbeek |
48 - 22 | +26 | 113.3 | 78.7% | 1.71 |
| Johnny 'JT' Theodosiou |
41 - 27 | +14 | 78.4 | 76.6% | 1.33 |
| Justin 'FaNg' Coakley |
33 - 27 | +6 | 82.3 | 80.9% | 1.21 |
| Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
36 - 26 | +10 | 71.4 | 72.3% | 1.18 |
| Edgar 'MarKE' Maldonado |
25 - 24 | +1 | 67.7 | 85.1% | 1.17 |
Triumph started the grand final scorching hot on Inferno. After falling to a 4-1 deficit the funny deer team claimed sixteen of the final seventeen rounds, including a stretch of ten in a row to claim the 1-0 series lead. Bwills finished with 23 kills, nearly doubling the total of RBG's top frag, Jadan "HexT" Postma, who finished with 12 frags in the loss.
RBG weren't going to settle for runner-up status in their second Cash Cup grand final in a row without a fight however. They replicated Triumph's late map domination on Vertigo and turned a 4-4 tie into a convincing win by claiming twelve of the final fourteen rounds to even the series at a map apiece. HexT and Bwills led the way once again, with 23 and 22 kills, respectively.
In the decider HexT continued to pop off on Mirage, but ended up being a one-man-army on a losing path. He finished with a server-high 30 frags, but only one of his teammates managed to tally more than half of that on map three. cynic led the way for Triumph with 27 kills as he guided Triumph to their first Cash Cup win since Sixth Gear was still a team in ESEA Premier.
RBGTriumph| RBG |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jadan 'HexT' Postma |
65 - 53 | +12 | 93.3 | 75.7% | 1.24 |
| Jerric 'wiz' Jiang |
43 - 49 | -6 | 77.8 | 64.3% | 0.98 |
| Colby 'Walco' Walsh |
46 - 51 | -5 | 72.0 | 64.3% | 0.97 |
| Connor 'chop' Sullivan |
41 - 48 | -7 | 66.9 | 60.0% | 0.89 |
| Anthony 'CLASIA' Kearney |
37 - 50 | -13 | 62.4 | 67.1% | 0.85 |
| Triumph |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brendan 'Bwills' Williams |
67 - 39 | +28 | 103.0 | 78.6% | 1.50 |
| David 'cynic' Polster |
60 - 42 | +18 | 75.1 | 77.1% | 1.25 |
| Danny 'cxzi' Strzelczyk |
52 - 55 | -3 | 85.1 | 67.1% | 1.07 |
| Jeff 'RZU' Ngo |
41 - 52 | -11 | 66.3 | 67.1% | 0.88 |
| Jeorge 'Jeorge' Endicott |
31 - 44 | -13 | 59.9 | 70.0% | 0.87 |
The final standings for ESEA Summer 2021 Cash Cup 6 are:
1. Triumph - $9,000
2. RBG - $4,000
3. Extra Salt - $2,000
4. Recon 5
5-8. Party Astronauts
5-8. Big Chillin
5-8. Verum
5-8. Levitate
ESEA's next event is a qualifier on Thursday for the $10,000 All In Esports Expo LAN in Lawton, Oklahoma. The first-place winner will receive free accommodations at the Apache Casino Hotel and Resort and entry fee coverage for the LAN itself, which is scheduled from August 28-29th. Interested teams can register here for the qualifier and here for the LAN.
