ESL Challenger League NA S49 Playoffs: Two upsets headline round 2

The first and second rounds of the ECL playoffs went down in the last couple days, with four of the ten teams being eliminated already and the upper finals set to be played today.

Upper Round 1

The first round saw NRG v. BLUEJAYS and Nouns v. Vagrants. NRG needed all three maps to get through BLUEJAYS, winning 13-4 on Inferno before losing Mirage 13-11 and then bouncing back on Nuke to win the map 13-8 and move on to upper round 2 v. Getting Info.

Nouns dropped the first map against Vagrants, but did not go down without a fight. Despite losing on Anubis, Nouns took Dust2 13-11 and Nuke 13-6 to reverse sweep Vagrants and set up a showdown with LFO 4.

Lower Round 1

The first two elimination matchups were Legacy against Marsborne and Party Astronauts v. Akimbo. Legacy fell behind after losing on Nuke, but bounced back in the following two maps, winning convincingly on Inferno and Ancient.

Party Astronauts looked like they would cruise through their matchup v. Akimbo after stealing the Mongolian side's Mirage pick 13-8. Akimbo took the next map the distance, but would fall 2-0 to PA after losing Inferno 13-11.

Upper Semifinals

The top two seeds, Getting Info and LFO 4, awaited the winners of the first round in the upper semis.

NRG v. Getting Info was a back-and-forth affair. NRG took their map pick of Dust2 13-4 while Getting Info won 13-10 on Mirage. Anubis was the decider, with Getting Info taking an 8-4 lead from the first half. However, NRG turned the game on its head in the second period, only surrendering two rounds to win the map 13-10 and the series 2-1.

LFO 4 v. Nouns started with a 13-11 victory for Nouns on Dust2, their pick. LFO 4 needed to bounce back on Ancient, but Nouns had other ideas. LFO 4 were upset on their pick 13-5, and fell to the lower bracket.

Lower Round 2

Vagrants fell to the lower bracket and had to take on Legacy to keep their ESL Pro League dream alive. That dream didn't last much longer, as the Brazilians eliminated Vagrants 2-0, winning on Inferno and Anubis by scores of 13-4 and 13-3.

BLUEJAYS started their lower bracket journey flat, falling behind 9-3 on Party Astronauts' Mirage pick. However, BLUEJAYS completed the comeback, stealing PA's map 13-11. They took that momentum into the second map, Ancient, where they won 13-6, despite the first half being close.

The matchups today will begin at 09:00PM and are as follows:

• Upper Finals - NRG v. Nouns

• Lower Semifinals - Getting Info v. Legacy

• Lower Semifinals - LFO 4 v. BLUEJAYS

The winner of NRG v. Nouns will receive a one-map advantage in the best-of-five grand final against the team that emerges from the lower bracket.