LAG win ESEA S56 NA Finals after Fisher College forfeit

After entering the ESEA S56 North American Finals as solid favorites to win, LAG have indeed taken home first place and the $15,000 prize that goes with it. Despite starting in the quarterfinals, LAG only played one series to take the title.

As the NA Finals played out at the same time as the FRAG York LAN, the teams attending both sometimes had to choose which matches to play.

LAG faced EMPIRE in the semifinal after they played each other at FRAG York, but EMPIRE forfeited the ESEA semifinal. When asked for comment, EMPIRE coach "Nexity" said, "For technical reasons, FRAG did not allow us to play our online match from the LAN." He added, "We have decided that whoever wins the LAN match also wins the online match by FF." As EMPIRE lost their FRAG group stage match to LAG, they forfeited the ESEA semifinal.

The final was scheduled for 08:30PM between LAG and Fisher, but an interesting situation arose. Earlier that day, the two teams faced each other in the semifinals of FRAG York, where Fisher won 2-0. This gave Fisher a bo5 final starting at 07:20PM, which overlapped with the ESEA match. Due to this conflict, Fisher forfeited the ESEA match, giving LAG the title.

Community members like American commentator Kasey "Bonamant" Anderson posted about the unique situation. He proposed a gentlemen's agreement between the teams to let the winner of the FRAG semifinal win the ESEA match. Evidently, this did not happen.

Bonamant also raised an interesting point about the idea of Fisher forfeiting FRAG, which also did not happen. He asserted, "The likelihood (Fisher) are still able to climb the VRS ladder together while also being in college creates alot of unknown variables."

He also brought up the significant prize pool for the ESEA Final. While second place gets $7,500, nearly the prize for first place at FRAG, the winner gets double that. Bonamant said, "I would make LAG forfeit ESEA and take the Prize Money."

Regardless, Fisher opted to play the LAN final, making LAG the champions of ESEA S56 for North America.