M80 beat Voca in close series; qualify for ESL Pro League S24
M80 felled Voca in a 3-1 series in the grand final of the ESL Challenger League Season 51 NA Finals. German AWPer Fritz "slaxz-" Dietrich stepped up to the plate for M80 with 72 frags, nine more than the next closest player. Despite winning 3-1, M80 only held a round differential advantage of +2 in the series after getting blown out on map three.
With the ECL Finals win, M80 have earned a spot at ESL Pro League Season 24 in Poland. Thus far, M80 will be joined by TDK, TYLOO, and ShindeN. TDK notably features former Cloud9 and Gambit players Vladislav "nafany" Gorshkov and Sergey "Ax1Le" Rykhtorov. The other twelve teams will be invited by the global VRS standings, starting from rank #1.
Voca chose Dust2 to begin the series, but it was M80 who took an 8-4 lead at halftime after a solid CT side. M80 didn't take their foot off the gas, giving up a single round in the second half to win the first map 13-5.
Anubis, M80's first pick, was a back-and-forth contest. Voca closed the first side with four rounds in a row to claim a 7-5 edge at the interval. Voca nearly ran away with the map, but M80 rallied seven of the final eight rounds to force overtime. In the extra period, M80 squeaked past Voca to hold serve on their map, 16-14. This map was slaxz-'s shining moment, as he put up a massive 33 frags in the second map.
The aforementioned third map, Ancient, went entirely the way of Voca. They put together five and four-round streaks on either side of a three-round M80 run to take a 9-3 advantage at halftime. M80 found no joy in the second half, falling 13-3 as Voca cut the series deficit to 2-1.
M80's final pick, Mirage, looked like it could have been a one-sided affair in favor of M80. They didn't allow Voca to gain momentum in the first period, taking an 8-4 lead at the intermission. Voca showed fight in the second half, taking a brief 9-8 lead early on. M80 remained composed, though, winning the map and match 13-11.
M80Voca| M80 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 3.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Fritz 'slaxz-' Dietrich |
75 - 47 | +28 | 86.5 | 78.4% | 1.29 |
 Mason 'Lake' Sanderson |
66 - 59 | +7 | 78.4 | 75.0% | 1.23 |
| Josh 'JBa' Barutt |
55 - 56 | -1 | 67.3 | 78.4% | 1.00 |
| Michael 'Swisher' Schmid |
51 - 63 | -12 | 70.1 | 67.0% | 0.97 |
| Elias 's1n' Stein |
46 - 57 | -11 | 63.6 | 69.3% | 0.87 |
| Voca |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 3.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jeorge 'Jeorge' Endicott |
59 - 56 | +3 | 72.7 | 75.0% | 1.09 |
| Wyatt 'snav' Phillippi |
60 - 65 | -5 | 77.6 | 72.7% | 1.07 |
| Paytyn 'junior' Johnson |
59 - 50 | +9 | 65.4 | 72.7% | 1.06 |
| Shane 'shane' Dressler |
62 - 63 | -1 | 65.3 | 67.0% | 0.97 |
| Carson 'nosraC' O'Reilly |
42 - 61 | -19 | 62.9 | 65.9% | 0.83 |
After the win against Voca, M80 have won a berth at ESL Pro League Season 24, which begins on October 3rd and ends on October 11th. The playoffs will take place at the Spodek Arena, the former host of IEM Katowice.
M80 will next take to the server at the IEM Cologne Major Stage 1 v. Lynn Vision on June 2nd.
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