Team Falcons have locked up a spot in the grand final of the Elite League, where they’ll face the winner of Azure Ray vs. Xtreme Gaming on Sunday for the championship.
The birds of prey made short work of Azure Ray on Saturday, winning 2-0 in relatively speedy fashion. Playing on green, Team Falcons won in 34 minutes, before earning their championship berth with a 44-minute victory, this time playing on red.
Stanislav “Malr1ne” Potorak of Russia grabbed the most kills for Falcons with an 8 average, while teammate Wu “Sneyking” Jingjun of the United States piled up 17 assists per game. Oliver “skiter” Lepko of Slovakia chipped in with a 7.5-0.5-9.5 kills-to-deaths-to-assists ratio.
Lou “Lou” Zhen of China paced Azure Ray with 2.5 kills.
Azure Ray will now face Xtreme Gaming in the lower bracket final, after Xtreme won a pair of games to keep their run alive Saturday.
Xtreme dumped PSG Quest 2-0 to begin their day, winning in 50 minutes on green and in 36 minutes on red. In the semifinal, they took on Team Liquid, who had defeated Gaimin Gladiators 2-0 in the quarterfinal.
That series featured three short games, in which Xtreme grabbed a win on green in 34 minutes before Liquid rallied to win in 28 minutes when it was their turn on green. In the decider, Xtreme played on red and prevailed in 41 minutes.
Saturday was the second day of the playoff stage after the field was whittled from 24 participants to eight over the span of two group stages. All matches are best-of-three until Sunday’s best-of-five grand final. The winner will take home $300,000 from the $960,000 prize pool.
The playoff stage has two more matches Sunday:
–Azure Ray vs. Xtreme Gaming (lower bracket final)
–Team Falcons vs. TBD (grand final)
Elite League prize pool ($960,000)
1. $300,000
2. $150,000
3. $80,000
4. $50,000 — Team Liquid
5-6. $40,000 — Gaimin Gladiators, PSG Quest
7-8. $30,000 — G2.ig, Tundra Esports
9-10. $20,000 — OG, Aurora
11-12. $20,000 — Entity, BetBoom Team
13-14. $20,000 — Team Spirit, BOOM Esports
15-16. $20,000 — HEROIC, Blacklist International
17-19. $10,000 — Talon Esports, Team Secret, Virtus.pro
20-22. $10,000 — KEV, Nigma Galaxy, nouns
23-24. $10,000 — 9Pandas, Rest Farmers
–Field Level Media
