Week 3 of the Esports World Cup was the week of comebacks. In Starcraft II, Basilisk’s Serral staved off a rally by Virtus.pro’s Classic to emerge victorious in the Grand Final. AG.AL clawed its way out of the jaws of defeat by winning three straight against TT Global to emerge victorious in the Honor of Kings’ KWC. And, in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, OpTic was nearly swept by Team Heretics in the Semi Finals, but then won seven straight to win both the Semi Final and Grand Final rounds.
Starcraft II
Team Basilisk’s Serral started off the group stage on fire, winning both of his games against HeroMarine. Serral carried this momentum into the next round vs Classic, sweeping him 3-0 to advance to the Playoff Stage undefeated. In the first round playoff stage, Serral faced his toughest competition yet, Reynor. Serral and Reynor traded blows and the series was tied two apiece heading into the final game. However, when the dust cleared, Serral emerged victorious, advancing to the semi-finals. With one round separating Serral from the Grand Final, he kicked his play into high gear, defeating Team Liquid’s Cure in a dominant 4 to 0 showing. The Grand Final was a rematch from the group stage. Virtus.pro’s Classic rebounded well after being swept by Serra in the Group Stage. Since that moment, Classic had only lost one game. Yet, for these two, history did repeat itself. Serral grabbed a commanding 2 game lead before Classic would rally to make the series 3-2 in favor of Serral. It was then that Serral took control, taking the final two games and claiming the StarCraft II Esports World Cup crown.
Honor of Kings’ KWC
Due to their dominance during placement, AG.AL was able to skip the group stage altogether and qualify for the Playoff stage. In their first round matchup, AG.AL showed their dominance as they ran through Alpha7 with a 4-0 route. The story stayed the same as Twisted Minds fell to the same 4-0 sweep. This led to the two favorites for the tournament to face off in the Grand Final: AG.AL VS TT Global. For their part, TT Global had shown a similar dominance, only losing one match between the two rounds in the Playoff Stage. Early on, it looked as if these teams were evenly matched as AG.AL and TT Global split the first two games. Then, TT Global pulled off two more wins in games three and four, which led to AG.AL is on the brink of elimination. However, with their backs against the wall AG.AL responded, winning two straight to push the series to the final game. And with the KWC and the ESports World Cup title on the line AG.AL showed up when it mattered, claiming both trophies.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
OpTic breezed through the first two rounds, sweeping both Five Fears and Cloud9 to easily advance to the Playoff Stage. The Quarterfinals are where OpTic first had hiccups as they dropped a game to 100 Theaves. But they did win relatively comfortably, 3 to 1, to advance to the semi-finals. This round would prove to be their highest hurdle of the tournament, where they would face Team Heretics, who to this point had only lost one more game than OpTic. And early on, it seemed as if Team Heretics was the better squad as they took both of the first two games, putting OpTic one game away from elimination. This pressure of elimination allowed OpTic to find another gear as they would rip off three straight victories to prevail 3 to 2 in the series and advance to the finals. OpTic carried this momentum and superb play into the Grand Final as they would sweep Vancouver Surge and take the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Esports World Cup crown.
The twists, turns, and thrilling comebacks of week three have shaken up the standings. However, one thing that remained constant was our overall leader, Team Vitality, with 2400 points at the end of the week. AG.AL jumped up two positions with their win this week in Honor of Kings’ KWC to claim the second spot. Gen.G and Team Falcon are still in a furious battle for positioning, with only 50 points separating the two teams in third and fourth place. Then, to round out the top five, Virtus.pro now stands alone with 1500 points. To check out the events for next week, go to the Esports World Cup website, and for recaps of each week's action, come back to the Sporting Tribune.
