North and South American teams will compete this week, Thursday through Sunday, at the Esports Arena, Santa Ana, California. The 8 teams will be divided into 2 groups according to the GSL format, which will take place on the first two days of the tournament, and then the double-elimination playoffs (elimination after losing 2 matches) will take place at the weekend.
Here is the information of 8 teams in 2 groups:
The two guest teams – Immortals and Cloud9 – are considered the seeding of the tournament, but both have performed poorly at recent LANs. That creates an equal chance for teams in the Americas Minor, like CLG and Luminosity, to both have a chance to qualify for the Major Qualifier.
As usual from the Minors, the top two teams will win tickets to the Major Qualifer and the $50,000 prize pool will be split among the top three teams.
Rating is based on LAN performance in the past three months
* Means online performance
Table A
| Online results for the last 3 months | |
| ESL Pro League S5 Finals | 9-10th |
| ESA Showdown Championship | 1st |
| DreamHack Austin | 2nd |
| SL i-League StarSeries S3 Finals | 9-11th |
Immortals has always been one of the top teams in most of the Minors they’ve participated in, but 2017 was a pretty rough year for Immortals. Just as the team was able to regain stability by reaching runner-up at DreamHack Austin and winning easily at the ESA Showdown Championship, Brazilian legend Lincoln ‘fnx’ Lau was left out of the lineup.
With very little time to prepare, Immortals had to use Red Reserve loanee ‘kNg’. kNg has a bit of international experience after playing in Europe for two months. And he’s shown his ability to fragger, but the fact that he’s on the same team as he, an AWPer like kNg, is a big question mark about the distribution of positions on the Immortals team.
In the first LAN tournament (ESL Pro League) with a new lineup, Immortals and kNg left quite a few regrets. Team Brazil finished with two wins and three losses, but interestingly it wasn’t hen1’s usual performance that got the team the win, but his twin brother.
The resurgence of ‘lucas’, who came in 31-15 in a match against G2, which went on to win the tournament, bodes well for Immortals. But at the same time, it raises doubts about the playing positions in the team.
Who will Immortals rely on for kills (frags) and gameplay representation? hen1 has always played inconsistently and is currently not in good shape, with his current LAN Rating mainly thanks to the ESA Showdown Championship LAN. ‘kNg’ still hasn’t proven himself without the AWP, at least for the time being. ‘Lucas’ had a great tournament but he wasn’t considered a ‘killer’ before, so his frag average is expected to increase in this Minors. Steel has participated in many tournaments, but he is still not a ‘killer’ when playing as an IGL (ingame-leader).
As a result, everything is turning to ‘boltz’, who has had a good individual record at recent LANs, even if the team finished in a bad place.
Given the experience that Immortals have, the same low level of competition in Santa Ana and are seen as the seed team; Immortals still have a good chance of winning a Major Qualifer, but teams like CLG can still easily surprise Immortals in the playoffs.
| Online results for the last 3 months | |
| ESL Pro League S5 Finals | 11-12th |
| Copenhagen Games 2017 | 5-8th |
NRG only participated in two LAN events with the new roster, placing 5-8 at the 2017 Copenhagen Games, leading to Edgar ‘MarkE’ Jimenez’s removal from the roster. The Mexican player did not perform well in the lower leagues and was replaced by LILMAN, who later joined NRG in the ESL Pro League.
That tournament wasn’t much better for NRG either, as they were knocked out of the group stage with a 0-5 result. However, the bright spot is that the two close defeats were from two teams in the same region: OpTic and Liquid. If daps can be more comfortable ‘calling’ the teams that NRG meets more often then that could help them get a good result at the Minors.
The trio of ptr, Fugly and especially Brehze will contribute to the ‘fragging’, while the rookie LILMAN has yet to leave much of an impression. If they’re going to go deep into the playoffs, LILMAN has to at least play better than the team’s IGL which is daps.
| Online results in the last 3 months | |
| ESA Showdown Championship | 2nd |
| DreamHack Austin | 7-8th |
Luminosity, the 3rd Brazilian team in the US, has been steadily climbing the ranks over the past few months. Reaching DreamHack Austin, despite poor results, and runner-up at the ESA Showdown Championship gave the team more LAN experience.
The team’s ‘yeL’ AWPer is the main contributor to Luminosity, but he has yet to replicate that form against the stronger teams on LAN.
Like the other members, destiny has a hard time making a splash at LAN
It’s hard to see Luminosity take down their Immortals bro, but they are capable of hitting compLexity and taking on NRG for 2nd place in the playoffs in Group A. Going deeper, Cloud9 and CLG from Group B will appear, and winning them is too difficult for the Brazilian boys at this stage.
| Online results for the last 3 months | |
| Not available | |
*Rating from online matches in the last 3 months
compLexity is the only team at the America Minors that hasn’t participated in any LAN events in the last three months. The UK-US mix team last played offline at DreamHack Masters Las Vegas back in February, when they got just nine rounds in two matches against North and Astralis.
The team added Slemmy to be the locomotive, but not much has changed. The team constantly struggled, including Online. When the team ranked 11th in the ESL Pro League, failed to win tickets to international tournaments like the Dream Hack Opens, and almost missed out on the Americas Minor, it was hard to see the magic of compLexity in Santa Ana. this week.
‘Android-x23’ is a player to watch out for at compLexity – this tournament is an opportunity for him to showcase his individual skills, and help the team gain more attention in North America.
TABLE OF BENEFITS
| Online results for the last 3 months | |
| ESL PRO League S5 Finals | 11-12th |
| DreamHack Austin | 5-6th |
| cs_summit Spring 2017 | 4th |
Cloud9 returned to the Minor, after losing at the ELEAGUE Major last December. N0thing and the team haven’t changed their roster since last August, after adding autimatic.
What changes is only the IGL position, which changes between Stewie2k and autimatic. Currently, the responsibility lies with Stewie2K, and at the same time the best fragger on the team, with 1.07 Rating from the last three months.
It will be interesting to see the MVP of ESL Pro League season 4 ‘automatically’ return to his 2016 form, now that he can focus more on the game. But even if he does come back, the trio of ‘n0thing’, ‘Skadoodle’ and ‘shroud’, need to step up.
It looks like, at least during the Americas Minor, Cloud9 won’t have much to worry about, but that may not be the case. Both CLG and Misfit have made it to the playoffs in international LANs in the past three months and have beaten strong teams to get in. Meanwhile, Cloud9 competed in the playoff round from 6 months ago at iBUYPOWER Masters (excluding cs_summit, because that tournament did not have a group stage).
When you factor in Cloud9’s encounter with Immortals, a team they haven’t beaten on LAN since 2015, Cloud9’s road to the Major Qualifer will be quite bumpy.
| Online results for the last 3 months | |
| SL i-League StarSeries S3 Finals | 5-8th |
CLG seems to have achieved steady form after acquiring ‘Rickeh’ who is looking for a new home after leaving Renegades. The Australian AWPer has adapted to a mixed position, being both ‘entry fragger’, second AWPer or main awper at times, depending on how the ‘koosta’ feels in the game.
Not only is Rickeh in good form personally, but his versatility has helped ‘koosta’ recover from a difficult time at Liquid; and help koosta gradually regain confidence to shoot AWP, without any force. The youngest member, nahtE, also started to catch up with what was happening around, especially Online.
The last two members, reltuC and FNS, play supporting roles with extensive experience for CLG. Although that cannot be expressed in numbers, these two individuals have contributed significantly to CLG’s success.
With a stable roster, good online form, and a great display at the recent LAN, CLG has a high chance of becoming one of the two teams to make it to the Major Qualifer.
| Online results for the last 3 months | |
| DreamHack Tours | 3-4th |
Similar to CLG, but with a little more surprise, Misfits entered the playoffs in the first LAN they played with two French boys. AmaNEk and devoduvek had perfect moments in the Tours, as did SicK and Shahzeb “ShaZaM” Khan when Misfits beat Heroic and Natus Vincere in bo3 to make it to the top four at DreamHack. However, there are two obstacles that will prevent Misfits from reaching that level in this Minor.
First, the (IGL) captain, Sean”[email protected]” Gares, announced that he would not be attending the Minor for the wedding weekend, leaving the IGL position open to the team. Second, the team’s coach, Luis “peacemaker” Tadeu, decided to disqualify ShahZaM, who finished DH Tours with a Rating of 1.17, because ShahZaM “couldn’t come to practice at the gaming house”. To fill the gap, Misftis added former Keyd Stars member paiN and Selfless as zqkS.
Without the two main players, IGL and AWPer, Misfits’ chances at the Minor have dropped dramatically – making it to the playoffs now is probably the natural thing they should aim for.
| Online results for the last 3 months | |
| ESEA S24 Global Challenge LAN | 5-6 hours |
The third Brazilian team at the Minor Qualifier was paiN, who won the South America qualifier for a spot at this tournament in Santa Ana.
The team mainly competes in the South American region but finally secured a ticket to the international tournament last month, when they participated in the ESEA S24 Global Challenge LAN. When being eliminated by Team Splyce in the group stage of that grade.
Although ‘chelo’ and ‘dzt’ performed well online, ‘NEKIZ’ was the best performer in Leicester, in the UK, ending the tournament with a Rating of 1.14 and 36 kills in a single map against each other. with Splyce.
This will be the second international tournament, paiN will probably gain a lot of experience and, if possible, ‘a surprise’ before leaving the Santa Ana tournament.
Source: HLTV.org
Source link: Americas Minor PGL Major Tournament Guide
– https://emergenceingames.com/