Orange will look for back-to-back championships after repeating SeatStory triumph. Photo: TakeTV
The Europeans expectedly came on top of a stacked pool.
The WESG grand finals action is heating up, as it enters the second day of group stage play. On Sunday, the tournament is to crown a champion and award him with $150,000.
There were a handful of clear favorites to with the championship this weekend and some found themselves in the same group. Liquid’s Yevgeniy “Neirea” Shumilin, Alliance’s Jon “Orange” Westberg and OnFire’s Josh “Impact” Graham got all placed in Group A, defining it as the group of death of the tournament.
The Europeans were merciless against the opposition, with Orange going 4-0 in his first matches, before eventually dropping his only loss so far to Neirea himself, putting the Ukrainian as the top seed of the bracket. Orange will nonetheless make the playoffs, together with Argentina’s Fran “PNC” Leimontas who took the third spot in the group.
While Group A had clear cut top and bottom halves, a four-man tiebreaker formed in Group B between Euneil “Staz” Javinas from the Philippines, Mihail “Korvus” Portyansky from Russia, Fred “Talion” Yu from Canada and Winfield “Losefield” Tsun from Hong Kong. Dubbed the APAC group, Group B was appropriately conquered by Staz who performed the best in the tie-breaker and who was followed into the playoffs by Talio and Korvus, the latter ensuring Europe’s flawless playoffs entry record thus far.
Day two will see more tournament favorites compete, including 2016 Player of the Year Sebastian “Xixo” Bentert.
