ORGE leading G-League, ImpS continues the struggle

 

Four games are left, twelve points are still left to gain, the third G-League cycle is going on the finishing stretch with the playoff race and the demotion struggle in full effect. While Orange eSports gained the upper hand in the battle for that coveted first overall spot with Made in Thailand.Sorry Sorry falling to iMpunity.Earth, another previous G-League regular and overall champion is struggling to keep pace. Turtle Master might have the form arrows trending up again after a very bad second cycle and ensuing performance in the DreamHack Qualifier, but other teams have clearly gained some ground.

 

The Turtles are still in the race and in the contention for a playoff spot, but the nice little cushion from three days ago is long gone. Especially a tie against the struggling iMpunity.Storm is hurting them immensely in the long-run, costing them two points that sure were in their calculation. As a result both iMpunity.Earth and Anti Moon Queen have surpassed the Cycle 1 Champs and are now towering over the elite Thai team. The same story can be said about Neolution eSports.MRR, who are also in dire straits when it comes down to a third consecutive playoff berth. The team around Chitawan`X is struggling mightily once again during the regular season, but this time it might not be enough to sneak into the playoffs after all. Two points are already separating TurS and MRR from the coveted fourth playoff spot, currently held by the positive surprise team in Anti Moon Queen.

 

The Malaysian squad is actually one of the stories of this cycle, as they went through some rough times in the last couple of cycles. In the end the squad always finished with more than 20 points, but had always a time when they lost a bunch of matches in a row. This flaw and inconsistency seems to be cured, as aMQ is fighting off the top teams and scores the easy points against lower ranked foes. The only thing overshadowing the success of ZergRush and Co. is iMpunity.Earth's success story. The Singaporean squad recently got promoted from D1 and finally is living up to the hype that surrounded the team for quite some time. Now they just need to finish it off and win just seven more points to secure that playoff spot - given that MRR and TurS win out.

 

On the other end of the bracket some well-known teams are more than likely going down to D1 for the final SEA HoN Tour cycle. Insidious eSports is already a lock to taking down the elevator straight back to D1, because of a severe lack of dedicated players. Only a couple of games were actually played by the surprise story of Cycle 2, after which they decided to basically forfeit every single game in the process. Their record will be equal to the one from Vietnam minion Team in Cycle 2, albeit that the VnmT team played all their matches without forfeiting.

 

Down in jeopardy are also notable teams like bRix, DC Fabulous and iMpunity.Storm. bRix shared a similar fate than ISE, seeing as they needed to forfeit a plethora of matches due to a shortage of players. Still the squad can look at five points without taking anything for free - as they will collect an additional three points in Round 13 when they are set to play Insidious eSports. That match will push them to eight points and keep them in the fight to avoid demotion.

 

The same can be said for DC Fabulous, who will get boosted to nine points after Round 12 when they face Insidious eSports, which will temporarily be enough to pass iMpunity.Storm. The special thing about ImpS is though, that the team is still in transition. They will give up their initial mission of recruiting talented Thai players and have now resorted to the last hope - bringing in NA/EU talents to save their G-League status. NoX is already confirmed, another player is rumoured to come over as well. It might not be the most noble way to go about the business, but maybe it will work. Fact is, that they need to get points quickly in the clutch match against KaiD in Round 11. If they somehow end up losing that contest it will be more than difficult to retain the status. If they lose, KaiD has a four point cushion with Step Gods, jadT and Few Nhor already having a game up on them. 

 

Ironically the cry for help might come to late, as NoX and the unknown fourth might come to Thailand just to spend the last cycle in SEA HoN Tour down playing against Shooter eSports, Kimochii.Tt eSports and others down in the second league.