Photo by ESWC
Ricardo “fox” Pacheco and his former teammates just won the ESWC Portuguese qualifier, assuring a spot for Paris’ finals.
Held at Braga, in a Portuguese event called XF Festival, the three day qualifier reached its end today. Eight teams played the playoffs on Saturday: AlienTech, PSG, FTW.Pro, EGN.Pro, k1ck, FTW.Twitch, k1ck.old and exotic. The format was a best-of-three single elimination bracket and the quarter-finals lasted till 2am.
First match had AlienTech, who were considered one of the favourite teams, play against FTW.Twitch. While the first was only able to win de_Mirage for 16:13, the latter moved to the semi-finals after winning de_Cache (16:13) and de_Dust2 (16:8). The second best-of-three was between FTW.Pro and exotic, where the second won 2:0 after easily winning the first map, de_Mirage (16:5), and confirming the victory on de_Train (16:11).
On the other side of the bracket, k1ck confronted PSG and won by 2:0 (16:10 on de_Cache and 16:9 on de_Cobblestone). Later that day, it was time to k1ck.old win 2:0 on de_Cache (16:7) and de_Mirage (16:5) against EGN.PRO. With this being said, not only FTW.Twitch were playing exotic on the semis, but also a clash between k1ck teams was about to happen.
Sunday started with a 2:0 win for FTW.Twitch against exotic. De_Overpass finished 16:14 and, although we saw exotic win 16:5 against FTW.Pro on de_mirage, this time they ended up losing it 16:7. The k1ck clash saw Ricardo “fox” Pacheco’s team have a hard fight on the first map, de_dust2 (16:14), and an easier one on the second, de_cobblestone (16:8), finishing it off 2-0 for k1ck.old, whom were about to battle FTW.Twitch for a spot in the ESWC final.
In the last game of the tournament, FTW.Pro picked de_dust2 while k1ck.old chose de_mirage. The decider map was de_cache but fox’s team didn’t let it reach that point. The first map started with FTW.Pro winning the pistol and the two subsequent rounds. After k1ck.old tied the game, it was actually a pretty fierce match between the two teams. The second half started with a 9-6 score for k1ck and, despite Filipe “wrecky” Martins’ good performance, FTW.Pro lost for 16:11.
De_mirage had k1ck.old start on CT side and, as they lost the pistol round, FTW.Pro started with a two round advantage. Despite that, Cristopher “mUtt” Fernandes saved an AK and was able to kill three on the third round, turning the game around for k1ck.old, who kept winning round after round till the game was 8:2. As first half ended 9-6, Fernandes and Pacheco’s team won the second pistol round and finished the game off with a confortable 16:7.
K1ck.old individual skill prevailed during the tournament. Representing Portugal in the finals at the end of the month is the following line-up:
Ricardo "fox" Pacheco
Christopher "mUtt" Fernandes
Ricardo "roman" Oliveira
Rúben "Rub3nix" Santos
Filipe "Pizituh" Pires
