After three days of gruelling battling in the group stage at ESL One Stockholm Major, the playoffs matchups were decided by an intense best-of-one tiebreaker round as Group B ended with four teams tied in the second place.
Gaimin Gladiators were the only team in Group B to escape the tiebreaker conundrum by clean sweeping Fnatic 2-0. They finished the group stage run with three victories, two draws and one defeat to join the Group A upper bracket qualified teams Tundra Esports, OG, BetBoom Team and T1. Unfortunately, that also pushed Fnatic to the lower bracket while Thunder Awaken, TSM.FTX, Team Liquid and Team Spirit went head to head in a decisive best-of-one.
Thunder have fully Awaken on the last day of the group stage and delivered upsets left and right to be the biggest winners of the tiebreaker. They started the day with a tie with TSM in the group play, but once they’ve been placed in a bo1 scenario, they surprised even the most experienced.
Thunder Awaken started the tiebreaker rounds with a last pick Alchemist versus TSM and perfectly controlled the tempo that they set themselves up for. In the next battle, they crushed a carry Clinkz coming from Team Liquid and for the last game, they completely shut down the TI10 champions Team Spirit, who had to call out the GG while they were bullied in their own fountain by Crhistian "Pakazs" Casanova on Chaos Knight.
But while the SA representative found their groove in the tiebreaker, the much more experienced competitor, Team Liquid ran out of steam, losing both their games and thus being knocked down to the lower bracket.
There is no time to rest for the upper bracket teams. They will be opening the playoffs battle this Monday, May 16. All quarterfinals matchups will be played on the first day of the playoffs as follows:
11:00 CEST - Tundra EsportsvsTeam Spirit
14:35 CEST - Thunder AwakenvsBetBoom Team
18:05 CEST - OGvsTSM FTX
21:40 CEST - Gaimin GladiatorsvsT1
headline picture courtesy of ESL One