Day 2 of the ESEA Season 17 LAN finals brought a lot of entertaining matches that were real thrillers. Unfortunately, some teams were eliminated from the event and there are only three left that will be fighting for the grand prize.
Day 3 kicked off with the upper bracket round 2 matches where we had Titan and Fnatic as the first pairing and Virtus.pro and Cloud9 as the second. Titan took the lead 1-0 after winning on de_cache, but Fnatic quickly returned the favor on de_nuke making it 1-1. The deciding map was played on de_inferno where we watched Fnatic win after overtime. The match between VP vs C9 wasn't any less interesting. The North American team created a lead after they won de_season and then Virtus.pro played on de_train after a long delay. They played well, making the score 1-1. The deciding map was once again played on de_inferno and the Polish team made it through with a convincing victory to the winner's bracket finals.
The first two elimination matches were played in round one of the lower bracket. Three North American teams and one German were fighting for the two spots in the next round of the lower bracket. eLevate started nicely by taking de_season against Denial, but in the second map, de_cache, they couldn't capitalize a lead of 8-7 won on T-side and the map went into the overtime which was won by Denial. The third map was a pure execution by Denial and eLevate was the first eliminated team from ESEA Season 17 LAN Final. The second elimination match saw mousesports and iBUYPOWER battling it out. The first map, de_cache, brought some uncertainty to this duel, but iBP took it with a score of 16-14 and then the de_dust2 quickly followed for a 2-0 score and mousesports' elimination.
The next round of lower bracket brought an even bigger upset. At first we saw a great match between Denial and Cloud9, where Denial eliminated the favorites, Cloud9, in convincing fashion. The first map de_inferno, as many others at this event, went into the overtime but Denial came on the top and with the victory went into the next map, de_mirage, full of confidence and won a closely fought game with a score of 16-14. After iBP underperformed at DH Winter and the drama around Titan not participating there, we could finally see them playing at a LAN event. Titan opened the match by a quick win at de_cache but iBP took the second map, de_season. The deciding map was for who knows how many times at this event, de_inferno. And as many other times before, it brought some heartbreaking moments. The game was forced to overtime and Titan was eliminated. iBP moved on to the lower bracket finals.
The next game was a winner's final match between a 2nd ranked Fnatic, and 3rd ranked Virtus.pro, as placed by our rankings database. Virtus.pro displayed an amazing performance in this match, which was probably also backed by a favorable map pool. Fnatic had to play against Virtus.pro on the two maps that they are known as the best teams on, de_cache and de_mirage. Fnatic couldn't do much about it, except making it a really close on mirage for 14-16. VP made it through and they are the first finalists of the ESEA Season 17 LAN Finals.
In the lower bracket finals we saw two North American teams fighting for a spot in the top three of this event. Denial as an underdog, had already shown their capabilities by eliminating some favourites, such as Cloud9. On the other hand, iBUYPOWER was a bit unlucky to get eliminated from the winner bracket in an overtime loss, but ever since had rolled through the lower brackets demolishing everyone in front of them. In the end we saw a close match where iBP came out victorious, once again, with a score of 2-0.
Schedule for Day 3:
17.30 CET - Fnatic vs iBUYPOWER
20.00 CET - Virtus.pro vs Winner of Fnatic/iBUYPOWER
Click here for results, VODs and all the other information
