After two close matches, Team Archon have secured their berth at the Shanghai Major. The remaining three teams will fight for the other Americas qualifier slot in a few hours.
The top four teams from the Americas qualifier met for the first day of playoff play. Digital Chaos and Team Archon took down Shazam and compLexity respectively to do battle in the upper bracket final. Three games later, Team Archon emerged victorious, and have secured their place at the Shanghai Major. Digital Chaos, Shazam, and compLexity will face each other in the second day of the playoffs, beginning with Shazam taking on compLexity. By Monday morning, we will know who else from the Americas regional qualifier will be joining Team Archon at the Shanghai Major.
In a hotly-contested upper bracket final, Team Archon and Digital Chaos faced off, replaying their best-of-one tiebreaker from the beginning of the day in an extended best-of-three format. In the tiebreaker, Digital Chaos were able to take the game within 29 minutes. However, when the teams met again in the upper bracket final, Team Archon looked far more stable and confident. Team Archon took the first game in just under an hour, despite the two teams trading the net worth lead repeatedly throughout the game. In game two, Digital Chaos came out guns blazing, with Yawar 'YawaR' Hassan showing the power of the newly-changed Outworld Devourer and Sam 'Bulba' Sosale demonstrating why he is considered one of the best in the world on Beastmaster. Digital Chaos claimed the second game in 18 minutes and 51 seconds. Game three was another back-and-forth affair. Team Archon surprised Digital Chaos with a fifth-pick Broodmother for Jaron 'monkeys-forever' Clinton, and used it to great effect, drawing attention away from Jio 'jeyo' Madayag on his Lone Druid. This proved to be what clinched the game for Team Archon. With so much space being created for him, jeyo topped the net worth board. He used all of his gold to allow him to effectively shove his very fat bear at Digital Chaos’ towers until they were all gone, and Team Archon had won. Brian 'FLUFFSTUFF' Lee and his team are going to Shanghai.
With the first day of playoffs concluded, the three teams left in contention will battle through the loser’s bracket to see who will join Team Archon and the rest of the field in Shanghai. The first match will be between the teams who were defeated in the first round of the upper bracket: Shazam and compLexity. Shazam were defeated 0-2 by Digital Chaos, while compLexity managed to take Team Archon to a third game before going down 1-2. It remains to be seen whether Shazam can bounce back from their defeat and topple compLexity. When the two teams met in the group stages of the regional qualifier, the match ended in a 1-1 draw (the group stages were played as best-of-two matches). This will not be the case in their upcoming meeting. One team will emerge victorious. They will then have to test their abilities against Digital Chaos in the lower bracket final, with tickets to Shanghai on the line.
Team Archon have claimed the first American regional qualifier slot in the Shanghai Major. Only one of the three remaining teams will have earned the right to claim the other slot. Will it be compLexity, Shazam, or Digital Chaos? With the first series starting soon, we will not have to wait long to find out. The team list for the Shanghai Major is coming together. Tune in to the stream coverage of the Americas qualifier and see which of the three possible teams will be going to Shanghai.
