The script works in mysterious ways, young padawan. Right now, things are getting real whacko, so let us set the scene.
Enter stage left: Astralis. They competed in CCT Central Europe Series 4, battling teams like ECSTATIC, 1WIN, and Apeks - not exactly the crème de la crème. But why?
Well, that’s actually quite simple, by which we mean that it’s incredibly complicated.
The invitations for IEM Katowice 2023 are set to be sent out today, meaning the official cutoff for the ranking part of the invites is yesterday. This means that any tournament that ended before today that counts toward the very accurate ESL Rankings will affect the invites. Which gives us a few interesting scenarios.
You see, the wonderful messioso took the liberty of making everything a bit more clear. In short, if Astralis would’ve come first at CCT, paiN would have to finish at least second in the latest ESEA NA Cash Cup to stay in contention. If Astralis came second however, things would’ve looked a little better for our friends over on paiN - fourth place would do (bar any miscalculations on our end).
Well, as it turns out Astralis did not disappoint - unsurprisingly - and kept things interesting by falling against their fellow countrymates from CPH Flames. The road is open for paiN, one could say.
One team needn’t worry however: EG. They are pretty much locked in for Kato - or at least the play-in.
Unfortunately, we’re not Doc Brown. We don’t have a DeLorean sitting around, and even if we did, we just broke our flux capacitor trying to make popcorn so we’re bust.
We are, therefore, tied down by the burden of the one way street that is time, and can’t tell you for sure who clinched the last spots at the play-in.
But, we know you trust us — and by the time this newsletter comes out you’ll pretty much be able to verify it for sure. In the meantime our judgement stands at 99% certainty that paiN gaming (yay!), Astralis (boo), and EG (eh) have made it to Kato’s play-in stage.
Really, all we wanted to highlight was the amazing final rundown it became, with calculations and double-stream viewership.
Tantalizing.
Never miss a thing! Get our recap of the biggest news and matches straight to your inbox, twice a week.
