Round Robin Bad. NIP...Good?

Ninjas. In. Pyjamas. We thought we’d be roasting them this morning after they lost to FURIA, but then they went and beat Gambit 2-0 to secure 3rd place in Group D. Now that is definitely worth $1 million dollars.

Except, it wasn’t because of dev1ce*.* LNZ won a huge 1v3 to close inferno, and REZ and Hampus did most of the fragging in the series.

That might be a good thing though, reminding dev1ce of the reason he joined the NIP project in the first place. A project that now has REZ tied down for four more years - yep, you read that right. Suddenly HUNDEN’s two year ban doesn’t seem ‘too long for esports’.

After the big upset versus NIP, FURIA still had to beat Liquid to qualify. Despite getting to overtime in map 3, buoyed by an incredible KSCERATO performance, they just couldn't get it done.

But take nothing away from coach Guerri and FURIA: their run has to be up there as one of the most memorable coach/stand-in performances of all time.

ESL, though, will be relieved that they finally don't need a tiebreaker to sort out 3rd place. Speaking of of tiebreakers, we've got a little correction to our previous edition:

The tiebreaker for Pro League is not based on round difference, but rather a head-to-head map difference. That’s why Gambit are 1st ahead of Liquid, despite having 10 less round difference.

Which is better. But not good. Anything that requires this much reading to understand objectively sucks, which is why we’re still leading the “bring back Swiss” movement.

Group D has also revealed another stick to beat Round Robin with: How often teams have nothing to play for. Gambit and Liquid were locked into playoffs before they even played last night. Which, along with FURIA beating them with a stand-in, leaves two fat asterisks on NIP's qualification.

But, qualifying is still something that FaZe, G2, and Astralis all failed to do. And it would be wrong to dismiss a young team after just four months together. Leave that to Cloud9's management.

So don’t rule out an upset at that home major just yet – just keep monitors well out of dev1ce’s way.