VAMOS MOVISTAR!
Movistar are in Spain, but this time the S is present. The Spanish sun was beating down on Valencia, and the Spanish SunPayus was beating down on Outsiders, as Movistar Riders took home the trophy at ESL Challenger.
And boy did they look good doing it.
They started the event with a 16-0 over HUMMER on Nuke, and then MIBR made the mistake of letting them get Nuke again. They fared a little better, picking up three rounds.
We’ll get to the Brazilian teams in a minute.
Movistar moved on to the semis, where they started with a 14-1 half on Inferno. They had won 46 of 50 rounds. Though that slowed down, Sprout were powerless to stop the Fightin’ Dragonites.
Suppose we should have expected that. Sprout are clearly grass type.
Though Movistar had been dominant until the final, they had to fight back from behind. A map down and facing a deficit down the stretch on both of the last two maps, they showed incredible resilience to put away the previously un-put-away-able Outsiders.
Now, onto Brazil.
There were four teams in Valencia from Brazil. There were no teams in the top four from Brazil.
It was an eight-team event.
HUMMER got spanked as we mentioned, MIBR were dumped out 2-0 by Rare Atom (who were the surprise package of the event - JamYoung and Mercury looked terrific) and 00NATION still employs coldzera.
But FURIA?
We expected better of you. They went out dead last after losing to Sprout and then getting 2-0’d by 00NATION. arT ended as the lowest-rated player at the event. This is just after a horrible showing at Roobet, too.
Somehow, we’re sure this means they’re going to make top 4 at IEM Cologne. We can’t explain it.