When you read these lines, the first six games of ESL Challenger Melbourne might already have been played. That is because Melbourne is in Australia, and they’re the first to get up in the morning. Except for babies.
Speaking of babies, fer managed to spend around five minutes in the country before calling Australia “a shithole” on Twitter. We guess he’s going for the villain-role.
Anyway, we’re not going to fuss too much over spilt milk or played games. If you want to see those, they’re here.
All you need to know is that OG (number 9 in the most recent HLTV world ranking) and Imperial (#29) are the two only Top 30 teams attending.
More importantly, the ghost of Team Spirit is also there, as both former superstars, degster and mir have made it down-under. degster obviously playing for OG, while mir plies his trade for Entropiq, who might be our dark horse for the title.
There aren’t many to pick from, either. The local crowd will be rooting for Grayhound with aliStair and INS (or VERTEX if they’re a bit unhinged) while paiN Gaming and aforementioned Imperial make up the Brazilian delegation.
EG have sent the Party Astronaut roster, which we expect absolutely nothing of, and Wings Up & VERTEX are virtually pure filler. Though we do love the names of the Wings Up players. Martin, ChildKing, B1NGO, lan (with an L, sadly) and gas? Genius stuff.
The first place prize is not pure filler on the other hand. In fact the $50,000 for winning might just icing on the cake, because there’s also a spot at ESL Pro League Conference S17 at stake.
That’s a fancy way of saying that it’s OG’s only chance to qualify for EPL.
If they win that is. mir and Entropiq are known to cause upsets, and they didn’t call Imperial the Last Dance for nothing. Maybe there’s one more waltz in FalleN and co?
Never miss a thing! Get our recap of the biggest news and matches straight to your inbox, twice a week.
