Despite being one map away from qualifying for the playoffs, Eternal Fire has burned out of EPL.

After losing their opening game to Astralis, Eternal Fire looked like they might still make it, beating both Imperial and Fnatic. Their Lower Final game started off amazingly as well, they took map 1 off FaZe, and then nearly went to OT on map 2. But map 3 didn’t go as well, and FaZe closed out as FaZe does. XANTARES specifically has to be kicking himself, he had a really rough map 3 despite nearly winning map 2 himself.

But hey, it wasn’t done yet, EF was still in the last chance stage… but not for long

They faced SAW who’d only won against Imperial all event, so naturally SAW 2-0’d EF. It wasn’t even a close series, EF managed 11 rounds across both maps. Big credit to arrozdoce who slaughtered EF on the server, he managed to average over 100 ADR, for the series. SAW then went on to be 2-0’d themselves by VP, in what was just as one-sided of a series as the last.

For Eternal Fire, it must sting seeing a team like 3DMAX make the playoff whilst they didn’t.

And we know there’s people saying “3DMAX only had to beat SAW and Fnatic to make it, EF played Astralis and FaZe.” And yeah, you’re right, but Eternal Fire also then lost to SAW. It’s not an excuse. It’s a shame though, Eternal Fire had shown quite a few interesting glimpses, but they haven’t had much to show for it. At this rate, the fire looks to be burned out.

Oh yeah, before we forget.

Over in Group B, G2 knocked out M80 in the last-chance game taking revenge for a 2:1 loss in the upper bracket. You can’t take anything away from M80, they fought hard but the map pool wasn’t in their favor. MalbsMd did what he does and played a great series, but it wasn’t enough to see the NA mix over the line. Hopefully aizyesque isn’t too upset he can’t push his Malbs agenda in a playoff.

The qualified teams in Group A:
Astralis
3DMAX
FaZe
Virtus.pro

The qualified teams in Group B:
Vitality
TheMongolz
BetBoom
G2

Everything else

🛡️ Some things just aren’t VAC they seem

VAC bans spent a while on single digit numbers per day, but now we’re back baby!

Nevermind, looks like Valve is hunting casefarmers more than cheaters. Protecting your own economy over the society as a whole, now are we GabeN?

👔 Just trying to build a career man…

The question: what would apEX be without ZywOo? The answer: nobody. Dude said so himself.

We’ll be honest, Jason Lake celebrating a Cash Cup as a way to “Revive NA CS” was not something we had on our 2024 bingo card.

😎 It’s all about the visuals

MACHINE just dropped an amazing collection of apparel (that our little Welsh designer goblin n0vah helped make) and no cap: sh*t’s tight. That’s what the kids say these days right?

According to the cameraman advent = trash. Some might even say there is no fade, and the two images are the same.