Following yesterday's matches we now have the Winners Bracket Grand Finals, [TFR]The Fire Rises versus [Due1]Do You Even Lift Bro. After a 2-1 victory over [TKAG]Team Kagge, Do You Even Lift Bro secures their promotion to Diamond after coming from Silver last cycle, and Bronze before then. They have gone through some problems within their team with forfeiting the past few rounds, yet here they are once again ready to step into the Diamond Brackets.

This really leaves a sour taste in the mouth when looking at Team Kagge's chances; more or less their better chance was to get into the top four through the Winners Bracket because of how stacked the Loser's Bracket has been this cycle. [hade]HAVE IT defeated [CM]Clan Milk 2-0 and are set to face [SdS]SdS who lost to The Fire Rises earlier in the day yesterday.

[DCx]Justice League defeated Isot Pelit 2-1 taking it to the full length of the series. They will be facing Team Kagge with the winner going through to Diamond. Team Kagge lost here last cycle to [F4NG]Fntastic4nGombos, who ended up going through to Diamond leaving them behind. I really see Justice League winning this, even though they have been appearing to have trouble considering that they are still winning their matches. It is really sad for Team Kagge to have come this close two cycles in a row; they truly deserve the chance to go to Diamond so maybe they can upset Justice League.

To quickly review what has happened so far, we have seen [DrDz]Druidz eSport fall a few games short of their goal losing 2-1 to HAVE IT. [MOE]Moes Tavern also lost earlier to Justice League after losing to The Fire Rises in the Winners Bracket. A HonTour Team lost the round earlier to Justice League yet again, they currently are set to face [coL]compLexityGaming in the Sound Blaster Heroes League. Probably the largest upset so far this cycle is [nX]Animus Vox defeating Justice League 2-1 in the first round; although they lost in the following rounds it still showed great promise that they could defeat such a strong team.

Talking to many of the teams today about how they feel going in, they had lots to say.
SdS' PuK on one hand said, "We're pretty confident. We've been playing a bit more seriously recently and it seems to be paying off as we had a closer series versus The Fire Rises, a team that is definitely stronger than us. So I think we're ready to do better in Diamond than we did last time."

HowMakeSense of HAVE IT, the team opposite SdS today had this to say about his chances: "I feel pretty confident, we were in Diamond last week and feel that we are one of the teams who should be advancing from this cycle." He sounded confident, so I asked him why he thought he would win, "We've never played them in scrim or tourney match but after looking at teams we've beaten before, teams I rate higher than them, I believe we can win."

Continuing to talk to PuK about his previous time in Diamond, what he learned, and how it will help him win the upcoming match he said, "A lot of things, I mean we're known to just never scrim. The games against the upper teams showed that they're just a lot more 'drilled' than us, which can only come with scrimmage practice. So we've decided to try that a bit, one of us couldn't commit to this more, which led us to replace merrick with our newest pickup XoyNoznu. Speaking more about his latest pickup, "Xoy has helped us a lot with his vast experience in competitive play as well as bring us a 'fresh' view on our play. We've had the same lineup for years so it helps having someone else with a different view on things," PuK said. He could only agree as I noted what iNsania has said previously about teams requiring people with prior competitive experience to help the lower teams grow.

The other matchup between Team Kagge and Justice League may not be as exciting when comparing them both as prior Diamond teams, but the skill level is certainly there. I spoke to SeQuenSe about his chances today. "Well, yesterday I screwed up pretty hard vs Duel; my mind was more focused on my qualification test for the Nordic Mathematics Contest. But overall I feel we have a shot, we just have lots of inconsistency issues because we never scrim." Let's just hope with his test worries behind him that he will not screw up his draft today versus Justice League. I know that BagInABox really wants to get back to Diamond too and will not let it go so easily to a team who is not as prepared as them.

Matches on Tuesday, March 5th

Winners Bracket Semi Finals

Team Kagge 1:2 Do You Even Lift Bro
The Fire Rises 2:1 SdS

Losers Bracket Ro4

Clan Milk 0:2 HAVE IT
Justice League 2:1 Isot Pelit

Matches on Wednesday, March 6th

Loser Bracket Semi Final

HAVE IT vs SdS
Justice League vs Team Kagge


Shoutout to Wonder, because I can.
- "Crowslaw"
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