Blizzard Entertainment
One hundred thousand dollars. The pride of a continent. A spot at Blizzcon.
That is what the top teams in the world had in mind while competing at the AWC Spring Finals. With everything on the line, teams showed that tournament seeding meant little and the regular season was in the past.
Day 1 was full of surprises with Method Orange and XRB both losing in the first round even though both came in as tournament favorites. As the day progressed, the upsets kept on rolling in with the upper bracket final featuring Reformed (European #4) vs The Rejects (North America #2). Reformed enjoyed a Cinderella run as the destroyer of North American hopes, taking down both Method Orange and Super Frogs. In the lower bracket, the shock of the tournament happened with Method Orange being eliminated without a match win in the tournament, losing to XRB 3-1. With Sneakier Snakes following behind Method Orange, the European dominance continued, leaving only two North American teams in the Spring Finals after the first day.
The shocking results continued on Day 2 with Skill Capped Black(without Shaun Andreas ‘Raiku’ Meaney) eliminating tournament favorites XRB. In the semifinals, things evened out for the regions with one team from each region on either side of the bracket. In the most unexpected winner’s bracket final Reformed and The Rejects fought a very interesting stylistic matchup with the Jungle Cleave’s burst fighting going against the dynamic compositions of The Rejects. In the end, Reformed took the series, booking their spot in the finals and sending another North American team to the lower bracket. Europe’s domination continued in the other semifinal of the upper bracket as a surging SCB came out and swept Super Frogs before falling in a tight series to The Rejects 3-2.
The pride of a region was on the line in the grand finals with a tidy European vs North American championship match. It was over quickly as the pressure from Reformed’s Jungle Cleave was just too much leading to a convincing 4-0 sweep of The Rejects. Reformed secured the $50,000 top prize as well as a spot in the Arena World Championship Global Finals on the back of an incredible run as the 4th seed from Europe.
The European dominance from the Spring Finals was complete with the region besting North America in eight of 13 matches played between the regions. With Reformed as the Spring Finals champions, the first team going to the World Championship is locked in. Now it’s time to turn toward the Summer cups which begin on May 12th with European Cup #1.