With Gfinity approaching fast and two more 2Ks before the MLG Atlanta cut-off, teams from around the North American and the European regions are acting fast before they are sent into the depths of the open bracket.
Here’s a look at the pro point picture as we head into the latter half of January.
(Note: All pro points were calculated as of 3:00 a.m. EST Monday morning)
NORTH AMERICA
Rise did not finish well in the 2K this past weekend, but it is definitely not the end of the world for them.
With an almost 9,000 point lead over Cloud9, Rise is in no way in danger of giving up pole position. And despite C9 falling into the top-eight, they, as well as FaZe, are sitting pretty in the next two spots in the standings.
Meanwhile, OpTic is threatened by the presence of eUnited, who clutched up in the 2K Sunday and took home 8,000 points. This took them from being a team that was fighting for an MLG Atlanta pool play spot to an almost guarentee to be on Easy Street.
Right below them though is an all out war in the middle of the pack, with Enigma6, Allegiance, and Evil Geniuses all within 1,000 points of each other. This is mostly due to both the grind of these three sides, as well as the top-four placement of E6 in the last 2K. Meanwhile, ALG lost some ground by placing top-16, and that can allow EG to hop over them with only a few points seperating the two.
Luminosity has a nice cushion from the MLG Atlanta line, where the unofficial side headed by Anthony “DraMa” Padilla sits in 10th. There is definitely a good amount of ambiguity as to whether his side would be eligible for a pool play spot, and will be an interesting storyline as the road to MLG Atlanta continues.
In the open bracket zone, Echo Fox and Team EnVyUs were both hit hard this past weekend after losing to two semi-pro sides in the 2K, sending them into a fight for 11th as they have two more weeks to get their act together.
They will not have to worry about other sides creeping up on them, as Lethal is the only team within a cross-map snipe’s chance of jumping these two sides, and there is another large dropoff until the other orgs come into play.
Speaking of those organizations, Red Reserve and Team Kaliber are in the hunt, along with KiLLa’s side and PNDA creeping up within a good 2K of jumping them. Finally, the last four sides include some of the top lesser-known organizations, who will most likely face the open bracket but will still spook a couple of the teams heading into pool play.
Here are the full pro point standings for the top-26 NA teams (updated Jan. 20):
EUROPE
The EU scene has a new team on top, as another 2K sent Splyce and Elevate over Orbit and Infused not too far behind in fourth.
Two orgless sides take up the next two MLG Atlanta spots for now, and I am still questioning why nobody is picking these teams up. It’s literally a free talented international team that’s just sitting there, and if nobody is going to pick them up by Gfinity, I may just have to buy them myself (jk, I don’t have that kind of money).
Moving along to the sides that are under the MLG Atlanta line, but still qualify for the Gfinity London event, Supremacy and Aware are in the hunt to jump a team or two that has a bad 2K. They also have an extremely comfortable cushion over the rest of the pack, and should head into London as a top-10 side at the very worst.
Another orgless team takes the ninth spot before Epsilon rounds it out, and luckily for my sanity, Black Forest Games picked up one of the orgless teams headed by Mike “Revolt” Eaton. While they don’t have enough points at the moment to qualify for Atlanta, they still are in a great position to qualify for the Gfinity event that could send them over the edge.
FAB, Cyclone, and Millenium are next up, and they all still need to grind the ladder and 2Ks in order to guarentee a spot at Gfinity, as Swanny’s team, along with Solution and Prismatic, are desperately fighting for a spot. While they won’t be a favorite to head into Atlanta and will have long odds in London, a win outright at that EU-only event could be enough to send them across the pond and against some of the best NA sides.
Here are the full standings for the EU region (updated Jan. 20):
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James Mattone is a journalist for GAMURS and can be contacted on Twitter –@TheJamesMattone.
