Entropiq, paiN through to ESL Challenger Melbourne playoffs; EG.PA eliminated

Five teams are still in contention for the remaining two playoff spots.

Entropiq and paiN topped their respective ESL Challenger Melbourne groups, securing spots in the tournament's playoffs on Sunday.

The Russian squad did so by beating Wings Up in their opener before taking down Group A favorites OG in the winners' match. paiN defeated Grayhound in their opening match in Group B and then repeated the feat against their Imperial compatriots, who are playing their first event with 24-year-old Marcelo "⁠chelo⁠" Cespedes.

Entropiq took down OG 16-13 to secure a spot in the playoffs

The first team to be eliminated from the tournament was EG White, who fell in their opener to Entropiq 4-16 before losing to Wings Up 0-2 on Nuke and Inferno in the Group A elimination match.

The Group B elimination match bween two local sides, Grayhound and VERTEX, will kick off Saturday's matches, the winner of which will then face Imperial in the group's decider match later in the day for a spot in the playoffs. In Group A it will be OG and Wings Up who will play the decider for one of the spots left in the playoffs.

Entropiq's riflers were the highlight of the opening day in the stats department, with the four of them among the top five highest-rated players, although it is paiN's Felipe "⁠skullz⁠" Medeiros who leads them all with a 1.49 after two best-of-ones.

The schedule for the second day of play is the following:

Saturday, September 3

03:00 VERTEX vs. Grayhound
06:30 - OG vs. Wings Up
10:00 - Imperial vs. VERTEX/Grayhound winner

Championship Sunday will begin with the playoff semi-finals, in which Group A's top seed Entropiq and Group B's paiN will meet the second seeds from their opposing groups, which will give way to the best-of-three grand final at 08:00 that will bring the tournament in Australia to its conclusion.

OG #8 Nemanja 'nexa' IsakovićAdam 'NEOFRAG' ZouharShahar 'flameZ' ShushanAbdul 'degster' GasanovMaciej 'F1KU' Miklas Imperial #29 Gabriel 'FalleN' ToledoFernando 'fer' AlvarengaRicardo 'boltz' PrassMarcelo 'chelo' CespedesVinicius 'VINI' Figueiredo Felipe 'skullz' Medeiros Age: 20 Team: paiN Rating 1.0: 1.03 Maps played: 378 KPR: 0.69 DPR: 0.65 VERTEX #108 Liam 'malta' SchembriToby 'BRACE' BarnesPeter 'BL1TZ' AthanasatosJordan 'pz' WhiteChristian 'ADDICT' Pendleton Wings Up #67 Yi 'gas' DingLiu 'lan' QiXueBing 'B1NGO' DaiZhengjie 'Martin' ZhuoJunhao 'ChildKing' Peng Marcelo 'chelo' Cespedes Age: 24 Team: Imperial Rating 1.0: 1.06 Maps played: 917 KPR: 0.72 DPR: 0.66 Entropiq #32 Nikolay 'mir' BityukovAleksei 'NickelBack' TrofimovVladislav 'Krad' KravchenkoAleksei 'El1an' GusevIgor 'Forester' Bezotecheskiy Time is adjusted to your selected timezone EG White #57 Jonathan 'djay' DallalJonathan 'Jonji' CareyBen 'ben1337' SmithJosh 'PwnAlone' PigueWesley 'viz' Harris paiN #33 Vinicios 'PKL' CoelhoWesley 'hardzao' LopesRodrigo 'biguzera' BittencourtFelipe 'skullz' MedeirosRomeu 'zevy' Rocco Grayhound #44 Simon 'Sico' WilliamsJay 'Liazz' TregillgasAlistair 'aliStair' JohnstonJoshua 'INS' PotterDeclan 'Vexite' Portelli