The second round of the upper bracket and the lower bracket finished, the results varied from surprising to expected. The biggest surprise of the upper bracket thus far was the 3-0 sweep by teh super gosus over Capslock Crew, who were considered the favorites to win the tournament due to being the original Merciless Gladiators of Battlegroup Bloodlust from Season 2. (Merciless Gladiator means they were 1st in rating last season)

Capslock Crew vs. teh super gosus:

Capslock crew ran warrior, paladin, shaman, priest and warlock. Although for the first two games CLC choose to run their shaman as enhancement specced, the melee hybrid spec of this class compared to restoration, which is healing spec and elemental which is spell damage specced. CLC felt this attribute could help them against teh super gosus, who run warrior, paladin, druid, mage, and warlock. Teh super gosus team is unique, they are one of the only PVE realm teams in the world that achieved merciless gladiator on their original battlegroup, Ruin aka bg3-us. They are the current highest rated team in BG9 and their team comp is known to be "anti-warlock" friendly - a strategy they employ to kill warlocks very effectively. While CLC's shaman ran enhancement, it didn't help their chances and they quickly fell 2-0 in the first two matches. In the 3rd match their shaman, Lickerz, respecced to elemental in hopes to changing their strategy from the last 2 games but they still succumbed to the warlock killers, teh super gosus.

SK-Gaming vs wat now motha fuka:

SK-Gaming runs a team of "Euro rogue" or rogue, warlock, mage, priest and druid. This team composition is considered favored against 2345, or warrior, paladin, priest, mage and shaman due to their amount of CCs and mage's lack of survivability against rogues. WNMF lost to SK-Gaming 3 games straight against the same strategy, while this proved in favor of SK-Gaming which will meet 'teh super gosus' in the winners bracket.

The video for the match from Neilyo's PoV is posted here.

Shuttlecocks vs Slackers:

Shuttlecocks runs 2346 or warrior, paladin, priest, warlock, shaman and Slackers run Warrior, paladin, priest, hunter, warlock. While shuttlecocks seems to have an advantage in group composition and gear, Slackers did a noteworthy job being able to pull 2 games from them. Only execution was the key to winning this match-up, and shuttlecocks pulled through in the final game. It came down to the last wire as Shuttlecocks was able to win the close series 3-2 over Slackers, moving up to the loser bracket finals. Each team used a sub from their team from the first round.

Note: For the remainding rounds, each round scheduled through a monday will be extended an extra day to avoid matches being played on Monday. FOBS and fnatic haven't been able to play their match due to personal schedule conflicts and general disinterest in 5v5 at the moment, and a decision will be made today which team will advance to play NWMF.