compLexity have accomplished what they failed to last season and emerged victorious from the ESEA Invite LAN Finals. After making it to the Grand Final without dropping a map coL, who this season replaced Scott 'evolution' Cavallero with Thomas 'thoMz' Garcia, met a surprise opponent in Team-Devious us. Even more surprising was DINC taking the first map, inferno, to put coL in a position where they had to win both of the following to complete their ESEA campaign. coL were up to the task and now they have once more put their hats in the circle for the title of best North American team.

compLexity 11:16 Team-Devious us (inferno 6:9 - 5:7)
compLexity 16:01 Team-Devious us (nuke 14:1 - 2:0)
compLexity 16:14 Team-Devious us (train 7:8 - 9:6)

Final placings:

1st compLexity - $5,000
2nd Team-Devious us - $3,000
3rd Evil Geniuses - $1,750
4th Loaded - $1,100
5th/6th Turmoil , Excello US - $700

This event seemed to be going according to plan when EG.US and coL met in the upper bracket final as many would have expected. However, when EG.US dropped to the consolation finals they found themselves facing the DINC team they had defeated earlier in the tournament. Instead of once again progressing EG.US managed to lose the series from being one map up.

Also surprising was Turmoil being defeated in the lower bracket by Loaded. Turmoil came into this event as the second best North American team in many people's eyes, even despite the loss of one of their best players to coL. All eyes will be on Turmoil's performance at the WCG to see if this new lineup has long term chemistry issues or whether this was a case of teething problems at their first event together.

Just when it seemed the EG-coL rivalry was going away it is back in full force now, especially since now EG will be expected to beat the new thoMz-era of coL to claim superiority over them again.

The runnersup DINC are a story unto themselves as international fans will not recognize some of their lineup at all. The most significant name is clearly that of France's David 'Xp3' Garrido whose move to the team and play at this event clearly sparked their cindarella-esque run. That they were one map away from winning the whole event is impressive, though it will remain to be seen if the lineup can stay together or produce any similar results as some of these players have a history of instability within teams.

You can check out the matches in our bracket here on SK-gaming.
(Photograph copyright of GotFrag)