Brian "dkt" Flander and Shane "rapha" Hendrixson were both dealt upsets on the opening day of the IEM American Championships Finals today, with the latter scraping through to the playoffs in second place but "dkt" having no such luck. EG's Tim "DaHanG" Fogarty was the man of the hour as he overcame "rapha" on DM6 and T9 to top group A while it was Chance "Chance" Lacina and, surprisingly, Sander "vo0" Kaasjager who progressed from group B.
Former Painkiller champion, "vo0", shocked "dkt" with a straight maps victory versus his experienced teammate and continued with a two to one victory over "Chance". A close defeat to Thomas "griffin" Wall saw the Dutch player miss out on top spot in group B but he will be happy with the day's work after securing a semi final tie with "DaHanG". The eventual group winner, "Chance", beat both "griffin" and "dkt" as well, with the latter disappointingly finishing in last place.
"rapha" will remain the favourite going into tomorrow's playoffs but will have had his confidence shaken after today's defeat. The SK star admitted he often fares poorly in the group stages in an ESL-TV interview earlier today - he also lost to "fox" before going on to place first in Dubai - but he won't have been happy with the manner in which he allowed "DaHanG" to dictate matters in their group stage match-up.
The playoffs are set to kick off at 21:00 CET tonight and can followed here on
TEK9 or live on
ESL-TV.
RelatedESL-World
I also enjoyed watching gellehsak on t7, although as 2GD pointed out even I could tell he made one of the dumbest moves in his career to drop down to challenge for an amour which was as good as lost.. could of easily taken that game to a 3rd map.