Swole Patrol to EPICENTER Wild Card Qualifier over NRG

Swole Patrol have secured a spot in the wild card qualifier for EPICENTER 2018 after topping the North American closed qualifier with a 2-1 victory over NRG.

A total of six teams participated in the tournament, which offered a slot at the wild card qualifier for the Russian event, to be played offline. Swole Patrol started their journey in the quarter-finals, sweeping past both FURIA and eUnited to reach the final, while NRG, who had to field ex-Cloud9 member Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert as a stand-in as Damian "⁠daps⁠" Steele is in London as part of the broadcast team for the Major, began their run in the semis, taking down BlackOut 2-0.

NRG secured their map pick, Inferno, without allowing Swole Patrol to win more than five rounds. The IEM Shanghai winners carried their momentum into the next map, Cache, where they stormed to an 8-1 lead, but then Swole Patrol finally woke up and pinned their opponents against the ropes, losing only one more round before locking down the map, 16-9.

freakazoid and co. earn their place at the EPICENTER wild card qualifier

The series came down to the decider, Train, which saw NRG bounce back from the defeat to secure an 8-7 lead at halftime. Chet "⁠Chet⁠" Singh's troops also put in a strong T display and hit match point at 15-10, but, against all expectations, they let the game slip away from them as Swole Patrol won five in a row to equalise the score before running out victorious in overtime to complete the turnaround in the series.

EPICENTER 2018 North America Closed QualifierBest of 3 NRGMatchpage 1 2 9th September 2018 Swole Patrol 16Inferno 5 9Cache 16 17Train 19

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Swole Patrol are the third team confirmed for the wild card qualifier - scheduled for October 22 -, joining Virtus.pro and ENCE, with two slots due to be filled by the winners of the CIS and the Chinese qualifiers.

On October 19, the team of this quintet that is ranked highest in the HLTV ranking will receive a direct invitation and will not have to participate in the qualifier.

Featuring a $300,000 prize pool, EPICENTER 2018 will kick off on October 23 with a three-day group stage, followed by the playoffs on October 27-28 at the Park of Legends Ice Palace, in Moscow.

eUnited #34 Skyler 'Relyks' WeaverWill 'dazzLe' LoafmanMichael 'dapr' GulinoKaleb 'moose' JayneBrandon 'Ace' Winn FURIA #73 Guilherme 'spacca' SpaccaAndrei 'arT' PiovezanYuri 'yuurih' SantosVinicius 'VINI' FigueiredoKaike 'KSCERATO' Cerato Swole Patrol #39 Braxton 'swag' PierceRyan 'freakazoid' AbadirEdgar 'MarKE' MaldonadoJordan 'Zellsis' MontemurroAustin 'Cooper' Abadir Virtus.pro #20 Filip 'NEO' KubskiJarosław 'pashaBiceps' JarząbkowskiMichał 'MICHU' MüllerMichał 'snatchie' Rudzki Chet 'Chet' Singh Age: 22 Team: NRGC Damian 'daps' Steele Age: 25 Team: NRG Rating 1.0: 0.89 Maps played: 667 KPR: 0.59 DPR: 0.67 Jordan 'n0thing' Gilbert Age: 27 Team: No team Rating 1.0: 1.03 Maps played: 736 KPR: 0.71 DPR: 0.67 ENCE #18 Aleksi 'allu' JalliJani 'Aerial' JussilaSami 'xseveN' LaasanenAleksi 'Aleksib' VirolainenJere 'sergej' Salo NRG #9 Damian 'daps' SteeleJacob 'FugLy' MedinaVincent 'Brehze' CayonteEthan 'Ethan' ArnoldTsvetelin 'CeRq' Dimitrov BlackOut #46 Sebastian 'seb' BuckiConnor 'CONNOR93' GloverCollin 'wrath' McSweeganChad 'Oderus' MillerJonathan 'Jonji' Carey