Razer NeXT Crossfire Tournament: The Final Four
After one Saturday of action-packed matches, the last four teams of the Razer NeXT Crossfire Tournament have finally been unveiled. For the Northern Conference, Pacific.Macta and Pacific.Wara take the first and second spots, while for the Southern Conference, HL.Decapitatorz and HASleftxSpammers dominate over the rest of the opposition in the group stages.
The round robin bracket was played on three maps: Mexico, Sub Base and Ankara. The first map, Mexico, is a Global Risk-dominated site as both bombsites are pretty hard to get through due to easily defensible positions. As for the second map, Sub Base is a fast-paced map which contains many opportunities for quick rotations between both teams, thus giving a sense of uncertainty for every round played on this place. Finally, Ankara is well-known for its “three-way” system that allows Global Risk to do any defensive tactic that they want, while the Black List can get map control early on through controlling the middle, thus allowing for splitting maneuvers later on.
The North: The Good Old Dominates Again
Despite the fact that there are two newcomers in the form of MSI-EvoGT and Terrovania, Pacific.Macta and Pacific.Wara still proved that they are a notch above the rest by getting through the group stage in a convincing fashion. These two Pacific teams also faced off in the finals of the first leg of the Razer NeXT Crossfire Tournament where Macta emerged victorious after coming back from a 0-1 deficit.
Terrovania is notable for being the only non-Manila team that made it to the group stage in this leg of the tournament, the other being Strategic AC Gaming. In the last leg, the Luzon-based team also fought in the round robin brackets before bowing out of the tournament.
MSI-EvoGT should be familiar to many as the home of the team that brought a bronze and silver medal in the CrossFire category to the Philippines during the 2012 and 2013 editions of the World Cyber Games, respectively.
The South: A New Challenger Appears
In the South, it actually begins with eight teams from Bacolod and Cebu fighting their way to get the last two slots in the Southern Conference group. At the end of the day, it is Cebu’s turn to shine once again as two Cebu teams in the form of HLDecapitatorz and Nerve take the much-coveted places for the South. HLDecapitatorz is actually Cebu’s representative to the Crossfire Stars National Finals, while Nerve proved their worth by getting fourth place over a field of competitors that included WattzKing (former NxA) and HASLefxSpammers (former Spammers).
With all four teams coming from Cebu, everyone made a show in the group stages as each team proved to be more than willing to take games off each other. In the end, HLDecapitators prevailed along with HASLeftxSpammers in order to gain the right to represent the South in the finals.
Will the South be able to get to the finals and make history? Or will the two Pacific teams make it an all-Northern final for the second time around?
Mark your calendars as the Conference and Wave Finals commence on Saturday, May 23!
CrossFire is an online tactical FPS for PC by South Korean developer SmileGate. The game is currently the largest and bestselling FPS title in China, where it is published and distributed by Tencent.
eSports by INQUIRER.net is a news and media website made in partnership by the Philippine eSports Organization and the Inquirer News Group.
Subscribe to INQUIRER PLUS to get access to The Philippine Daily Inquirer & other 70+ titles, share up to 5 gadgets, listen to the news, download as early as 4am & share articles on social media. Call 896 6000.