IEM Sydney 2019 North America Closed QualifierSwole Patrol beat eUnited to qualify for IEM Sydney
Swole Patrol have assured themselves of a spot at IEM Sydney 2019 after beating eUnited in the grand final of the North American closed qualifier.
The final day of the eight-team double-elimination bracket began with brothers Ryan "freakazoid" Abadir and Austin "Cooper" Abadir facing each other as Ghost locked horns with eUnited in the tournament's consolidation final.
Ghost, who had defeated Luminosity in the previous round, got off on the wrong foot as they mustered just two rounds in the first half of Cache, in which they had to make do without Kenneth "koosta" Suen. The former Liquid and CLG man showed up in time for the second half and inspired a comeback from his team, but in the end it amounted to nothing as eUnited wrapped things up in overtime.
eUnited, who were fielding former Ghost member Yassine "Subroza" Taoufik as a stand-in following Pujan "FNS" Mehta's departure, got off to a dream start on Overpass as they stormed to a 9-1 lead before Joshua "steel" Nissan's men responded with five rounds of their own. In the second half, Ghost came back from 7-13 down and were on the verge of taking the map, but eUnited bagged the final three rounds of regulation to earn a shot at revenge against Swole Patrol in the grand final.
 eUnited |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 54 - 39 | +15 | 82.7 | 74.2% | 1.29 | |
| 52 - 43 | +9 | 83.6 | 74.2% | 1.22 | |
| 51 - 47 | +4 | 81.8 | 72.7% | 1.13 | |
| 45 - 41 | +4 | 69.7 | 72.7% | 1.04 | |
| 36 - 40 | -4 | 61.9 | 65.2% | 0.94 |
 Ghost |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 46 - 44 | +2 | 75.3 | 68.2% | 1.10 | |
| 38 - 35 | +3 | 60.5 | 75.8% | 1.07 | |
| 42 - 48 | -6 | 72.1 | 68.2% | 0.98 | |
| 46 - 50 | -4 | 73.0 | 60.6% | 0.93 | |
| 35 - 47 | -12 | 54.9 | 57.6% | 0.70 | |
| 3 - 14 | -11 | 21.9 | 70.0% | 0.66 |
As the team coming from the upper bracket, Swole Patrol had an automatic one-map advantage heading into the best-of-five grand final. Braxton "swag" Pierce's side, who enlisted former Complexity member Sam "s0m" Oh for the qualifier, had a rough CT half on Inferno, picking up only five rounds, but battled back after the break, running all over the eUnited defence to emerge 16-14 victors.
The first half of Train was a keenly-contested affair as it ended with an 8-7 scoreline in favour of Swole Patrol, who lost a bit of momentum after switching over to the CT side. But after watching their opponents take the lead at 11-10, the team tightened up their defence and kept the eUnited offense at bay, eventually locking down the map at 16-12.
 Swole Patrol |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 53 - 36 | +17 | 89.5 | 74.1% | 1.28 | |
| 37 - 30 | +7 | 73.1 | 74.1% | 1.13 | |
| 40 - 43 | -3 | 74.5 | 63.8% | 0.98 | |
| 35 - 38 | -3 | 66.9 | 70.7% | 0.97 | |
| 36 - 43 | -7 | 78.1 | 65.5% | 0.96 |
| eUnited |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45 - 38 | +7 | 86.0 | 70.7% | 1.17 | |
| 42 - 42 | 0 | 86.8 | 75.9% | 1.14 | |
| 38 - 39 | -1 | 68.4 | 70.7% | 0.99 | |
| 32 - 42 | -10 | 62.4 | 58.6% | 0.85 | |
| 32 - 41 | -9 | 58.1 | 63.8% | 0.82 |
According to a report from Dust2.us, s0m will be travelling with Swole Patrol to IEM Sydney, which will take place from April 30 through to May 5. This will be the second Big Event in the history of the team, who attended EPICENTER last year, with swag and Edgar "MarKE" Maldonado being the only remaining players from the line-up that competed at that tournament.
With Swole Patrol's qualification, the team list for the Australian event currently looks as follows:
Invite #5
Oceania qualifier
Greater China qualifier
Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş
Joakim 'jkaem' Myrbostad
Sean 'Gratisfaction' Kaiwai
Rory 'dephh' Jackson
Finn 'karrigan' Andersen
Olof 'olofmeister' Kajbjer
Ladislav 'GuardiaN' Kovács
Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač
Yassine 'Subroza' Taoufik
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