The penultimate tournament of the 2020-2021 ESL Pro Tour is fast approaching, with 16 players set to compete at DH Masters: Last Chance during Jan 12-17. The sixteen players were selected via open server qualifiers, with players from all regions allowed to participate (similar to old IEM qualifiers).
Europe
Last Chance will award a total of $57,000 in prize money and 1370 EPT Points. Given the current EPT Standings and number of points remaining, Last Chance will almost certainly have zero influence on which players qualify for the Masters Championship at IEM Katowice 2021. However, the points earned at Last Chance will still affect seeding at the Masters Championship.
MaxPax 3-0ing DRG was amazing, Showtime's performance was commanding and Astrea was only one game from qualifying, he fell to the Korean Zeppelin in the end. Good qualifiers for Aiur!
Uthermal could of easily won that series v showtime but he played much better v rogue in which he simply dominated. Think the Serral x Showtime TSL series could be very close yet again
For some reason Reynor is always stacked with Terran players and play INno, and Serral always in group of D(eath). Group B is full of heavy-hitters, too.
On December 19 2020 05:39 tommey.liang wrote: For some reason Reynor is always stacked with Terran players and play INno, and Serral always in group of D(eath). Group B is full of heavy-hitters, too.
Serral’s presence turns most groups into a group of death.
I actually think Reynor has the easiest group this time, but none of these groups are easy.
On December 19 2020 04:01 BaneRiders wrote: Yeah, it's a shame no one from AM qualified.
maybe if they didn't allow Koreans and Europeans to play in the am qualifier. Honestly, that's looking like the only way NA will qualify since Neeb is not doing as well.
On December 19 2020 05:01 argonautdice wrote: None of the qualified players really need this tournament for points except ByuN, Ragnarok, and Bunny. The prize pool is nice tho.
They don't really need it either because Korea 100% locked in the wildcard seed with the result of this qualifier (which it already had 99.99% locked up in the last month). The only way those three can be overtaken is if Zoun does something like triple-crown the remaining ESL cups 4 weeks in a row.
honestly, with this being a last chance tournament, did we really need to have the people who are 100% qualified for the ro24 to play in this (Serral, Reynor, Stats, TY etc)? Cuz it seems to me like they don't need this 'last chance', so maybe they shouldn't be in it?
On December 19 2020 08:53 AzAlexZ wrote: honestly, with this being a last chance tournament, did we really need to have the people who are 100% qualified for the ro24 to play in this (Serral, Reynor, Stats, TY etc)? Cuz it seems to me like they don't need this 'last chance', so maybe they shouldn't be in it?
That's something that I was thinking about as well, how about the 'Last Chance' to qualify tournament excludes the players that are already qualified? Obviously, the best players in the world wouldn't be present to draw eyeballs to the tournament but that could be made up for by the storylines of the eligible players.
Edit: and I would also say that because the tournament isn't region locked, it would help the A- tier Koreans gain a bit of notoriety.
This tournament (unlike its Qualifier) will not have any impact at all on who qualifies and who does not (all under the assumption Zest and Stats can play of course).
To clarify a few things:
As you can see in the below attached Screenshot the Ro24 seeds are mathematically completely determined (all under the assumption Zest and Stats can play of course), including the extra Seed from the Combined Standings that goes (as expected) to the Koreans.
For the Ro36 most is determined too. Only a few slots are still (theoretically) open:
Lambo can still (theoretically) overtake uThermal by winning all of the remaining ESL Open Cups (in all regions) that still give points. (Lambo is currently 117 points behind uThermal.)
Zoun can still (theoretically) overtake Bunny by accumulating at least 105 points (or more) from the remaining ESL Open Cups (120 theoretically possible) and Bunny getting eliminated in the first Round of DHM Last Chance and not earning many ESL Open Cup points.
Cham can still (theoretically) overtake Kelazhur by accumulating at least 115 points from the remaining ESL Open Cups (120 theoretically possible) and Kelazhur not earning ESL Open Cup points.
In the Oceania standings theoretically RiSky, EnDerr and Seither can still overtake Probe, but as none of these players is likely to earn any points from ESL Open Cups and none of them qualified for DHM Last Chance this seed will go to Probe most likely.
In the China standings theoretically Jieshi, XY, MacSed and Silky can still overtake Cyan, but again as none of these players is likely to earn any points from ESL Open Cups and none of them qualified for DHM Last Chance this seed will go to Cyan most likely.
So after the next set of ESL Open Cups uThermal, Bunny and Kelazhur will (most likely) have mathematically secured their Ro36 seed and there will only be 2 remaining open slots (CN & OC), which are (most likely) gifted to Probe and Cyan. (OC Seed will (most likely) be locked in 1 week later. The CN Seed will be open until January 11th as Cyan only has a 30 pts head start.)
As always you can find more information on Liquipedia:
Seeing no Dark or DRG is weird. This tournament is STACKED though.
I think group of Death precedence is B then A then D then C.
I think Reynor absolutely crushes group C.
I think Serral finishes first in group D.
But other than that, it's going to be a very competitive blood bath. Heck, we just saw showtime 3-0 Rogue. That is unbelievable to me. Even if there was ping
EPT
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![[image loading]](https://preview.redd.it/wc3ibgxz4x561.png?width=665&format=png&auto=webp&s=640291f783608d6c0b42b8b6f8f29b6603e082d7)
IEM Katowice/2021/Round of 36
