Spacestation Gaming and Affinity earned wins Wednesday to tie idle Rogue for first place in the Fusion Rocket League's North American event.
Spacestation Gaming beat Divine 4-2 in three-on-three action, and Affinity topped Team Envy 4-1 in one-on-one play. In the day's two-on-two match, Vision defeated 72 Pin Connector 4-2.
Each of the winners earned a spot in the semifinals of that competition's bracket. Affinity, Spacestation and Rogue are the only teams that have qualified for two semifinals, and each competes in the third discipline on Thursday. Vision could join them with a second semifinal berth depending on their Thursday result.
The eight-team, $25,000 North American tournament features separate single-elimination brackets for three-on-three, two-on-two and one-on-one play, with each team competing in all brackets. All series are best-of-seven, and any player from any team may play in any format. Each day will feature one match in each bracket.
Final standings for each of the three formats will be calculated, with 17 points awarded to the first-place team, 11 points awarded to the second-place team, and seven points given to both the third- and fourth-place teams. The team with top overall point total across all three disciplines will be the champion.
The overall winner will get $4,500, with the runner-up getting $3,000 and the third-place team receiving $2,000. If teams end up tied in the overall standings, they will split the prize money; no tiebreaker matches will be held.
Additional prize money will be awarded to the top three in each of three-on-three, two-on-two and one-on-one brackets: $1,500 for first, $1,000 for second and $500 for third.
A separate eight-team, $25,000 European tournament with the same format will run Monday through June 7.
On Wednesday, Spacestation's three-man team of Tshaka "Arsenal" Lateef Taylor Jr., Alexandre "AxB" Bellemare and Caden "Sypical" Pellegrin got off to a good start on Salty Shores (Night), winning 5-4 in overtime and 3-1. Divine's three-man team of Jacob "JRuss" Clarkson, "PorkletV2" and Zachary "Dino" Moffatt rebounded for a 3-1 win.
After Spacestation grabbed a 3-1 series lead with a 4-1 victory, Divine stayed alive with a 2-1 win in overtime. Spacestation sealed the series with a 2-1 decision.
Spacestation will oppose Affinity on Friday in the three-on-three semifinals.
Affinity's Christopher "majicbear" Acevedo posted a fairly comfortable one-on-one win over Envy's Slater "retals" Thomas on Aquadome. majicbear won the first two games 10-7 and 9-6 before retals earned a 6-5 victory in overtime. majicbear closed out the match with 7-5 and 10-5 triumphs.
Affinity's one-on-one semifinal opponent on Friday will be the winner of the Rogue-Spacestation match on Thursday.
Vision's Joshua "Radoko." Ruiz Radtke and "kinseh" prevailed in a low-scoring two-on-two battle on Neo Tokyo against 72 Pin Connector's Jacob "Jacob" McDowell and "LionBlaze." Vision produced 4-3, 4-2 and 3-0 wins before 72 Pin Connector responded with 2-1 and 2-0 victories. A Vision 2-1 decision sealed the series.
Vision head to a Saturday two-on-two semifinal vs. the Thursday victor between Stromboli and Affinity.
Thursday's schedule:
Three-on-three quarterfinal -- Team Envy vs. Vision
Two-on-two quarterfinal -- Stromboli vs. Affinity
One-on-one quarterfinal -- Rogue vs. Spacestation Gaming
Fusion Rocket League -- North America in-progress overall standings, with points for three-on-three, two-on-two, one-on-one and overall (*scores for teams still alive in each bracket are minimum total for that format)
T1. Affinity, *7, *0, *7 -- 14
T1. Rogue, *7, *7, *0 -- 14
T1. Spacestation Gaming, *7, *7, *0 -- 14
T4. 72 Pin Connector, 0, 0, *7 -- 7
T4. Divine, 0, 0, *7 -- 7
T4. Vision, *0, *7, 0 -- 7
T7. Stromboli, 0, *0, 0 -- 0
T7. Team Envy, *0, 0, 0 -- 0