The Russian team beat Sprout 2-1 in the grand final to secure their berth to the event in Australia. Entropiq have qualified for ESL Challenger Melbourne after topping the European closed qualifier, becoming the third team to secure a spot at the $100,000 event that will take place from September 2-4 after Wings Up and VERTEX qualified through Asia and Oceania, respectively. Aleksei "NickelBack" Trofimov's troops started their qualifier run with a win over NASA, but were subsequently knocked down to the lower bracket after falling to HEET. However, the Russian side managed to claw their way back to the grand final by beating K23 and winning a rematch against Alexandre "bodyy" Pianaro's side, setting up a deciding match against Sprout for a spot at the event in Melbourne. On the other side of things, 17-year-olds Laurențiu "lauNX" Țârlea and Victor "Staehr" Staehr had been sensational for Sprout in their own qualifier run, helping them advance through the upper bracket while just dropping one map to FORZE in the process to reach the grand final. The Romanian talent stood out even further in the final series, single-handedly putting up an absurdly dominant showing on Vertigo to grant his side a win to kick things off, aided by strong fragging from his Danish counterpart. A 10-5 lead on the T side of the map led swiftly into a 16-7 victory for Sprout, a win in which lauNX was in a class of his own, finishing the map with a 37-13 K-D and 2.33 rating while averaging 152 damage per round. His performance cooled down somewhat on Dust2 as Entropiq bounced back from the one-sided loss, putting up a strong offensive effort of their own as they began the map up 8-1, before later closing things out 16-8 to force a Nuke decider. There, Sprout initially seemed to be in control, another admirable showing from lauNX helping his side to mount a 10-5 lead at the end of their CT side effort. The situation turned even more grim for NickelBack's men early into the second half as Sprout pushed up to a 15-8 scoreline, but Entropiq refused to concede as Nikolay "mir" Bityukov and Aleksei "El1an" Gusev led the charge in a seven-round spree to force overtime, where their side maintained momentum to secure a 19-16 victory and take the series. The team list for ESL Challenger Melbourne now looks as follows:Sprout
Matchpage 1 2 14th July 2022
Entropiq 16Vertigo 7 8Dust2 16 16Nuke 19
Sprout
K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Laurențiu 'lauNX' ȚârlealauNX
86 - 53 +33 95.6 1.43 Rasmus 'raalz' Steensborgraalz
50 - 50 0 69.0 1.00 Victor 'Staehr' StaehrStaehr
49 - 57 -8 72.7 0.95 Timo 'Spiidi' RichterSpiidi
44 - 57 -13 67.9 0.89 Fritz 'slaxz-' Dietrichslaxz-
35 - 51 -16 51.3 0.83 Entropiq
K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Aleksei 'El1an' GusevEl1an
61 - 46 +15 77.7 1.20 Nikolay 'mir' Bityukovmir
66 - 60 +6 87.0 1.19 Igor 'Forester' BezotecheskiyForester
49 - 52 -3 63.6 0.92 Vladislav 'Krad' KravchenkoKrad
48 - 53 -5 65.0 0.92 Aleksei 'NickelBack' TrofimovNickelBack
44 - 54 -10 62.2 0.84 Wings Up
Entropiq
Invite
Invite
VERTEX
NA Qualifier
Invite
Invite
Aleksei 'El1an' Gusev
Age: 22 Team: Entropiq Rating 1.0: 1.13 Maps played: 1300 KPR: 0.75 DPR: 0.61
Aleksei 'NickelBack' Trofimov
Age: 24 Team: Entropiq Rating 1.0: 0.98 Maps played: 1391 KPR: 0.66 DPR: 0.66
VERTEX #142
Liam 'malta' Schembri
Toby 'BRACE' Barnes
Matthew 'Valiance' Hartrick
Declan 'Vexite' Portelli
Jordan 'pz' White
HEET #28
Alexandre 'bodyy' Pianaro
Lucas 'Lucky' Chastang
Thomas 'Djoko' Pavoni
Pierre 'Ex3rcice' Bulinge
Aurélien 'afro' Drapier
Wings Up #136
Yi 'gas' Ding
Liu 'lan' Qi
Zhengjie 'Martin' Zhuo
Junhao 'ChildKing' Peng
Victor 'Staehr' Staehr
Age: 17 Team: Sprout Rating 1.0: 1.03 Maps played: 255 KPR: 0.70 DPR: 0.67
K23 #47
Sanzhar 'neaLaN' Iskhakov
Timur 'clax' Sabirov
Bogdan 'xsepower' Chernikov
Daniil 'X5G7V' Maryshev
Konstantin 'Raijin' Trubarov
NASA
Nikolay 'mir' Bityukov
Age: 26 Team: Entropiq Rating 1.0: 1.10 Maps played: 1011 KPR: 0.76 DPR: 0.66
Alexandre 'bodyy' Pianaro
Age: 25 Team: HEET Rating 1.0: 0.99 Maps played: 1341 KPR: 0.67 DPR: 0.68
FORZE #20
Andrey 'Jerry' Mekhryakov
Aleksandr 'zorte' Zagodyrenko
Aleksandr 'shalfey' Marenov
Aleksandr 'KENSI' Gurkin
Evgeny 'Norwi' Ermolin
Laurențiu 'lauNX' Țârlea
Age: 17 Team: Sprout Rating 1.0: 1.06 Maps played: 258 KPR: 0.74 DPR: 0.70
Entropiq #32
Nikolay 'mir' Bityukov
Aleksei 'NickelBack' Trofimov
Vladislav 'Krad' Kravchenko
Aleksei 'El1an' Gusev
Igor 'Forester' Bezotecheskiy
Sprout #21
Rasmus 'raalz' Steensborg
Timo 'Spiidi' Richter
Fritz 'slaxz-' Dietrich
Victor 'Staehr' Staehr
Laurențiu 'lauNX' Țârlea