(GotFrag) - The x30 Dust-Off Championship wrapped up Sunday with the home team, x3o, taking home the Championship. x3o was given an auto-berth to the bracket play along with EG.us, 50cal and MoB. x3o breezed through the upper bracket and lost only one map during the tournament. There were some really close matches in the group and bracket play and a surprise or two as well.

Final Standings:

1st. Team X3O - $4500 + x5 DGL-4500 > Xtreme N Gaming Router, x5 ZeroSurge Surge Protectors
2nd. EG.usa - $2500 + x5 Dust-Off Keyboard Quivers
3rd. 50 Cal - $1000 + x5 Dust-Off Prize Packs
4th. MoB Gaming


Skill gap fading a tad

With so many close matches and upsets, one can only guess that the gap between the big three is fading. While MoB, EG, and x3o have been claiming top prize at just about everything exclusive to North America, several teams have shown that they can hang. Also, with some of the middle tier CEVO pro teams struggling with teams who aren't even in CEVO, it looks like a bunch of teams are catching up. Who knows? In a few months NA CS could be more than just a three horse pony show.

zsm who?


No event would be complete without a handful of surprises. One of the biggest ones was the performance of team zsm. Truthfully, I had never heard of them until they completely destroyed MainGear in their group match on Saturday. While they only won one match in the bracket stage (not including the ff win against highhopes), it was an upset against Frag Dominant. FD had just finished coming back in a huge win against a strong malice squad, with momper completely rolling in that match. It took a lot of effort for zsm to overcome them in an overtime thriller. Zsm even got off to a great start against EG, and it wasn't until one of their players remarked "you're no where near as good as evolution," that EG began to take over. Overall, the team ended up placing 5-6th alongside PoV. Not too shabby if you ask me.

Get off my seed!


If you asked anyone, aside from five distinct players one tournament director, if 50cal deserved to have the second seed, you would hear tons of adamant no's. Regardless of what they did and did not deserve, they backed up Nickfitz's decision with strong play in their bracket, holding the seed even against the highly favored MoB. They only won two matches, yet placed third. While their seeding had a ton to do with the fact that they finished so high, in the end the win against MoB says a lot.

This is my coast!

Forget rap fueds - the growing rivalry between east and west coast CS teams is taking over. But fear not, after teams like MoB and 50cal scream their heads off at one another during a match, no one's gonna pop a cap in your ass. Teams were getting so deeply involved in the mental side of screaming at one another, that at one point players decided to yell at teams who they weren't even playing. Ben from x3o was getting so tired of hearing brun from malice pumping up his team during their match with FD, that he decided to chastise him mid-round from across the LAN center.

Now who's online?

What happened to the simple days when players could destroy pro teams online and be ridiculed because they would never attend a LAN? Well I guess they are still here, but with so many "online" players turning up and playing well at this event, a whole new class of talented players who don't cheat but play well enough to damage an ego or two are going to emerge. Move over momper - calling you online is sooo last season.

Where have all the cowboys gone?

The most disappointing part of this event was the turnout. While the tournament organizers are in the process of designing ways in which they can make the event more attractive to teams who know they have no shot in winning the whole thing, I find myself wondering where we went wrong as a community. Gone are the days where the promise of proving yourself and showing up with a purpose were enough to draw teams and players. Even with over $10k in prize money on the line plenty of teams who might have had a chance at that money skipped out. I remember when steno used to show up to every web2zone event with f2 and just get destroyed. They never got discouraged though and now he's leading EG. While people in this community complain about people selling out and going to the CGS, they are the same people who don't show up to tournaments because they have no shot at making paydirt.

x30 wins x3o



Although EG was able to get the first map in on x3o, new member Nepo- and the rest were just not able to get past the solid x3o lineup in the second match and x3o finally has their big win over EG. Not a bad place to do it, on home ground in your namesake's tournament.


GotFrag's Full Coverage of x3o Dust-Off Championship Final
Bracket Melee
Bracket Previewed
Group Stage Melee
Seeds and Groups
Top Teams Previewed
Day 2 Prediction Thread!
Video Interviews: goodfornothing, fr3ak

Galleries

Day 2a - Inertia, Broodex, mehLer and others
Day 2b - Worth it for the Nick Fitz srs business face
Day 2c - Perez possessed, GodFather cameo, and thomz with epic gel
Day 2d - Can you spot the sneaky Steno?

Day 1 Group A - Frag Dominant, High Hopes and nPlay
Day 1 Group B - Malice, Paintrain and more
Day 1 Group C - Savior, Hero and PoV with Hypnosis, R4L
Day 1 Group D - Maingear, zsm, Team nX... Ninespot eating cheesecake...

The Series:

X3O Qualifiers Explained

Qualifier One Bracket - March 29th-30th
Qualifier Two Bracket - May 17th-18th
Qualifier Three Bracket - June 28th-29th
Qualifier Four Bracket - July 19th-20th