E-KING Take May

May was the last monthly of the season, and E-KING closed it out in style. Playing under the Yi-Jing banner, they lost a single map across the entire playoff run and never looked like dropping the final.

Noob Esports reached the grand final for the second month running. For the second month running, they lost it. April's champions, TROOPERS, went out in the semis.

Eight teams in the playoffs. Four days. $500 on the line.

Performative and TROOPERS tied for third after losing in the semifinals. Please Peg Me, Rip Niko and Melo, Lavish and Evolve bowed out in the quarters.

Single-elimination playoffs after the GSL group stage. E-KING were the story: one map dropped across three rounds, to Rip Niko and Melo in the quarters, and nothing after. Performative closed their quarterfinal 2-0, the second map an 18-16 Ascent overtime, then ran into E-KING and didn't take a map. TROOPERS pushed Noob to three in the other semi and fell short.

The grand final was over fast. E-KING took Ascent 13-10, then ran Split 13-4. Noob reached a second straight final and lost it for the second straight month. The only team standing between them and back-to-back trophies was the one that beat them 2-0.

Top rating and top ACS in the entire tournament, on the winning team. KADIRI played Jett and Chamber and was the engine behind a 2-0 grand final. Nobody else in the field cleared 1.40.

A season-end list of the best players in OCE is coming, weighted by overall VLR stats. KADIRI is near the top of it.

The MVP goes to a winning-team player. The numbers right behind him came from teams that didn't make the final.

wisp and DeathBlade put up two of the four best ratings in the tournament, and Evolve still went out in the quarterfinals. Individual numbers do not advance you. Jinx anchored the cleanest KAST in the field at 90% on Fade.

Noob Esports, again. Second in April, second in May. They dropped one map on the road to the final and looked like the best team in the bracket until they met E-KING. Back-to-back finals is a floor most teams would take. They want the other step.

April belonged to Neon. May did not. The duelist that cleared 85% of maps last month showed up on under one in five.

Omen took over the controller slot at 76%, with Viper as the situational second at 45%. Fade led the initiators at 58% and Jett returned to the top of the duelist pile at 49% as Neon fell off. Chamber at 37% kept the sentinel slot honest, and Waylay landing on 26% is the number to watch into June.

Lotus was the contested map: most picked at 14 and least banned at 10, the one nobody wanted to throw away. Fracture led the bans at 22, with Haven and Pearl tied behind at 20 each. Across 38 maps the pool narrowed to a Lotus and Ascent core, a shape worth carrying into the Invitational.

That's a wrap on the regular season. See you at the Invitational.

The TXG Team