After two exciting days of the "Battle of the Five Gods" (Bot5G), the field narrowed from 20 players to the final 8 bracket, which will finish Saturday. The structure of the Event
In recapping the format, the 20 players were split into five round-robin pools of four players each. The first seeds makes it out to the final 8 bracket, and the second seeds compete in a playoff round-robin pool. The third and fourth seeds are eliminated. In the playoff round-robin pool, the five second seeds play each other and the top 3 seeds qualify into the final bracket. With the first two days in the bag, what ended up happening?
Round 1 pools
On Day 1, the five gods left unscathed with a collective 8-0 set count record against the rest of the field. Later into Day 2, Weston "Tempo|Westballz" Dennis broke the win streak, defeating Kevin "EG|PPMD" Nanney 3-1 in an exciting Falco vs. Marth set. Collectively, the results were fairly predictable, largely because of the low variance nature of best-of-five sets. The gods finished 14-1 in sets and four of them made it into the immediate final bracket as first seeds. Only PPMD was relegated into the round 2 playoff pool. Another key result was McCain "SPY | MacD" Lavelle's clean 3-0 sweep of Jeffrey "Tempo | Axe" Williamson to make it out as the second seed in Pool C.
Round 2 playoff pools
With one god and several top 15 level players, the playoff group featured one of the most stacked pools ever. PPMD's issues snowballed from Round 1 pools as his fatigue became more evident. Not playing to his usual standards, PPMD ended up losing all four of his sets, finishing last in his pool and 10th overall -- his lowest placing in years.
Fan-favorite, Robert "PG Wobbles" Wright found great success through opportunistic grab combos to finish 3-1 in sets and first overall, only losing to SPY | MacD in a lopsided Peach matchup. His teammate, Justin "PG Plup" McGrath solidly won three sets to finish second in the pool. After making a crucial mistake against PG Plup and starting off 0-2 in sets, Otto "Silent Wolf" Bisno recovered and won his sets against SPY | MacD and EG PPMD to finish 2-2 in sets and qualify into the top 8 bracket.
Up ahead for top 8
The following players are left:
First seeds from Round 1 pools
Juan "Liquid Hungrybox" Debiedma (3-0 sets, 9-1 games)
Jason "MVG Cog Mew2King" Zimmerman (3-0 sets, 9-1 games)
Adam "[A]rmada" Lindgren (3-0 sets, 9-2 games)
Joseph "C 9 Mango" Marquez (3-0 sets, 9-2 games)
Weston "Tempo | Westballz" Dennis (3-0 sets, 9-4 games)
Qualified from playoff round
Robert "PG Wobbles" Wright, first seed
Justin "PG Plup" McGrath, second seed
Otto "Silent Wolf" Bisno, third seed