OpTic Gaming defeat Tempo Storm 2-0 (16-7 on Train and 16-6 on Cobblestone) in the upper bracket final of the MLG Americas Regional Minor and are thus the first team from the Americas Minor to secure the coveted Major qualifier slot.

The final match of day three of the MLG Americas Regional Minor was the first to offer the winner a chance to qualify for the ESL One Cologne 2016 Major qualifier and it was OpTic and Tempo Storm, two teams who have dominated the Americas Minor until now, who squared off.

With the Brazilians currently ranked #11 in the world and the Canadian-American-Spanish OpTic ranked #20, the first map of the upper bracket final was Train and although Tempo Storm started off strong with the likes of Gustavo "⁠SHOOWTiME⁠" Gonçalves and Henrique "⁠HEN1⁠" Teles securing a couple of multi-kills on the Brazilian team's first half, OpTic finished up 8-7 after an aggressive T-side.

CT-side was even more surprising (or perhaps expected if you were studying OpTic's map vetoes at this event) with the Green Wall in full effect yet again on Train as William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba and Oscar "⁠mixwell⁠" Cañellas led the effort in eight straight CT rounds to close out the first map 16-7 for OpTic.



Cobblestone was stanislaw's pistol playground

Cobblestone was next and Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz exploded with a pistoleer display for his team on their T-side pistolround, securing a quad kill and beginning OpTic's early lead on the first half. Although Tempo Storm secured piecemeal rounds here and there on the first half, the map was yet again a story of OpTic's confidence and playbook-style reads as they finished up 10-5 by halftime.

stanislaw yet again exploded onto the second pistolround and picked up a pistolround ace in a two-versus-five situation to give OpTic an even wider lead in the map and in the series. With Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic also warming up on the CT-side, Tempo Storm seemingly had no chance as OpTic took another map convincingly, 16-6, and advanced to the MLG Americas Regional Minor grand final.

MLG Regional Minor Championship Americas Best of 3 OpTic Matchpage 2 0 Tempo Storm 16 Train 7 16 Cobblestone 6

OpTic K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Keith 'NAF' MarkovicNAF 41 - 24 +17 99.4 1.52 Peter 'stanislaw' Jarguzstanislaw 40 - 17 +23 83.7 1.52 William 'RUSH' WierzbaRUSH 37 - 26 +11 91.5 1.40 Oscar 'mixwell' Cañellasmixwell 36 - 21 +15 79.8 1.35 Damian 'daps' Steeledaps 31 - 24 +7 78.2 1.19 Tempo Storm K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Henrique 'HEN1' TelesHEN1 33 - 31 +2 73.3 0.95 Lucas 'LUCAS1' TelesLUCAS1 19 - 39 -20 69.0 0.67 Gustavo 'SHOOWTiME' GonçalvesSHOOWTiME 23 - 35 -12 59.5 0.65 João 'felps' Vasconcellosfelps 20 - 39 -19 50.9 0.53 Ricardo 'boltz' Prassboltz 17 - 41 -24 65.5 0.52

The list of teams who will attend the ESL One Cologne 2016 Major qualifier in Katowice, Poland is now:

There are two more best-of-three series to play out tomorrow. Tempo Storm will get a second chance to qualify for the Major qualifier in a consolidation final match-up against TSM and the winner of that will then play OpTic for the gold medal, better seeding at the Major qualifier, and $30,000 in first place prize money.

stich writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter