The playoffs of Assembly Winter 2017 are upon us after the first day, in which four groups played out their matches. With eight teams already out, we move to the playoffs in the final day of play in Helsinki.

Coming out on top of the first group, Group A, is Outlaws. The Bulgarian team, one of the favored teams to take the whole tournament, won their first two maps without skipping a beat. Early in the day, they took out Conquer and Platinium to take the top seed, ending the day with the highest round difference in the tournament (+17).



Maniac's Platinium was unable to make it through the group stage

On the other side of the spectrum were Dead Pixels, who were out after two. It was finally Conquer and Platinium—with Mathieu "⁠Maniac⁠" Quiquerez in its ranks—playing for the second seed in Group A. T

he decider started out on Mirage, Platinium’s pick, but it was the local team who were able to steal it, 16-14, after coming back on the terrorist side. The second map, Dust2, went the way of Conquer once again. Worth mentioning is Henri "⁠henkka⁠" Mattanen, who closed out the match with 102.7 ADR and a 1.57 rating.

Assembly Winter 2017 Best of 3 Conquer Matchpage 2 0 Platinium 16 Mirage 14 16 Dust2 9

Conquer K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Henri 'henkka' Mattanenhenkka 50 - 30 +20 88.9 1.40 Henri 'heku' Anttalainenheku 34 - 24 +10 80.2 1.33 Lauri 'pietola' Hietalapietola 47 - 36 +11 85.2 1.28 Arttu 'APEHEHE' NikkiläAPEHEHE 33 - 36 -3 72.9 0.99 Johannes 'HiSTELI' PoikelaHiSTELI 33 - 33 0 62.3 0.95 Platinium K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Mathieu 'Maniac' QuiquerezManiac 37 - 39 -2 74.9 1.02 Max 'quix' Lindkvistquix 37 - 42 -5 68.7 0.95 Fredrik 'FREDDyFROG' GustafssonFREDDyFROG 34 - 36 -2 74.6 0.93 Joakim 'Relaxa' GustafssonRelaxa 30 - 39 -9 60.1 0.79 Daniel 'djL' NarancicdjL 21 - 41 -20 52.6 0.63

The first team to make it out of Group B were the Germans of Null element. To get their first place after the opening and winners’ matches of the group, Planetkey had to take out two French teams, Vexed and dizLown. With the locals of Paranoia out, it was the two French teams who would have to fight for second place.



Vexed underwhelmed in Helsinki

While Vexed may have been the favored team ahead of the match, the play in the server didn’t go their way meaning David "⁠devoduvek⁠" Dobrosavljevic, who has been connected to Envy, went out in groups in what could be his last match with the team.

For dizLown, who took two maps without letting Vexed even get double digits on any of them, the driving force was Julien "⁠PetitSkel⁠" Marcantoni, who had 111.2 ADR and a 1.44 rating at the end of the match.

Assembly Winter 2017 Best of 3 Vexed Matchpage 0 2 dizLown 8 Nuke 16 5 Cobblestone 16

Vexed K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 François 'AmaNEk' DelaunayAmaNEk 33 - 28 +5 89.9 1.23 David 'devoduvek' Dobrosavljevicdevoduvek 25 - 37 -12 77.8 0.76 Ali 'hAdji' HaïnousshAdji 26 - 39 -13 66.0 0.75 Victor 'Roombang' HenkinetRoombang 24 - 37 -13 72.4 0.73 Steve 'jarod' Cohenjarod 21 - 33 -12 44.7 0.64 dizLown K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Julien 'PetitSkel' MarcantoniPetitSkel 43 - 24 +19 111.2 1.68 Paul 'META' MoussajeeMETA 41 - 29 +12 87.1 1.39 Guillaume 'XpG' VeronXpG 30 - 23 +7 71.2 1.31 Lambert 'Lambert' PrigentLambert 31 - 23 +8 60.5 1.13 Paul 'Polox' BarbePolox 29 - 31 -2 75.8 1.02

Group C had a clear favorite, Singularity, who were easily able to take the top seed after beating both of the Finnish teams in the group. After losing to SkitLite in the opener and beating ex-Findictus in the losers’ match, it was x6tence’s turn to get another shot at SkitLite in the decider.



Inzta and co. had no problems in Group C

The Spanish team started winning their pick in the only decider match of the day to go all the way to three maps. On Cobblestone, x6tence won by an ample 16-7 margin. The second map, a replay of Mirage, which SkitLite had won in the opening match, once again went to the Finns, in large part thanks to a particularly strong Joonas "⁠aune⁠" Rantala.

Finally, it was down to Train, a map x6tence clearly prepared better than the Finns as the Spaniards got a 14-1 lead at the half in large part thanks to David "⁠Kairi⁠" de Miguel’s AWPing, and were able to close out without giving another round up after the break.

Assembly Winter 2017 Best of 3 x6tence Matchpage 2 1 SkitLite 16 Cobblestone 7 11 Mirage 16 16 Train 1

x6tence K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 David 'Kairi' de MiguelKairi 61 - 34 +27 97.4 1.47 Aitor 'SOKER' FernándezSOKER 58 - 40 +18 88.2 1.37 Antonio 'FlipiN' Rivas del ReyFlipiN 52 - 38 +14 83.3 1.17 Galder 'bladE' BarcenabladE 38 - 42 -4 61.9 1.05 Omar 'arki' Chakkorarki 39 - 40 -1 69.4 0.99 SkitLite K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Joonas 'aune' Rantalaaune 50 - 46 +4 81.0 1.09 Jani 'Aerial' JussilaAerial 37 - 49 -12 66.9 0.87 Jere 'sergej' Salosergej 41 - 52 -11 63.5 0.84 Elden 'KIPSIk' EvertKIPSIk 36 - 51 -15 66.3 0.80 Pasi 'RAIMOVORMISTO' KoskinenRAIMOVORMISTO 29 - 51 -22 60.6 0.71

The last group, Group D, had some of the most curious storylines of the tournament. First, it was the group in which Aleksi "⁠allu⁠" Jalli and Tomi "⁠lurppis⁠" Kovanen were going to play in their RatsOfTheYear mix. Also, it was also where the local favorites, iGame.com, were placed. However, the show was stolen by a third Finnish team, the unknown Rynnäkköviikset. The underdog Finns won against both iGame.com and RatsOfTheYear for a top seed into the playoffs.



allu and lurppis' mix fell short against the group's dark horse and iGame.com

With MnM losing to the other two Finnish teams, it was the turn of iGame.com and RatsOfTheYear to face-off for the last spot in the playoffs. The match started on iGame.com’s pick, Train, where allu had a very strong showing, but no amount of carrying would get his team through the gate, and iGame.com took it 16-11.

On the second map, Cache, the match went down to the wire. With a several round lead going into the end of the match, Null element and co. were unable to hold on and it was finally iGame.com who were able to make the comeback and move on to the next round.

Assembly Winter 2017 Best of 3 iGame.com Matchpage 2 0 RatsOfTheYear 16 Train 11 16 Cache 14

iGame.com K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Lasse 'ZOREE' UronenZOREE 52 - 30 +22 91.3 1.43 Eetu 'sAw' SahasAw 42 - 32 +10 70.8 1.19 Saku 'SAGGERTON' JokinenSAGGERTON 45 - 39 +6 83.2 1.12 Juho 'juho' Lampinenjuho 38 - 39 -1 69.6 1.12 Sami 'xseveN' LaasanenxseveN 31 - 38 -7 67.9 0.90 RatsOfTheYear K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Aleksi 'allu' Jalliallu 63 - 42 +21 117.4 1.61 Miikka 'suNny' KemppisuNny 40 - 40 0 70.8 0.96 Hannu 'H^N' PohjalainenH^N 29 - 42 -13 57.9 0.79 Tomi 'lurppis' Kovanenlurppis 24 - 43 -19 54.4 0.66 Niko 'naSu' KovanennaSu 22 - 42 -20 61.0 0.65

Here are the quarterfinal match-ups: