Week 10

The players in Challenger kicked up a lot of dust, but it’s finally settled, and dowsey has taken the top spot, scoring a 7-2 win over sheph. After losing narrowly in week 3 to incnone, dowsey won his last seven matches, five of them by margins of 7-2 or better. He went 28-6 over his final four matches. Joining him in the top two (which are both auto-promoted) is pox, who defeated plastikqs 7-4.

There are two more auto-promotes available to the remaining Challenger players, who have been placed into a single elimination bracket. As of this writing, turnipboy, tarekmak, plastikqs, bitbandingpig, sheph, and davidw are the top seeds, and are receiving first-round byes.

Just one Iron match was played this week: ml726 defeated jecat 7-4, cast on Saturday. It’ll take an unlikely series of events for ml726 to miss out on the finals, but the loss opens the door for both strobo and mrrgs to replace jecat, particularly the latter who still has two matches against jecat left to play.

No Copper matches were played this week, and too few have been played to hazard much of a guess as to whether we’ll have real-life brothers marmio and baldrick in the finals, or if steph will supplant one of them. We don’t know who will be in the Copper finals, or how many of us will be alive when it happens.

In Bronze, nanthelas defeated catnip 7-2, closing off her last path to the finals. nanthelas will now face jyaty, who fell to arturiax 7-3. Bronze has completed all of its regular season matches, the only division to do so before the makeup week.

jyaty was 4-0-1 in the season’s first half, but struggled down the stretch enough that catnip nearly stole what looked like a safe spot in the division’s finals. jyaty now has to face nanthelas who’s lost just once this year. But that one loss was at jyaty’s hands, back in week 4. nanthelas came back on them, winning their second confrontation 7-3, and has looked better in the second half. Plenty of reason for both competitors to feel they can win (or lose) the Bronze belt.

The only match that mattered in Silver was checker–turnout8, which the former (the game’s developer, in fact) won 7-2, ensuring that the two will meet again in the Hazard Match. There are a few outstanding matches left, but we’ve known for awhile it was probably wodar and yerand in the finals, and it became official last week.

The top and bottom of Gold are locked. Our maybe-sorta-kinda finals preview between pwndnoob and falconhit produced a strong 7-2 win for the former. No way to tell if either player was holding back, given that only seeding and a modest one-game advantage in the finals was on the line, but this nearly ensures that advantage will go to pwndnoob. Scheduling and connectivity issues have left pwndnoob’s two remaining matches (both with royalflush) unresolved, and we won’t know the seeding in Gold until an administrative ruling is made.

Meanwhile, royalflush lost to scallions 7-2, confirming that they will play in the Hazard Match against sharper.

Just one match was played Platinum, even in the aftermath of pires stepping down, with cleetose defeating varanas 7-3. The win doesn’t technically clinch a spot in the finals, but anything short of a total collapse should get cleetose there. Their opponent is still undetermined, but slappydavis is in a strong position to take the spot, down just one point on varanas with two fewer matches played. If he does, it’ll be a rematch of the Season 2 Platinum finals, and slappy’s third consecutive trip there.

In Diamond, kcmmmmm and bloom completed their Week 9 match, with kcmmmmm winning 7-4. The win ensures bloom will not be in the finals, and left kcmmmmm needing just a single point against the 0-9 magician1099 to avoid the Hazard Match, which is exactly what he got, tying magician 6-6 in an exciting casted match.

The only spots in Diamond not locked in are 2nd and 3rd. Those will be determined by the two remaining matches: canadianbacon–bloom and warningtrack–krazycaley, both of which have been pushed into the makeup week. The only combination of outcomes that allows warningtrack to make the finals is a win over krazycaley, combined with a canadianbacon loss to bloom. Any other combination—including a tie in either match—and it’ll be krazycaley and canadianbacon in the finals.

For full standings and replays, visit the SCL Manager.