Luminosity have won the ELEAGUE Group A final 2-1 over Cloud9 (11-16 on Mirage, 19-16 on Cobblestone, and 16-9 on Dust2) and advance to the playoffs of the $1.4 million tournament.

The late night final of Group A of the $1.4 million ELEAGUE Season 1 marked CS:GO's debut on American television on TBS as Luminosity, the world's best team per our Global Rankings, and Cloud9, currently ranked #18 in the world, faced off in a best-of-three to determine the team that would qualify for the weeks 9-10 playoffs.

Things got off to a lightning fast start with Cloud9 winning their CT-side pistolround and which included a knife kill from Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham. Following two anti-eco conversions, Cloud9 led at 3-0 and it was a triple kill from Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo that opened up the T-side for Luminosity and gave them the first gunround.



Luminosity appeared vulnerable but ultimately closed out the series on Dust2

Luminosity ran ahead to a 4-3 lead but a pistol buy by Cloud9 in the eighth round that included two CZ75 kills by Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert suddenly gave the Canadian-American team some fresh momentum and, following another successful execute by Luminosity, Cloud9 again grabbed round and began to inch ahead as n0thing and Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip warmed up to their CT roles.

With Cloud9 up 9-5, the final round of the half saw Epitacio "⁠TACO⁠" de Melo get a multikill to help his team plant and successfully defend against a retake, and the half thus finished 9-6 in favour of Cloud9.

Luminosity relied on Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David to help stop a B-site push and thus claim the second pistolround and they managed to win both anti-ecos as well as the first gunround but suddenly Cloud9 swung back into action with n0thing picking up multikills across two rounds in a row (and a subsequent anti-eco) to move ahead to 26 kills and a 12-10 lead.

That lead did not give up as n0thing led his team through round-after-round (and finished with a monstrous 33-18 score) and Cloud9 picked up Luminosity's map pick 16-11.



n0thing but headshots on Mirage

The map went over to Cobblestone and n0thing and Alec "⁠Slemmy⁠" White teamed up to secure the necessary frags to get Cloud9 the T-side pistolround on their map pick. Following the anti-ecos, FalleN put his AWP to work to help Luminosity grab the first gunround and survive a two versus two retake situation.

Despite Luminosity picking up the round afterwards, Cloud9 again powered ahead, this time thanks to the AWP work of Skadoodle and stood at 6-2 in the lead on their T-side. Solid defending by FalleN and Lincoln "⁠fnx⁠" Lau on the B-site gave Luminosity the rounds to equalise and the half ultimately finished 8-7 in Cloud9's favour.

Luminosity won the second pistolround and steamrolled ahead to a 11-9 lead but Cloud9 yet again began to march back, led by Skadoodle who would wind up finishing with 34 kills in regulation time. By the end of the back-and-forth brawl (and plenty of B takes), the two teams moved into overtime.

Luminosity finally buckled down in the overtime and managed to claim the second map, 19-16.



Skadoodle dropped 34 in regulation on Cobblestone, but it was not enough

With Dust2 being the final map of the best-of-three, many expected a close series as the map is traditionally seen as a pug playground where aimers and aggressive players shine. However, it was the Brazilians that began to very quickly establish dominance on the third map.

Part of this dominance was thanks to FalleN forcebuying a Scout after Cloud9 lost the first pistolround and then securing two otherworldly wallbang headshots on Cloud9 players on A long as he came up the catwalk.

With TACO and Fernando "⁠fer⁠" Alvarenga also helping bring down a Cloud9 retake early on, the North American team went silent as the Brazilians rolled ahead to a 14-1 first half. A close second pistolround saw Cloud9 manage to secure the plant and the round and inject some sliver of chance into the game.

However, with the score at 14-3, coldzera picked up three kills to help his team get match point. And then it became the Stewie2K show as the 18-year-old continued to get 3K's round-after-round. In the end, Stewie2K's personal battle to hang on was not enough as Luminosity secured the third map 16-9.

ELEAGUE Season 1 Best of 3 Luminosity Matchpage 2 1 Cloud9 11 Mirage 16 19 Cobblestone 16 16 Dust2 9

Luminosity K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Gabriel 'FalleN' ToledoFalleN 69 - 50 +19 74.6 1.27 Fernando 'fer' Alvarengafer 63 - 62 +1 89.1 1.13 Marcelo 'coldzera' Davidcoldzera 61 - 56 +5 75.7 1.13 Lincoln 'fnx' Laufnx 53 - 57 -4 74.4 1.07 Epitacio 'TACO' de MeloTACO 57 - 57 0 69.6 1.04 Cloud9 K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Jake 'Stewie2K' YipStewie2K 69 - 65 +4 91.6 1.18 Tyler 'Skadoodle' LathamSkadoodle 65 - 52 +13 71.0 1.12 Jordan 'n0thing' Gilbertn0thing 62 - 64 -2 73.4 0.96 Mike 'shroud' Grzesiekshroud 46 - 61 -15 67.2 0.88 Alec 'Slemmy' WhiteSlemmy 39 - 61 -22 51.9 0.67

Fans of more ELEAGUE action in Atlanta, Georgia at the Turner Studios will have to wait until Tuesday next week when Group B action will kick off featuring NiP, G2, OpTic, and Selfless.

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