The recent Spring Mayhem Tournament featured some of the most domineering Conqueror’s Blade houses taking to the field of battle, each hoping to have a semi-permanent memorial dedicated to their efforts. In the first of a three-part recap on the competition, we’re focusing on the Russian side of the tournament, which took place on Friday, April 19 - a day before the EU-NA competition.

As with the EU-NA competition, the RU Spring Mayhem Tournament featured 16 teams in a double-elimination format, meaning that upon losing a game, a team would be cast into the loser’s bracket. If they lost a second time they would be out of the competition, with redemption only available in the final game - against the losing finalists, the winner of which would face the most dominant team in the final match.

In the first round the favourite teams all proved themselves worthy of their wins, with DarkTriad, Chaos, Red Wing Orlandinos, AllstarZ and CSM all managing to reach the quarter-final stage without too many problems. However, for CSM, one of the leading houses during the Guild CBT, the next round opponent was Chaos. A rapid and withering defeat was inflicted, sending CSM to the loser’s bracket, from which it could only register a single win.

Despite taking an early lead in its semi-final against Red Wing Orlandinos, DarkTriad was eventually pegged match in a close seven-minute contest. Unfortunately, by losing to AllstarZ in the lower bracket, there was to be no rematch.

The reward for Red Wing Orlandinos’ win was to face Chaos in what was to be an incredibly tense contest in which both teams seemed to closely counter one another’s advances. In the end, it was Chaos that emerged victorious, requiring Red Wing Orlandinos to fight its way out of the lower bracket by defeating an AllstarZ that seemed resurgent.

The last game of the RO competition was a predictably tense rematch, between Chaos and Red Wing Orlandinos, this time in an exhausting best-of-three contest that went right to the wire. Chaos eventually rose to the challenge by the slimmest of margins in the third bout, although either team would have been worthy winners to face the leading EU and NA houses. In the end, they both were.