NRG Esports NRG Esports North America Rank #4 FiNESSE Pujan Mehta s0m Sam Oh Verno Andrew Maust mada Adam Pampuch Ethan Ethan Arnold defeated T1 T1 Korea Rank #3 stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) Meteor Kim Tae-oh (김태오) Sylvan Go Young-sup (고영섭) BuZz Yu Byeong-cheol (유병철) iZu Ham Woo-ju (함우주) in a riveting 2-1 showdown to cement their spot in the Masters: Tokyo playoffs stage. The victory for NRG moves Americas' teams total record at the event to 4-0, off the back of NRG and Evil Geniuses Evil Geniuses North America Rank #21 Derrek Derrek Ha NaturE Nicholas Garrison supamen Phat Le icy Jacob Lange yay Jaccob Whiteaker .

With the strong showing of Americas' second and third seeds to kick off the event, NRG had high praise for the rest of the region.

“I think other regions might be slightly top-heavy,” FiNESSE said. “Our region is a lot closer together in terms of skill and tactics as well. I could name three other teams from our region that could have easily made it through over us three.”

The experienced NRG core is a staple of international playoff stages, but the path to Tokyo's might not have been as easy as the team would have liked.

While things looked like they might have gone smoothly to start off on the decider map Pearl for NRG, looks can be deceiving. The seven straight rounds to begin with for NRG's attack were spearheaded by easy plants on both of the map's bombsites. A similar win to NRG's 13-6 decider victory over NaVi in their opening match seemed to be on the cards.

T1 decided they were having none of it, rolling off seven straight rounds of their own to bring the scoreline to 7-7 just after the half. A couple more round streaks were traded between the teams, with T1 coming out ahead behind a Sayaplayer Jett knife 4K and xeta 's ace within his Viper ultimate.

ardiis would ultimately be the one to help decide things on Pearl between the teams. Nine first bloods combined with his Operator presence solidified the win for NRG, as they closed out Pearl 13-11 with a bit of luck.

Despite the missed opportunity in round 24, ban was the top performer for T1 on the last map, going 22-14. ardiis was critical to the winning result for NRG, coming in with a 17-6 record on first duels across the three maps.

Along with ardiis' first duel success, the consistency across the board and team play from NRG reigned supreme just as it had for many series and events before.

s0m's fragging on controller hasn't faltered a bit at his first international event. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

T1 picked Lotus as the first map of the series, and it paid off for the Korean squad. A scrappy map culminated in a 13-11 victory for T1 off the back of 14 first bloods found. NRG's map pick of Bind was much smoother after a 6-6 scoreline at halftime. Five successful retakes for NRG on defense was the factor behind dropping just one round in the second half to close things out at 13-7.

Even with the loss and looming elimination match, T1 still remains in high spirits.

“I don't think today was a problem with confidence,” Xeta said. “If we just don't make the small mistakes we did, I think we can continue to have a great performance in the tournament.”

T1 will play the winner of Natus Vincere Natus Vincere Europe Rank #16 ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky Ruxic Uğur Güç hiro Emirhan Kat koalanoob Gianfranco Potestio and EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #1 S1Mon Hsien Meng-Hsun (谢孟勋) ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) to qualify for the Tokyo playoffs stage.