Tuesday May 27th 8:45 EST – GOTN

THE STORY – AWAKENING

The Awakening project kicked off back in March, when three of the High Noon boys, nilla, verb & tipzy teamed up with neoo & xlz to give us the rebrand. Assembling a few weeks ahead of NA NightCup #10, that was their first official event together. The tournament started off choppy, witht he group losing two of their first three offical matches to Wizards & x6, but they rebounded well with a win over Janitorz and finished the group in a tie for second. Unfortuantely, they weren’t able to make a run as they missed out on the final four on tiebreakers.

Since then, the team has taken its game to the next level. Awakening got off to a great start in GOTN S1, and at one point controlled their destiny to a #1 seed in group A, ultimately falling just short to finish second. Still, as a reltiviely new team, finishing 12-2 and splitting both of their series against Bricked Up and Plus Forward, exceeded most expectations and also shows that the team is here to stay. They look to rise this momentum into the playoffs, where they have scrappy Nemesis in Round 1.

Led in the regular season by topfragger neoo, the team is poised to make a run. Nilla’s young back has gotten a bit of a rest, and although he (and the rest of the boys) are playing well, the team has shown they can now win games from multiple angles. The only question mark with this team will be the consistency. We saw the core trio achieve amazing heights, and cup wins under high noon, but also some disappointing times closer to their last few matches. They can absolutely make a deep playoff run.

Oh, of course noone will forget the epic week 1 Dawnville match against Plus Forward. (Group A’s match of the season) They also took down Bricked in absolutely epic fashion 13-1 on Burgundy.

THE STORY – NEMESIS

Nemesis is our blast from the past. A team that was dormant in the first part of the 2024/2025 revival season, has reemerged from their 2021 slumber. The crew who played together back in revival one, took some time to get the ball rolling, but now the pieces have really started to come together. The team did not assemble in time for NightCup 10, so the first action everyone saw from them was in GOTN S1.

Nemesis got off to a fantastic start in week 1, taking down a Wizards team that had been showing great promise and placed 3rd in NightCup 10 just 2 weeks prior. But as is common with new teams, the inconsistenies showed, and the team dropped their next three matches. From there, they were able to steady the ship, only losing two other matches to finish the season 9-5. Nemesis also had a season high in overtime games, with 3 of them, including onne double OT!

All season, the team has relied on their top two fraggers, chuck & yamato. Yamato, cousin of heatoo and brother of windway (wait, did I get that right?) has played very well on the scope, fitting into a new role for the team. Chuck has seemingly been the man as the season closes out, and the team has been relying on his consistency. Another old school name, berry, has been there to bring his experience and be a rock for the boys in trying times. Overall, the peaks they have reached are absolutely enough to take this series. But they will need a tip top form match to make it happen.

OKAY COOL BUT, WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENS IDIOT WRITER?

For the betting folk out there, the books would have Awakening as the favorites. I’m no bookie, but the odds would probably be somehwere around -250. That being said, a team like Nemesis is the scariest to face as an established team. With a little but of luck and organized (or disorganized) chaos, the team can freakishly plow their way to a top performance needed to take down an bigger name. They’ve already done it this season.

I expect a Toujane, a Matmata and a Dawnville (these will almost certainly now be wrong)

Awakening 2-1 Nemesis.

glhf