Week 1
The players in Challenger are off and running. As of the time of this writing, 27 of the 32 matchups have been played. It’ll be a few weeks until the contenders emerge from the chaos, but early stand outs among the week 1 winners include dowsey, who’s amassed over 2,700 games in under a month, and c9high, who’s played nearly 4,000 in about five weeks. Keep an eye on davidw, too, and expect a few other names to emerge by the end of May as Challenger’s Swiss-style schedule gradually.
In Iron, the only result so far is a 7-4 win for ml726 over fourliberties. The latter advanced from Challenger last season, while the former already has almost a third as many points as he did in all of Season 3. Keep an eye on jecat, who’s competing in the SCL for the first time and has 1,300 more games than anyone else in the division.
“You’ll never catch me!” said Copper, in which no matches have been played yet. But when they do, the community will be watching steph and real-life brothers baldrick and marimo. Thanks to some administrative promotion, the three players all advanced from Iron last season, where they combined for 87% of all the points in the division.
In Bronze last season, jyaty finished a few points shy of the finals, and starts strong this season with a 7-2 win over arturiax. The only other result pitted players coming from other divisions: sgnurf was demoted from a tough Silver division (after a Hazard match loss to checker, who won his only game of the year at exactly the right time), and played nanthelas, fresh off of winning Copper. nanthelas carried that momentum forward and won definitively, 7-0, in the week’s only shutout so far.
In Silver, yerand followed up on an 8-2 record, a finals appearance in Bronze, and a subsequent promotion by defeating teetery, who was just two points shy of last year’s Silver finals, 7-2. wodar—one point shy himself— defeated james1221, just demoted from Gold, 7-4.
In Gold, pwndnoob and falconhit both celebrated promotions from Silver with victories (7-2 and 7-4, respectively), and sharper won a tight set with royalflush 7-5.
In Platinum, cleetose, who won this division in Season 2, opened with a 7-5 victory over cameraman, and drawnonward, after just missing last year’s Plat finals, bested varanas 7-5. The most eagerly anticipated match has yet to be played: pires, community pick to win the division, faces off against slappydavis, who’s been teetering on the edge of Diamond, making the Platinum finals the last two years.
At the craggy and perilous top of Diamond, action started with three-time defending SCL Champion krazycaley beating canadianbacon 7-3. kcmmmmm, who narrowly lost last year’s championship match, defeated bloom 7-5. And warningtrack, playing his first Diamond match after wins in Gold and Platinum the last two years, beat magician1099 7-4.
It’s just one week, but already the two-game increase in match length seems to have cut down on ties, with only two out of 40 uploaded matches resulting in a 6-6 split, both in Challenger.
Make sure to check out the VOD of the EU Week 1 cast, and the VOD of the NA Week 1 cast.
For full standings and replays, visit the SCL Manager.