Americas Minor Preview

North and South American teams will be pitted against each other this week, from Thursday to Sunday, at the Esports Arena, in Santa Ana, California. The eight attending teams will be split into two GSL-style groups, which will be played over the first two days of the event, with the double-elimination playoffs scheduled for the weekend.

The teams have been split into the following groups:

Group A	Group B
Immortals	Cloud9
NRG	CLG
Luminosity	Misfits
Complexity	paiN

The two invited teams—Immortals and Cloud9—are the favorites for the tournament on paper, but both teams have been fairly lackluster in recent LAN showings. That makes the field at the Americas Minor pretty open, with the likes of CLG and Luminosity having decent chances to make it through to the Major Qualifier.

As is standard for the Minors, two Major Qualifier slots will be secured through this tournament and a $50,000 prize pool split between the top three teams.

Ratings used are from the past three months on LAN

* indicates online rating

Group A

Immortals (#14)	Age	Rating
Ricardo "⁠boltz⁠" Prass	20	1.10
Henrique "⁠HEN1⁠" Teles	21	1.09
Lucas "⁠steel⁠" Lopes	23	1.02
Lucas "⁠LUCAS1⁠" Teles	21	0.97
Vito "⁠kNgV-⁠" Giuseppe	22	0.84

Immortals have been one of the favorites for practically all of the Minors they have played, but 2017 has been a turbulent year for them so far. Just when it seemed that the team had stabilized as they finished second at DreamHack Austin and picked up a straightforward win at the ESA Showdown Championship, Brazilian CS legend Lincoln "⁠fnx⁠" Lau was moved to the bench.

With little time left until the Minor, Immortals were left scrambling and picked up kNgV- who is currently on loan from Red Reserve. kNgV- gained some international experience after playing in Europe for a couple of months, and he has shown to be a capable fragger, but the fact that he is on a team with HEN1, a dedicated AWPer just like himself, leaves questions regarding how the roles will be distributed in the team.

In their first LAN showing with this five, at the ESL Pro League S5 Finals, both Immortals and kNgV- left a lot to be desired. The Brazilians finished with two wins and three losses, but interestingly, it wasn't a vintage performance from HEN1 that bailed them out this time, but a great display from the his twin brother.

Fitting in kNg is just one of Immortals' problems at the moment

The resurgence of LUCAS1, who went 31-15 against the eventual champions G2, is a positive for Immortals, but at the same time, it raises further doubts about the roles in the team.

Who do Immortals have to rely on for frags and star play? HEN1 has always been inconsistent and isn't in great shape at the moment, with his current LAN rating heavily skewed by the ESA Showdown Championship LAN. kNgV- hasn't proved that he is capable of putting up big numbers without the AWP, at least not yet. LUCAS1 had a great tournament but isn't a big fragger historically, so a post-EPL regression to his average numbers should be expected at the Minor. With a bunch of tournaments behind him, steel hasn't been able to get too many frags from the IGL position.

It all comes down to boltz, who had good individual showings at Immortals' recent LANs, even when the team finished with poor placings.

With the amount of experience Immortals have, the somewhat lower level of competition in Santa Ana and the fact that they have in Cloud9 a favourable matchup, Immortals should still be able to grab one of the two Major Qualifier spots, but an upset from the likes of CLG in the playoffs could easily be in the cards.

NRG (#31)	Age	Rating
Vincent "⁠Brehze⁠" Cayonte	19	1.01
Peter "⁠ptr⁠" Gurney	27	1.01
Jacob "⁠FugLy⁠" Medina	22	0.97
Damian "⁠daps⁠" Steele	23	0.82
Derrick "⁠LILMAN⁠" Boyne	23	0.73

NRG have attended only two LANs since the inception of this roster, with a 5-8th finish at their first one, Copenhagen Games 2017, resulting in the team removing Edgar "⁠MarKE⁠" Maldonado from the lineup. The Mexican player wasn't able to deliver at the lower tier event and was replaced by LILMAN, with whom NRG qualified for the ESL Pro League S5 Finals.

The Dallas event was no better for the North American side, who went out of the groups with a 0-5 score. However, a bright light can be found in the fact that their closest matches were against the two regional sides, OpTic and Liquid. If daps is more comfortable calling against teams he faces more often, that is something that could help NRG make the Minor a good event for them.

Will daps get the most out of his squad at the Minor?

Player-wise, it's the trio of ptr, FugLy and especially Brehze that contribute in the fragging department the most, while the newest addition LILMAN, has not impressed too much yet. If they plan to go far in this tournament, he must be able to at least outperform the team's IGL, daps.

Luminosity (#35)	Age	Rating
Lucas "⁠DeStiNy⁠" Bullo	19	1.0
Gustavo "⁠SHOOWTiME⁠" Gonçalves	20	0.98
Vinicios "⁠PKL⁠" Coelho	22	0.97
Gustavo "⁠yel⁠" Knittel	25	0.91
Bruno "⁠shz⁠" Martinelli	19	0.93

Luminosity, the third Brazilian team in the US, have been slowly climbing up the ranks for the past couple of months. Qualifying for DreamHack Austin, despite a bad finish at the event, and placing second at the ESA Showdown Championship gave the team some much needed LAN experience.

Player-wise, it is usually yel, the team's AWPer, who does the most for Luminosity, but the 25-year-old hasn't been able to replicate that on LAN against better teams yet. 

Like most of the team, destiny is struggling to put up big numbers on LAN

It's hard to see Luminosity beat their countrymen of Immortals, but they should be able to overcome Complexity and battle NRG for the second playoff spot of group A. Going further than that, with Cloud9 and CLG likely coming out of the other group, looks like too tough of a task for the Brazilians at the moment.

Complexity (#46)	Age	Rating
Bradley "⁠ANDROID⁠" Fodor	23	1.11	*
Derek "⁠desi⁠" Branchen	24	1.02	*
Kia "⁠Surreal⁠" Man	21	1.00	*
Rory "⁠dephh⁠" Jackson	25	0.93	*
Alec "⁠Slemmy⁠" White	26	0.83	*

*Ratings from online matches in the past three months

Complexity are the only team at the Americas Minor without a LAN showing in the past three months. The UK-NA mix of players was last seen offline at DreamHack Masters Las Vegas in February, where they picked up a total of only 9 rounds in their two matches against North and Astralis. 

compLexity will need Slemmy to kick-start the team that has been in bad shape for too long

The squad decided to add Slemmy to add leadership to the team, but not much has changed for Complexity, who continued to struggle, even online. With the team finishing 11th in the ESL Pro League Season, not even getting close to qualifying for international events such as the DreamHack Opens, and almost failing to make it to the Americas Minor, it's hard to see Complexity do much in Santa Ana this week.

ANDROID is the player to watch for Complexity—the Americas Minor is a chance for the 23-year-old to have a good individual showing, and, if nothing else, to get on the radar of teams higher up in the North American food chain.

Group B

Cloud9 (#15)	Age	Rating
Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip	19	1.07
Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta	20	1.00
Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert	26	0.89
Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham	23	0.87
Mike "⁠shroud⁠" Grzesiek	23	0.86

The America's sweethearts Cloud9 are back to the Minor, after failing to make it through to the ELEAGUE Major last December. n0thing and co have been keeping the same lineup for quite some time now, with the latest change, the addition of autimatic, dating back to August of last year.

What they have been changing has been the in-game leader role, with the calling duties being swapped between Stewie2K and autimatic. At the moment, the responsibilities are back on Stewie2K's shoulders, but at the same time, he is the team's most potent fragger, with a 1.07 LAN rating in the past three months.

It will be interesting to see if the ESL Pro League S4 Finals' MVP autimatic manages to bounce back to his 2016 level, now that he can focus more on his own game, but even if he does, they are still left with the trio of n0thing, Skadoodle and shroud, who are simply not delivering high-class performances.

Stewie will be calling for Cloud9 again

It might seem that, in the context of the Americas Minor, Cloud9 should still have nothing to worry about, but the case is not so simple. Both CLG and Misfits have made the playoffs of international LANs in the past three months and have beat solid teams to get there, while Cloud9 played their last playoff match at the iBUYPOWER Masters more than six months ago (this excludes cs_summit, which did not have a group stage).

When you add to that the fact that they are very likely to meet Immortals, whom they haven't bested on LAN since 2015, Cloud9's road to the Major Qualifier could be a rocky one.

CLG (#18)	Age	Rating
Ethan "⁠Ethan⁠" Arnold	17	1.06
Ricardo "⁠Rickeh⁠" Mulholland	25	1.05
Kenneth "⁠koosta⁠" Suen	21	1.04
Stephen "⁠reltuC⁠" Cutler	28	0.88
Pujan "⁠FNS⁠" Mehta	25	0.84

CLG seem to have struck a home run with their latest acquisition, Rickeh, who was looking for a new home after stepping down from Renegades. The Australian AWPer has adapted to a hybrid role, playing as an entry fragger, secondary AWP or even primary sniper at times, depending on how koosta feels in the match.

Not only has Rickeh been playing well individually, but his flexibility has helped koosta to recover from his rough time in Liquid and build back confidence with the AWP gradually, without the need to force it. The youngest CLG member, Ethan, has started living up to the hype surrounding him as well, especially online.

Rickeh has fit in beautifully with CLG

The last two members of the team, reltuC and FNS, serve as the supportive and experienced backbone of CLG. Even though it can't be seen through the stats, these two obviously play a part in the team's success, as CLG are performing to a level that is higher than the sum of its parts.

With a stable roster, ever-improving online play and a good showing at their latest LAN, CLG have a good shot of being one of the two teams to make it to the Major Qualifier.

Misfits (#24)	Age	Rating
François "⁠AMANEK⁠" Delaunay	23	0.98
Hunter "⁠SicK⁠" Mims	18	0.93
David "⁠devoduvek⁠" Dobrosavljevic	22	0.93
Skyler "⁠Relyks⁠" Weaver	22	N/A
Caio "⁠zqkS⁠" Fonseca	25	N/A

Similarly to CLG, but perhaps even more surprisingly, Misfits made the playoffs of the first LAN they played with their French additions. AMANEK and devoduvek had their maps in Tours, but so did SicK and Shahzeb "⁠ShahZaM⁠" Khan as Misfits took down Heroic and Natus Vincere in BO3s to get a top4 finish at the DreamHack event. However, two things will strongly hinder Misfits' chances of playing at the same level at the Minor.

devoduvek had his LAN debut for Misfits at DH Tours

Firstly, the team's in-game leader, Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares, has announced that he will not be able to attend the Minor due to getting married on the same weekend, leaving them without much-needed leadership. Secondly, the team's coach, Luis "⁠peacemaker⁠" Tadeu, decided to bench ShahZaM, who finished DH Tours with a 1.17 rating, due to his "inability to commit to coming to the gaming house". To fill the gap, Misfits brought in former Keyd, paiN and Selfless player zqkS.

Without two crucial players, the IGL and the AWPer, Misfits' chances at the Minor drop significantly—reaching the playoffs now looks like the most they can hope for.

paiN (#49)	Age	Rating
Gabriel "⁠NEKIZ⁠" Schenato	21	1.14
Denis "⁠dzt⁠" Fischer	20	1.04
Marcelo "⁠chelo⁠" Cespedes	18	1.01
Alef "⁠tatazin⁠" Pereira	23	0.99
Paulo "⁠land1n⁠" Felipe	23	0.66

The third Brazilian team at the Minor Qualifier are paiN, who won the South American qualifier to secure a spot in the tournament in Santa Ana.

The team have mainly played in their region but finally got a shot at international Counter-Strike last month, when they attended the ESEA S24 Global Challenge LAN. At the event, the Brazilians managed a comfortable win against Ghost, but two narrow BO1 losses to Kory "⁠SEMPHIS⁠" Friesen' Splyce eliminated them in the group stage of the tournament.

Even though online chelo and dzt have been their best performers, it was NEKIZ who showed the most in Leicester, the UK, finishing the tournament with a 1.14 rating and 36 kills on a single map against Splyce.

With this being just their second international event, paiN will probably leave Santa Ana with some added experience, and, at best, with an upset win.