Rare Atom best Lynn Vision to win ESL Challenger League Asia-Pacific

The Chinese derby went the way of Rare Atom, despite Lynn Vision starting with a 1-0 advantage in the series.

Rare Atom cemented themselves as one of the best teams in the APAC region by securing the ESL Challenger League Season 45 title, defeating Lynn Vision 3-2 in a best-of-five final to do so.

As Lynn Vision qualified for ESL Pro League Season 18 via the previous APAC Challenger League season, Rare Atom had already secured the Pro League spot on offer this season by joining them in the final. Coming back from a 0-2 deficit to reverse sweep the final added a trophy to what had already been a successful campaign.

Lynn Vision made their way to the grand final via the upper bracket, taking a tight 2-1 victory over Wings Up before comfortably brushing aside Newhappy 2-0. That set them up for an upper final matchup with Rare Atom, which they duly won 2-1 to secure not only a one-map advantage for the best-of-five final, but also the mental edge.

Rare Atom comfortably swatted aside NKT and TheMongolz to get themselves to the upper final, before Lynn Vision relegated them to the consolidation final. There they dealt with the surprise package of the competition, Newhappy, 2-0 to secure a rematch with Lynn Vision for the trophy.

Turning to the final itself, Rare Atom got to kick the series off on one of their map picks, Nuke, but the choice ended up letting them down. Starting on the T side they put together a solid offensive half, recovering from an 0-3 start to rack up nine rounds thanks to a superb 17-kill effort from Qianhao "⁠Moseyuh⁠" Chen. The second-half pistol went Rare Atom’s way putting them firmly in the driver’s seat but they were immediately broken by a Lynn Vision force-buy, which ended up making the difference and allowing Lynn Vision to sneak a 16-13 win.

With the pressure on, being 0-2 down in the series, Rare Atom stepped up magnificently on their opponent’s first pick of Anubis, outclassing Lynn Vision with a particularly potent T side to stroll to a confident 16-6 victory, Andrew "⁠kaze⁠" Khong providing the bulk of the fragging.

A relatively tight battle ensued on Inferno, with Rare Atom starting their T half powerfully only to cool off significantly and allow Lynn Vision to secure an 8-7 lead. The key moment of the game then came early in the second half, as Rare Atom won a round with unarmored pistols to completely shift the momentum and send them on to a 16-13 victory.

After a back-and-forth series the decider of Ancient saw Lynn Vision capitulate completely, a measly two-round effort on their T side leading to a resounding 16-3 win for Rare Atom, granting them the series victory.

Elsewhere in the event, TheMongolz suffered a shock exit at the hands of a team ranked nearly 200 places below them in the world ranking, Newhappy, having been sent to the lower bracket by Rare Atom. Also of note was NKT’s debut with Sean "⁠Gratisfaction⁠" Kaiwai among their number, but they were eliminated in the lower semis after losses to Rare Atom and Newhappy.