The Bush is back, and then the Bush is gone again. After running through both of their Elite Stage 4 Playoff series Wednesday night — a 3-1 over BitterSweet in Winners Round 1 and a 3-0 broom job on Huntsmen in Winners Round 2 — tBushGaming locked in a top-3 finish and earned themselves a long weekend. The reward for winning is, as always in this format, sitting on your hands until the next match drops onto the schedule.
The closeout on Huntsmen that punched the ticket to the Winners Final against CABAL.
That next match is Wednesday 6/17 at roughly 8pm ET, BUSH vs CABAL, Winners Final, and there's no warmup tournament in between. The official PSA went out today confirming no action this weekend, which is great for resting hands and terrible for the people who have organized their entire viewing schedule around watching @traaixx, @Capsidal_, @ProluteB and @CammyMVP cook. The dead air between rounds is just the cost of doing business in a double-elim bracket when you keep winning.
The official heads up — no Bush action until next Wednesday's Winners Final.
While the main squad ices down, the Stallions Bush side of the org is already onto the next chapter. After STUSH got bounced 7th/8th in Elite Stage 4 — falling 2-3 to Huntsmen in WR1 and then 1-3 to BitterSweet in the elimination match — a retooled STUSH roster featuring @5SkiL, @Manny7F, @KBisTwisted and @RuperSkywxlker is already in live scrims, and the first opponent is Falcons Academy. No mourning period. Just plug new guys in and run it.
The new STUSH lineup's first live scrim block, lined up against Falcons Academy.
🐎🌳NEW STUSH SCRIMS🌳🐎 👀 1st Live Scrims for new STUSH 🆚 Falcons Academy 🐎🌳 @5SkiL @Manny7F @KBisTwisted @RuperSkywxlker https://t.co/VxXbDOlcOF https://t.co/uIL34MYi5c https://t.co/X2ztQdqstm CoDCast: https://t.co/bg53gwhgjU #Unshaven🌳 @tBushGaming @StallionsCOD
The bigger storm cloud over all of this is the FACEIT Paris Major qualification mess. The point being made — and it's a fair one — is that the Major III Open Champs and a handful of other top NA/EU teams are currently staring at a scenario where they don't make Paris. If that holds, FACEIT is going to be running an LCQ for extra Team Passes just to clean it up, which is a wild outcome for an event that's supposed to feature the best teams in the world. Surely it gets corrected. Right?
The case for why FACEIT needs to fix the Paris Major qualification path before it embarrasses itself.
At this rate, FACEIT is gonna end up running an LCQ for extra Team Passes. Incredible work by Challengers to potentially have the Major III Open Champion @tBushGaming & several other top NA/EU teams miss out on the Paris Major Surely this will be corrected...right? #Unshaven🌳
So that's the state of the Bush universe heading into the weekend: main squad rested and waiting on CABAL, new STUSH lineup getting reps in against Falcons Academy, and a Paris Major bracket that may or may not be functional by the time anyone actually has to fly to France. Wednesday can't get here fast enough.