The season ended Saturday afternoon in Las Vegas, 1 map short of the Top 4. Telluride Bush Gaming went out of Challengers Champs in Losers Round 2, 3-2 to Team WaR, finishing 5th-6th for $6,000 — and the way it ended was crueler than the number. The Bush had beaten WaR's bracket-side neighbors all weekend, but WaR themselves now own both of the team's Champs losses by the same 3-2 scoreline: Friday's Group A qualification match, and Saturday's elimination.
The series had everything. The Bush opened with a 250-171 Hacienda Hardpoint behind a lead they never surrendered, gave Map 2 back 6-2 on Den Search & Destroy after a server outage forced an hour-plus break, then hammered Scar Overload 8-2 to retake the lead. Map 4 on Colossus is the one that will sting: a 70-plus point Hardpoint lead evaporated, WaR stole it, and the season came down to a single Search & Destroy on Gridlock.
The Colossus collapse — a 70+ point Hardpoint lead gone, and the season pushed to a Map 5.
The elimination call: WaR take the Gridlock Search and the series 3-2 — their 2nd 3-2 win over the Bush in 2 days.
The full Vegas run reads better than the exit. Group A: a 3-0 sweep of Atlantis Esports, the 2-3 qualification loss to WaR, then a 3-0 elimination-match sweep of OMNiA Invicta to reach the bracket. Winners Round 1 brought a 0-3 loss to OMiT, and the Bush answered in the Losers bracket with a 3-0 sweep of Mindfreak before the WaR rematch. Every team that beat Telluride Bush in Las Vegas finished on the podium: OMiT won the whole thing, and WaR took 3rd.
Sunday's Grand Final proved the Bush lost to the right team, and nearly delivered one more twist. OMiT swept the first 3 maps against Project Notorious — 250-198 Colossus Hardpoint, 6-2 Sake Search, 7-4 Den Overload — and stood 1 map from a clean 4-0. Then Project Notorious won 3 straight of their own, taking Scar Hardpoint 250-162, Fringe Search 6-3, and Exposure Overload 6-1 to force a winner-take-all Game 7. On Hacienda Search & Destroy, OMiT closed it 6-5 — an 11-round decider for the $60,000 title. Project Notorious took $36,000 for 2nd, and both join 3rd-place Team WaR at the Esports World Cup.
The 3 Esports World Cup qualifiers — the only teams to beat the Bush all weekend are 2 of them.
Congratulations to the 3 Challenger Teams to qualify for the Esports World Cup: @OMiTGG @P7Notorious @OfficialTeamWaR Two of these teams will face off in Grand Final tomorrow on Main Stage
The season ledger closes at 7 event wins — Challengers Cups 1, 3, 6 and 11, Elite Playoffs 2 and 4, and the Major 3 LAN in Atlanta — with $121,000 in total prize money and a Top 6 at Champs to end it. The roster that got there: Prolute, Cammy, Capsidal, and Traixx, who joined in June, with Temp coaching. The org's message after elimination pointed one direction: this project continues.
Challengers goes dark until the new season starts in December. The full Champs bracket, every result from season 1, and the roster live on the Telluride Bush page.