Pro Prelims: Day 2

"There's always a surprise or two it seems but nothing jumps out just yet." So suggested my favorite blogger. That was Friday. On Saturday things began jumping. In the morning X-Factor, which dropped both their matches on Friday. won both, including a hard fought one point win over Impact which eventually earned X-Factor an opportunity to play Sunday. And in the last match of the morning session Infamous edged Impact 6-5 which ended up knocking Impact out of a Sunday spot and the race for the series title. The first bracket saw Aftershock, Infamous & X-Factor move on.

In the afternoon session the Ironmen won both their matches, Dynasty and Vicious split (which included a fairly surprising Vicious win over Dynasty) and Damage dropped both their matches resulting in all four teams having 2-2 records. Given that the tie-breakers may seem a little convoluted I'ma try an explain how things worked in this situation to see Dynasty and Damage move on. First the teams were sorted by point differential to assign them positions. Then Dynasty and Ironmen were compared to see if head-to-head was relevant. It wasn't so Dynasty, with the highest point differential moved on. Then Ironmen and Damage were compared and Damage owned the head-to-head and head-to-head, if applicable always supersedes all other tie-breakers. As it turned out Damage held the head-to-head tie-breaker versus Vicious as well meaning the second bracket saw Red Legion, Dynasty & Damage thru to Sunday.

In vendor news it seemed like there were quite a few vendors on site readily accessible without forcing participants into long, winding hikes dragging gear. Dye was up with both Dye and Proto tents loaded with new stuff including tactical gear. And there probably should have been a warning sign to keep open flames away from Dye's VIP tent as the waves of alcohol were visible in the air each time the door opened and shut. Across from Dye was the GI Sportz (Milsim?) set-up which appeared to be half tent, half collapsing WWII Quonset hut. (Cool but odd.) I also spotted Empire and lots of food vendors in a center court sorta area. I'm also sure PE was there as I talked with Jacko briefly on Sunday. Truth is I cringe a little when it comes to vendor and industry chatter because I wouldn't have seen what I did except we had to do a bunch of photos after the awards ceremony. So I didn't leave anyone out on purpose, I just didn't see anything else that registered with me.