The stakes were abruptly raised in Week #230 of the Open Cups, with Oliveira’s top four finish at EPT Spring/Dallas opening up an unexpected extra Esports World Cup seed for Asian region players. This resulted in EPT Asia’s #2 ranked player Coffee (780 points at the start of the Open Cups) and #3 player Cyan (770 points) going all out against each other amidst the thinned out pool of players (EPT Asia standings).

Coffee quickly capitalized in the Korean server cup, securing five extra points with a runner-up finish. As for Cyan, he missed out on points entirely, losing in the RO8 to Firefly. The weekly championship went to Solar, who was clearly the strongest player in a pool depleted due to the top contenders being occupied with travel from EPT Dallas.

While players from East Asia rarely bother with EU cup competition due to latency, both Cyan and Coffee threw their hats in the ring due to the high stakes. Ultimately, neither of them was able to obtain any points as Coffee went out in the RO8 while Cyan lost in the RO16. As for the final result, ShoWTimE pulled off a minor upset by taking down MaxPax to win an Open Cup for the first time since Week #180 (June of 2023). MaxPax had been the favorite to win in Clem’s absence, but ShoWTimE proved his underrated PvP prowess with a 3-1 victory.

The Americas server cup finally saw Cyan and Coffee go head-to-head in the quarterfinals, which resulted in Coffee narrowly prevailing by a 2-1 score to obtain two extra EPT points. Though Coffee was subsequently defeated 2-0 by Solar in the next round, one imagines he was still happy with his overall performance as he extended his lead on Cyan to 17 points (797 points vs 780). In terms of the actual weekly championship, MaxPax made up for his EU server loss with a near-flawless run that ended in a 2-0 over ShoWTimE and a 3-0 over Solar. Amusingly enough, MaxPax’s potentially perfect run was ruined by little-known American Zerg Yuno in the RO16, who just happened to be playing in his first SC2 tournament since 2021. Way to make a comeback!

ESL Open: Korean Cup (partial bracket shown)

*****

ESL Open: European Cup (partial bracket shown)

*****

ESL Open: American Cup (partial bracket shown)